CHICAGO – Greenlight Advisors and the National Golf Course Owners Association invite all municipal, state and federal golf facilities to participate in the 2025 U.S. Municipal Golf Study, an annual research report that provides municipal golf facilities with a clear financial picture that their operators can use to understand the muni landscape, and help them make better-informed operational decisions.
Eligible facilities that want to use this personalized, comprehensive and up-to-date benchmarking to improve their operations should sign up at https://signup.golfclubbenchmarks.com by Oct. 31.
This study and its findings are critical to reaching and maintaining operational excellence: the confidential, 40-metric benchmark report and analysis provides valuable insights into how municipal golf courses compare to similar operations, highlighting potential financial and operational opportunities that may emerge.
The study collects income, revenue and expenses for all participating facilities; armed with these general perspectives and comparisons — and a critical analysis of their own data — municipal course operators can reassess their business strategies and make informed adjustments to capitalize on new prospects. The data may also help them identify areas for improvement, and ways to enhance service delivery to their communities.
“[The study’s data] helps me tell a story to our city council, for instance, when we’re doing a budget presentation,” said Matt Kammeyer, golf division director for Salt Lake City. “Within our municipal entity, water costs have risen quite dramatically over the past four years. It’s been a 75% increase in costs for us. So I’m interested to see what other courses are paying and where we fit within that as a percentage of our overall budget.” All six of Salt Lake City’s municipal courses participated in the 2024 study.
As part of the benchmarking process, Greenlight Advisors will evaluate and grade participating golf courses’ financial and operational performance data against industry benchmarks, classifying each metric as Top Quartile, Median or Bottom Quartile within a customized “Best-in-Class Report CardTM.”
“We pride ourselves on empowering golf course operators to make informed decisions through a critical analysis of their data, helping them easily identify areas for improvement, and enhancing service delivery to their communities,” said Mike Suglich, CEO at Greenlight Advisors. “We are extremely pleased with the growing participation, industry support and positive feedback we have received from our U.S. Municipal Golf Study.”
- Sample reports: https://golfclubbenchmarks.com/about
- Participating courses: https://golfclubbenchmarks.com/participating-courses
- Membership pricing: https://golfclubbenchmarks.com/membership-pricing