“IN ANDALUSIA THERE ARE TOO MANY GOLF COURSES”.
Salvador Álvarez, Varo for his many friends, is, although he is not so old, one of the veterans of Andalusian golf. Manager for more than twenty years of the Guadalhorce Golf Club, he has dedicated a good part of his professional activity to teaching, to bring to the university everything you need to know to manage a sector as important as golf.
He has been president for years of the Andalusian Golf Managers Association (AGGA), which has now been transformed into Española.
-How many managers make up the association?
-In Andalusia there are 96 of us, and soon, since the association has recently acquired a national character, we expect to be around 170 or 180.
>-In this region, practically all the managers are in the association…
-That’s right, almost all fields are represented.
-Are these types of associations useful?
-Yes, of course. I believe that managers should have an association because we are ‘the bureaucracy of golf’, the ones who make sure everything works.
With the computer possibilities that we now have, of communication, etc., this association puts in our hands infinite options of interconnection, exchange of experiences and opinions.
Through Manuel Lozano, our manager, who brings us together, we have created very valid working tools.
Being associated, on the other hand, makes us a little more at home, we have more weight, we are valued a little more, both federations and administrations as well as suppliers and perhaps many presidents should value more the importance at the level of efficiency that we have as associates.
-Is this association a kind of union?
-No. We do not have a vindictive sense of our interests, but we do constitute a mutual support group. We are corporatist, in a way. If I have a management problem, a field problem, etc., I make a consultation among the members and in a few minutes I have answers and solutions to everything. Besides, the association allows us to get to know each other and, above all, to relate to each other on a regular basis.
-What do you think are the ills of Andalusian golf?
-We have gone a little crazy, and golf in Andalusia is experiencing a bubble similar to the real estate bubble. The sport of golf has grown many pimples, and the pimples are the brick.
Is golf as a sport exclusively business? No. And where is the business? Well, in the brick. What has happened is that many bad golf courses have been built without taking into account anything other than the real estate aspect. The fact of making courses only to justify the sale of houses has caused us to break the magnificent destiny we had.
Unfortunately, in many countries these third- and fourth-tier fields are discrediting our image.
-What would you propose to solve at least these problems you mention?
-To answer this question without offending anyone, I must clarify that I consider brick-garden fields to be all those that from the day of their design were conceived to accompany and beautify a development and from the beginning the property passed so much of them that they yielded or badly leased their management. However, there are fields of promotions in which the property owners are still concerned about maintaining their fields and solving daily the problems that arise from having houses nearby. The latter deserve all the respect; if a course is defended and managed by the same developer that built it, in the end they end up solving their problems and come to enter into a very acceptable quality ranking.
The brick-garden courses have little solution. I hope that this bubble will help many mayors to realize that golf, in any form, is not the “magic wand” of the call for elitist sales or considerable job creation.
I believe that we have to change the methods of promotion, not continue doing what has been done in recent years. Use new technologies, set up a reservation center. There are many things that can be done in the computer field. Take the bull by the horns and invest in this.
And of course, if we continue to allow the construction of brick courses or garden courses, we will continue to provide a false offer. An offer not to play golf, but to play another sport.
I would also like to point out an aspect that I consider important and for which I have been fighting for almost twenty years: the marking of golf courses on the roads.
Why can’t we have signposted fields, but many beaches are signposted, beaches that are real disgraces, hotels and other establishments? People get lost. There is nothing to indicate the exit to such and such a field? Let them not put the name if they don’t want to, but let them point out that this is the way to a golf course, and the simple passage along the road, of any tourist, denotes the number of courses we have. How can it be called the Costa del Golf and not be signposted, on roads, any golf course?
–Are there any fields left in Andalusia?
-Yes, I think there are plenty of fields. Nobody is going to consider that the one that is left over is yours. But yes, I think there are fields left over. Those we were talking about before. There should be fewer and better courses, that really are courses for the sport and the practice of golf. All of us who dedicate ourselves to the sector professionally know perfectly well the list of surplus courses.
These are fields (the brick ones) that do not provide jobs. I know of some with three or four employees. Whereas a self-respecting farm has between thirty and forty employees.
Are there too many fields? Well, look: if they do not create jobs, if they consume precious water, if they set prices to create unfair competition, then yes, they are left over. Do you know the fields that I think are left over? Well, I insist on the same thing: all those who, when they built them, were looking for someone who wanted to keep them, because they were nothing more than an obligation or an excuse to build a certain number of houses. I would force those who build fields to exploit them for twenty years, and I am sure they would take more care to do them properly. But if from the beginning they do not care about them, then they go for the easy thing, to save money, to fit the fairways, to make playing fields that cannot be called golf courses in their entirety.
-Do we provide a good service to golfers?
-I think so, in general. Now, as always, it depends on the number of employees of the club, whether or not they are enough to have a good maintenance, a good restaurant or to make the reception work, etc. Of course, everything can be improved.
-Do administrations know and understand the golf industry?
-They are seriously unaware of it, I would say. With exceptions, of course, but only a minority. And I will never understand why they do not have any recognized sector of professionals in the sector. The only study that I am aware of that Fomento Andaluz handled was carried out by the company of a well-known colleague from Madrid, which, with all due respect, leaves much to be desired and denotes a worrying inaccuracy in the data.
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