Free Golf Offer Open to the Public

Looking to attract new business, the Aurora G&CC club offered “free golf” during its opening weekend in April, with guests paying only cart fees.

by C&RB Staff (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
May 2009
 

The Aurora Golf and Country Club, a once-celebrated, 84-year-old formerly private club in Aurora, Ohio, where PGA stars such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gardner Dickinson competed in the old Cleveland Open, has changed its ways and is now operating as a semi-private and public course.

Looking to attract new business under its new open-to-the-public operating system, the club opted to offer “free golf” during its opening weekend in April, with guests paying only cart fees. Season passes were also offered during the event, as were a junior golf program and various tournament formats.

The reopening proved to be a "great success," says managing partner Hunter Banbury of Aurora Recreation LLC, the property's owner, who decided to turn the club into a semi-private/public course when the proposed sale of the property to the city fell through.

"Everyone was pleased with the condition of the course and had a great time. The good weather certainly didn't hurt us," Banbury told The Aurora Advocate. He said that the club's free golf weekend drew 480 people, with every tee time booked from Friday to Sunday.

"We had between 50 and 100 calls that we worked to reschedule for the following weekend," he said, adding that the course had more than a dozen people sign up for season passes over the weekend as well.

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