Boyne Golf

But that wasn’t always the case. The number of golfers in the U.S. who played at least eight rounds per year has been declining for the past two decades. In 2006, there were about 30 million of them. That number had dropped to 24 million by 2017. In 2022, though, it rose to 25.6 million -- with 3.2 million of that cohort playing golf for the first time in 2021. What caused this abrupt turnaround? Oddly enough, it was COVID. While detrimental to many other sectors, the pandemic helped the golf industry. People became desperate for low-risk, outdoor activities after being locked down and stuck inside for months. Golf offered exercise, fun, camaraderie, and fresh air. And people who had never swung a club before needed little persuasion to join in. Griffin explains the shift in demographics at Boyne. “Traditionally, we were very strong with ‘Buddies Trips,’ and very strong with golfers out of the Midwest, especially Michigan and Canada,” he notes. “We’re still a great Buddies Trips destination, but no longer just that.We’ve seen a lot of growth over the last few years in couples’ groups, women’s groups, and families playing together. We’re also seeing the age demographics shift; we’re seeing more younger men and women.” “Over the last few years, the growth has come from those new categories, as well as newmarkets,” Griffin continues. “And the good news is we didn’t lose any of our traditional markets. It’s been game-changing for us that Traverse City (Airport) now has direct flights from 18 U.S. cities in the summertime. So, now we’re seeing a lot of people coming in from all over the U.S. to play golf on our courses.” “It’s relatively easy to drive here from many places,” Richter adds. “And we’ve reopened our airport at Boyne Mountain this past summer after a four- million-dollar upgrade, so you have the opportunity to fly in privately and be right here.” KEEPING UP WITH THE ‘COURSE’ Now that Boyne’s courses have benefitted from the pandemic-fueled growth, the challenge becomes how to maintain those new numbers. “Coming out of the COVID boom, we identified that we needed to do a lot of reinvestment to keep our golf courses 4 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 01