Lead the Way: Making Smarter Financial Decisions
Every golf facility operates on a budget, but not every budget is built with a clear purpose. The process often starts by pulling up last year’s numbers and adding a percentage—an approach that carries forward old assumptions and leaves little room for what the year ahead actually holds.
In the latest Lead the Way with Landscapes Golf Management, SaDonna Manfull, General Manager at Jackrabbit Run Golf Course in Grand Island, Nebraska, shares how thoughtful budget planning helps golf course operators manage costs, evaluate investments, and make smarter financial decisions.
Start with the Goal
Before a single line item is entered, the first question to answer is what the owner or client is trying to accomplish.
Is the goal to break even? Is the goal to generate a profit? The answer shapes everything that follows—pricing, purchasing, staffing, and how aggressively the operation pursues new revenue.
Once that goal is defined, the budget becomes a plan for reaching it rather than a record of what happened last year. Every decision that follows is built around it.
Plan for Rising Costs Before They Arrive
Nearly every category a golf facility buys in has moved higher in recent years: food products, beverage products, fuel, chemicals, and merchandise among them.
Those increases can be anticipated. Talking with vendors about what they are forecasting for future years gives operators a realistic picture of where costs are headed, well before the invoices arrive.
That information makes the next decision possible—setting prices at the level the operation needs while still covering expenses and meeting the goal the owner has set.
Watch Every Dollar
At a municipal facility, every dollar spent is ultimately taxpayer money. That responsibility raises the standard for how purchasing decisions get made, and it is a useful standard for any operation to hold itself to.
Diligent purchasing shows up in practical ways:
- Using order-ahead programs, such as pre-ordering chemicals, to save money across the year
- Forecasting needs accurately so orders match demand
- Applying that same discipline to the pro shop and the snack bar, not just the maintenance budget
- Reviewing spending throughout the season rather than only at year’s end
Small decisions repeated across a season add up, and the discipline behind them is often what separates a budget that holds from one that slips.
Don’t Let the Budget Mirror Last Year
Past years and past expenses are a valuable reference point. They are not the plan.
A budget built by copying the prior year and applying a percentage increase assumes the year ahead will look like the year behind. It rarely does. New events, new activities, and new programs all carry costs—and revenue—that never appear in historical numbers.
Building those plans into the budget from the start produces a more accurate forecast and prevents the mid-year surprises that come from funding something the budget never accounted for.
Know the Difference Between an Expense and an Investment
Not every cost on the budget works the same way, and separating the two changes how those decisions get evaluated.
Some costs are simply expenses—necessary, but not revenue-generating. Removing dead or dying trees and planting new ones is a good example. It will not generate a dollar of revenue. It keeps the course looking the way it should, and maintaining the grounds is the operation’s responsibility.
Other costs are investments. Jackrabbit Run leases GPS screens for its cart fleet, which is an expense on paper every year. Those screens also enhance the customer experience and created a new revenue stream through sponsorship sales. The goal each season is for the sponsorships sold to pay for the cost of the screens, so golfers get the benefit of the technology while the operation carries little to no net cost.
When a cost can pay for itself, it deserves to be evaluated differently than one that cannot.
Lead the Way
Smarter financial decisions are not the product of a more complicated budget. They come from a clear goal, honest assumptions about costs, and a willingness to look at every line as a choice rather than a carryover.
Whether you are managing a municipal course, a daily-fee facility, or a private club, the approach is the same: know what you are working toward, plan for what is coming, and understand which costs are the price of doing business and which ones can earn their keep.
At Landscapes Golf Management, we believe disciplined financial management is what makes great golf experiences sustainable.
