How Donald Trump works with the management team at his flagship club, Trump National Bedminster.
In 2006, David Schutzenhofer’s knowledge of The Trump Organization in general, and Donald Trump in particular, was—like most people’s—based only on what he’d read and seen on TV. And—like most people—that meant his perception was that any dealings with Trump, in any form, were likely to be intimidating.
At the time, Schutzenhofer was General Manager of Navesink Country Club in Middletown, N.J., and comfortable with how his career in club management was progressing. But when he was told by his friend and colleague, Colin Burns, General Manager of Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., that Donald Trump (a Winged Foot member) had acquired a club property in Bedminster, N.J., and was looking for a GM, Schutzenhofer decided to submit his resume.
AT A GLANCE
Trump National Golf Club
Location: Bedminster, N.J.
Website: www.trumpnationalbedminster.com
Founded: 2004
Members: 400
Golf Course Design: Tom Fazio (two 18-hole courses)
Annual Golf Rounds: 20,000
Employees: 80 full-time, in season
Shortly thereafter, he answered his phone while at a club managers’ golf event, and after being told to “please hold for Donald Trump,” he was invited to come to Bedminster. “I was so distracted after hanging up, I started walking in front of golf shots,” Schutzenhofer recalls.
As he gathered his thoughts, he realized there were other reasons to think twice about pursuing the opportunity, beyond what working for Trump might be like. The Bedminster property had been bought out of bankruptcy, and there were already plenty of strong high-end golf and club properties (including Winged Food) that it would have to contend with in the greater New York metropolitan market.
But Schutzenhofer decided to go ahead and take the next step, figuring he had nothing to lose—at the least he’d get to meet Donald Trump in person, and at worst he’d take the job, it wouldn’t work out, and he’d be able to add the attention-getting distinction to his resume that Donald Trump had told him “You’re Fired!” for real.
Bucking the Trends
Today, Schutzenhofer is entering his ninth year as the only General Manager that Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, N.J., has ever had. Over that time, he confirms, he’s certainly learned that Donald Trump can “definitely be intimidating.”
But Schutzenhofer, and many other members of the Bedminster management team whose tenures with the club also date to its earliest years, actually cite the unique comfort level that they have had with their owner, and his Trump Organization team, as one of the primary reasons they’ve stayed in their jobs so long—and why their club has posted consistent revenue growth (averaging 10% annually, according to Schutzenhofer) and built membership steadily in a period when economic turmoil roiled the New York market.
That success, they add, has come as much from Donald Trump letting his managers take the lead in showing what’s required to now make it in the club business—specifically, non-golf amenities, a family orientation and year-round operation—as it has from the vision, drive and resources that he and his organization have provided.
“Seeing the potential of the property to become an exceptional, family-centric club is what attracted me to the job and gave me confidence things could work out for me here,” says Schutzenhofer. “It was clear that [the organization] would support the development of facilities that could properly complement what it wanted to do with golf.”
In addition to its own success, Bedminster, as the original Trump venture into the club industry, has also helped to set a foundation in ten years for the acquisition, development and growth of a formidable portfolio of properties around the world, and establish The Trump Organization as a serious new player in the business. The next ten years will see the organization’s profile rise even higher, as Bedminster hosts the U.S. Women’s Open in 2017 and the PGA Championship in 2022, and high-impact new properties such as Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point (scheduled to open later this year near the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx) come onstream.
“[Bedminster] is where [Donald] Trump first started to reinvent the model of high-end golf clubs,” says the club’s Director of Golf, Mickie Gallagher III. As a third-generation pro whose father was an elite teacher at PGA National Golf Resort and college teammate of Arnold Palmer, and whose grandfather played with Bobby Jones and had a 39-year career at Forest Hills Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., Gallagher has a strong understanding of how that model has evolved.
After eleven years as the head pro at Maplewood (N.J.) Country Club, Gallagher joined the Bedminster team in 2006. He was initially drawn to the opportunity by “how much passion Mr. Trump had for golf, [and because] it seemed like everything he touched turned out well, so I wanted to be a part of what I felt [the property] could morph into.”
While that certainly proved to be the case for Bedminster’s golf side, which now has two acclaimed Tom Fazio-designed 18-hole championship layouts, Gallagher didn’t anticipate how adeptly the club would also respond to the flattening of the golf surge and the collapsing economy.
“It’s very rare for any club to have had this kind of sustained growth in revenues and membership over the last ten years—especially in this area, where the recession hit especially hard,” Gallagher says. “To go during that period from a small, 18-hole club to a 36-hole championship facility with a strong membership of 400 has been incredible. And to now be sitting at ten years old with two major championships on our calendar, it’s really remarkable how quickly we became players.
“But to help make that possible, we actually had to get away from the stigma of being a ‘big boys’ golf club’ and find ways to touch families with a wider range of member amenities and activities,” Gallagher adds. “That was critical to achieving the full vision of what the property could become.”
Leaving It to the Experts
Succeeding with that transition, Schutzenhofer says, has been made much easier by Bedminster’s management approach.
“After working in equity clubs for twenty years, it’s remarkable to be in an environment where operational autonomy is truly given to management,” says Schutzenhofer, who holds an undergraduate degree in hotel-restaurant management from Johnson & Wales, a masters in hospitality and tourism from New York University, and currently teaches club management at Montclair State University and Fairleigh Dickinson University.
“We truly follow the Chief Operating Officer model,” Schutzenhofer adds. “While we certainly recognize the importance of seeking member input, and do so regularly both formally and informally, we have no Board or subcommittees. Our golf professionals manage the golf calendar, our membership director and sales and marketing people handle the social calendar, and our grounds team directs the work that’s needed for the golf courses. We all report directly to the ownership, and this structure has led to the many positive attributes that the club now enjoys.”
Streamlining the operating structure in this fashion, Schutzenhofer says, has made it much easier for Trump National-Bedminster to add facilities and implement programs that have helped it attract an especially active membership with an average age (mid-40s) significantly lower than the norm for the New York metropolitan area. In turn, that has yielded returns that can be reinvested to further enhance the appeal, and use, of the club.
Notable examples of this in 2014 included a renovation of the Bedminster clubhouse (an estate house that dates to the 1930s) to create a new Members Club Room grill and lockers for a new Wine Club. “The Wine Club, which has separate annual dues, sold out before it was even promoted; we’ve since added another 70 shelves to the original 106,” Schutzenhofer reports. The Members Club Room was also an immediate, “tremendous” hit after opening in March, he adds. “It helped a la carte business go up 50% [in 2014],” he reports.
All told, annual gross food-and-beverage revenues at Bedminster have increased nearly four-fold in eight years, now surpassing $4 million. And the boost from the new additions in 2014 not only contributed to what was trending to be the club’s most profitable year ever (with an estimated $4 million earned from $16 million in revenue), it also helped, along with member referrals and promotion through local schools and other channels, to attract 30 new families and continue Bedminster’s progress toward becoming a year-round operation.
“We’ve grown to where members have generated enough activity to expand the shoulder months,” Schutzenhofer reports. “We used to close for January and February, but [in 2015] we’ll open for dining in February; that reflects how important dining has become to the club experience.”
As additional examples of how Bedminster continues to extend both its amenity mix and its activity calendar, the club also installed a skating rink at the end of 2014, and has plans to turn part of its equestrian barn into a paddle tennis facility, complete with warming hut, by this fall. And golf is certainly not being neglected as improvements are planned, especially with major championships on the horizon; major enhancements of finishing holes on the “Old Course” were also undertaken this winter, and a new indoor training facility is also under development.
All of these serve as just the latest examples of how the Bedminster team, and the club’s ownership, continue to reinvest directly into not only the property, but the club business. “The club’s facilities continue to evolve as Mr. Trump combines his passion for golf with his passion for building,” Schutzenhofer says. “And because we have come to be viewed as the flagship for the Trump club portfolio, many times what we do successfully here will be taken to our other properties, too.
“It’s surprising to many that Bedminster has become such a family-centric club,” he adds. “But not to us, because Mr. Trump and his family spend most of their weekends here, especially during the season. That’s helped both him and Eric [Trump, Donald’s son, who now directs The Trump Organization’s club portfolio as Executive Vice President of Development and Acquisitions] experience and appreciate all that a true family model for a club can involve, and how other amenities can be a successful and important complement to great golf.
“[The Trumps’] engagement here makes us elevate our game,” Schutzenhofer says. “They provide the resources and allow us, as professionals, to execute the vision. It’s proved to be a successful formula—and over the years, because [the Trumps themselves have] been here more and more, I tell our staff that’s a testament that we’re doing things right. ”
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