Tom Everett, President of Landscapes Golf Management—operator of nearly 60 golf courses, country clubs and resorts—says, “While technology creates efficiency, don’t lose sight that humans cultivate opportunities, and motivating them to feel and act special and skilled is critical to the process.”

We are one month into 2023 and Landscapes Golf Management is not standing pat.

The operator of nearly 60 golf courses, country clubs and resorts is using the turn of the calendar year to further its culture-first foundation that drives high performance.

“Leadership is the ability to achieve results through people,” says Tom Everett, President of Landscapes Golf Management. “While technology creates efficiency, don’t lose sight that humans cultivate opportunities, and motivating them to feel and act special and skilled is critical to the process.”

A few resolutions Everett and his team are following:

• Don’t be too busy to create the highest level of engagement among team members.

In the lowest unemployment environment in American history, operators with the most engaged team delivering the best experiences for members and guests will dominate. It starts with a thoughtful recruiting strategy, a deliberate onboarding process, constructive feedback, skills and career development opportunities, and consistently interfacing with team members to see how you can do better. Depending on an engaged team helps to achieve resolutions No. 2 and 3 below.

• Don’t ignore our responsibility to advance the game.

We must capture the lift in participation from the pandemic to create more new golfers and increase frequency of play among existing golfers. In addition to daily, routine activities to engage and accommodate golfers of myriad abilities, develop a calendar of creative events to move novices up the participation spectrum. This will reduce the business’ cost of acquisition of golfers and increase their lifetime values.

• Don’t allow the food-and-beverage business to manage you.

F&B leadership teams will adopt proven strategies to, among other objectives, properly manage food costs, safety and quality as well as labor levels. Department success will help to fund capital projects and contribute to the overall profitability. Unfortunately, some operators cop to a “break-even-is-good-enough” messaging to their F&B teams.

• Leverage technology to improve ability to analyze the business.

Don’t lose time and productivity searching through too many platforms in too many software programs requiring too many screens to analyze the business. Engage a product whereby all data sources are aggregated and provided upon a single keystroke. The once-lost time is bound to help achieve resolutions Nos. 1, 2 and 3 above. On-site managers must not spend inordinate amounts of time mired in spreadsheets when they should be building communities.

Everett posits that leaders who don’t reduce New Year’s resolutions to writing are (politely) fickle and, thus, risk getting themselves and their teams in pickles. Furthermore, he believes that while January 1 is indeed symbolic, it’s an annual rite of righting oneself to benefit people and business.

“I suggest equal parts reflecting on the past and focusing squarely on the near- and longer-term future,” says Everett. “Our tell-tale metric is client renewal rate, and annual resolutions with ‘Checkpoint Charlies’ along the way are key to Landscapes Golf Management’s stellar record.”

Club + Resort Business plans to periodically interface with Everett to see how Landscapes Golf Management is keeping up with its resolutions.