Cedar Crest GC is rolling with a durable, cost-effective and comfortable new fleet of electronic fuel injection golf cars.
For Ira McGraw Jr., making the right selection for the golf cars that would comprise his new fleet at Cedar Crest Golf Club was a decision he didn’t take lightly.
McGraw is the Manager of Concessions, as well as the golf professional, at Cedar Crest, a municipal course in Dallas, Texas that was designed by A.W. Tillinghast and served as the site of the 1927 PGA Championship. Renovations were done in 2004 to the 18-hole layout.
The city of Dallas owns the course property at Cedar Crest, but McGraw has a concessionaire agreement, which includes golf car operations, that runs through 2023. The city is only responsible for course maintenance.
In 2012, when McGraw was facing the decision of how to proceed with his new fleet, he initially considered electric cars. But a lunch with Mike Ellis, a District Manager for the Yamaha Golf-Car Company, soon changed his mind.
Ellis tipped off McGraw that Yamaha would be introducing electronic fuel injection (EFI) to its gas-powered golf cars at the start of the next calendar year.
“He really had my attention,” McGraw recounts. “I couldn’t wait to get out of my previous agreement for electric cars. I had to replace batteries several times during that contract, and the cost of repairs were escalating.
“The number-one thing I was looking for was value,” adds McGraw. “I wanted to get a car that I felt would be durable enough to withstand the rigors of public golf. At the same time, I wanted it to be a quality product [that would] make people feel like they weren’t playing a public course.”
McGraw also didn’t initially think that a leasing option would be appealing for his new fleet. “I wanted to try to retain that value and have equity in what I was doing,” he explains.
But in convincing McGraw that Yamaha’s EFI cars were the way to go, Ellis also showed him the value of a four-year lease with a purchase option. McGraw now plans to buy the cars at the end of the lease and then run them for another two to three years.
Ellis also provided McGraw with a rental fleet for 120 days, to bridge the time from the lapse of his previous lease until the EFI cars became available. The fleet of 65 EFI golf cars was delivered to Cedar Crest on January 3, 2013—the first such fleet in the state of Texas.
Savings from Front to Back
In addition to upfront savings, McGraw will also realize some potential financial benefits on the back end of the ownership of the fleet.
“When he does get a new fleet, his cars will be worth considerably more per car in trade,” Ellis points out. “Financially, it was a pretty simple decision for him.”
According to Ellis, the EFI gas cars also have a higher residual, and that makes them worth more at the end of a lease. “For Ira, the payments for a gas car are significantly less per month per car than an electric car lease,” he says. “When you are talking about 65 cars, it is a major savings.”
As a result, McGraw can save thousands of dollars over the course of the four-year lease.
Before he reached a final agreement, McGraw did consult with officials from the city of Dallas about his intentions, though under his operating contract, he was under no obligation to do so. “There was no mandate or stipulation as to what type of golf car I would have, but I let them know that I wanted to go in this direction,” he says.
Dallas closely follows ozone action and alert provisions prescribed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), McGraw notes, and that made another benefit of going to EFI cars attractive to him.
“With us being a city park, we wanted to make sure that we didn’t give the perception that we weren’t focused on the environment and ozone,” he explains. “With the EFI, these cars had the lowest emissions on the market. They were far below the ozone stipulations from the EPA.” As a result, he feels, the move helped to position Cedar Crest, and the city of Dallas, as a leader in eco-friendly technology and practices.
Standing Up to Abuse
Being “friendly” to the typical environment of a busy public course, McGraw points out, was also an important consideration for Cedar Crest’s new cars. In Dallas, he notes, golf can generally be played comfortably for 10 months out of the year. “As a public course, we get more rounds than a country club,” he says. “We might have 35,000 to 40,000 rounds per year.
“The cars take a pretty good pounding, so that is why the durability is so important,” McGraw adds. As a reality of municipal life, players are sometimes more apt to hit rocks or curbs with their cars, or even let children drive them.
McGraw also had to educate his customers on the advantages of the EFI cars. Many were initially wary, he reports, as they recalled the noisy, smoky old two-cycle gas-powered cars of the past. But “after about three weeks,” he says, “they tended to forget that they were even using a gas car.”
While gas cars often prove to be the most popular option for municipal courses that turn a lot of rounds, Ellis notes, electronic fuel injection is now helping the vehicles make inroads at many private clubs across the nation as well.
“That demographic has changed,” he says. “The fuel-injected car has become accepted at many high-end country clubs and daily-fee courses. I think it is a financial decision more than anything.”
In the nearly two years since McGraw has had Yamaha EFI cars at Cedar Crest, he has done little more than routine maintenance, he reports, including annual oil changes and general wear-and-tear repairs.
“The gas expense is minimal,” he adds. “My electric costs are lower, so it’s a tradeoff with the gas cost. And I’m able to write off the fuel costs, [while] the expense of charging electric golf cars can’t be written off. “
The equity in the golf cars also can provide tax relief at the end of the year, McGraw notes.
Beyond the financial benefits, McGraw keeps coming back to dependability and ease of operation as the biggest payoffs.
“You kind of want your golf car fleet to be second-nature,” he says. “It’s very necessary, but it’s something you don’t want to be a hassle.
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