According to a news release from Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy, the redevelopment of the Lonsdale Golf Club is set to proceed after approval was given to rezone the existing site. The club has pursued the redevelopment for more than 10 years, and has been working with Ogilvy Clayton Golf Design on extending the golf course, maintenance facility and water storage facility into an adjoining rural property. Permission to subdivide part of the existing golf course site to create a resident....

The countdown is on, with the opening of the Cape Wickham golf course only months away now that the final holes have been finished and the all-important grow-in phase of development is underway. Winter weather prevented the 15^th fairway from being completely grassed, but the rest of the course has been and it’s expected that the outstanding fairway will be grassed in October when the weather warms up.

One of the founding fathers of the United States of America, Benjamin Franklin once famously quipped that, ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.’ Whilst true of almost every endeavour, Franklin’s words ring especially true in golf. Those clubs and courses struggling with decreasing memberships or reduced green fee revenue are almost certainly destined for failure, unless able to properly plan a way out of the financial mire.

The key question to address in any situation of strife, is why aren’t golfers joining/playing your course? To many observers golf related recoveries start with better marketing and better management or some sort of internal or financial restructure. For others, however, it is more simple and starts or finishes with better golf. If you improve your golf course, surely local golfers will want to play the course more often, or join. That’s the theory but as history has proven time and time again, it’s more difficult in practice.