Page 10 - Winter 2018 english

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Golf Business Canada
The gateway to a golf course, particularly a private club, can be intimidating for a new arrival in Canada, who may not understand the opportunities available beyond the gate. That includes not only playing the game, but also employment opportunities, according to Jonasson, as golf courses seek to recruit staff members who re ect the new communities building up around them. Connecting with those communities is critical.
“Finding people to work is a big problem in a lot of industries, including the golf industry,” he said. “The reality is that when you look at an area of the Lower Mainland like Surrey, if you’re not tied in to the South Asian community, they really don’t know that golf exists and their children don’t know that there are job opportunities at the golf course. If we’re going to be successful in attracting labour, we have to get into some of these groups.”
FIRST NATIONS GOLFERS
It isn’t just new arrivals that golf in B.C. is looking to attract, but also Canada’s rst nations golfers.
There are 198 First Nations in B.C. and the 2016 census showed 1,673,785 Indigenous people across the country, representing 4.9 percent of the population, up from 3.8 percent in 2006 and 2.8 percent in 1996.
“The reality is that when you look at an area of the Lower Mainland like Surrey, if you’re not tied in to the South Asian community, they really don’t know that golf exists and their children don’t know that there are job opportunities at the golf course.”
The average age across the country for this rapidly-growing community, according to the census, was 32.1, almost a decade younger than the non-Indigenous population. It’s little wonder then that Jonasson sees huge potential to grow participation in a young and growing community that has also invested in several golf courses across the province.
“We’re talking with a lot of their community leaders about ways that golf can be used to engage their youth in physical activity,” said Jonasson, adding that each market will be different, the one common thread being inclusion of all people.
“Even within British Columbia, there are things that we do, say in some of the suburban areas of the Lower Mainland, that
maybe we wouldn’t do in other parts of the province. When you look at where your golf market is, it’s within a 20 minute drive of your golf course. In the case of a lot of golf courses, that demographic has changed over the last 10 years.”
CASE STUDY: ANGUS GLEN GOLF CLUB
Thousands of miles away, the Town of Markham, ON, had the highest proportion of visible minorities in Canada, accounting for 77.9 percent, according to the 2016 census, compared to 72.3 percent in 2011. About 45.1 percent of Markham’s population were of Chinese origin and 17.8 percent were South Asian. Not far away in Richmond Hill, visible minorities were 60 percent of the population, the third highest in Ontario. People of Chinese origin comprised 29.4 percent of the population.
Those are key markets for Angus Glen Golf Club, which was built on farmland at the corner of Kennedy Rd. and Major Mackenzie, northeast of Toronto. It opened to the public in 1995, with the ever-diversifying population of Toronto nearby.
Kevin Thistle, now CEO of the PGA of Canada, played a key role in building Angus Glen into one of the best-known golf courses in the Toronto area for corporate and public golf, along with the Stollery family and staff. Thistle, who left Angus Glen in 2009, says the population in that area was already beginning to change in the club’s formative years, but the method of attracting customers was the same as it always was for successful businesses, with an emphasis on getting out into the community and illustrating to people why they should drop in.
“I sat on a lot of boards. We would go to all the galas and the great thing, I would say, is I think Angus Glen was very, very close