Page 9 - GBC summer English 2025

Succession of
Your Golf Business
and Beyond the
Tariff Economy
Canadian productivity data. Team
Canada knows how to win!
Canadian “staycations”, that
redirect the majority of snowbirds
who had been flocking south to
destinations such as Florida, the
Carolinas, Arizona, and California, will
stimulate substantial incremental
spending in our own country. Our
great Canadian destinations are now
experiencing record setting domestic
demand. Golf spend will be a significant
component of many such staycations.
On a related note, the airlines
have been reducing routes to those
southern destinations by as much as
70%. I feel for those American golf
course operator friends of ours who
are now hostages to their president’s
unforced economic errors. Except, of
course, for that one presidential golf
course owner who famously boasted
in 2018 that, “he had just negotiated
the best and most beautiful trade
agreement that the world had ever
seen”. He has since illegally breached
most of the clauses in that CUSMA
agreement that was supposedly
binding until 2026. Lessons learned.
There will also soon be new and
deeper trade agreements with dozens
of other more reliable trading partners
around the world. Trump doesn’t like
that 80% of Canadian exports go to
the USA, and he claims that Americans
don’t need any of those goods.
Canada’s future diversification will be
much healthier for the sustainability
of our economy. Those other countries
will be thanking the Donald in the long
run.
Our defense spending is another
Trump imposed benefit to Canada. It is
probably the only part of his wide-
ranging criticisms of Canada that I
actually agree with. Yes, we should be
investing more into our own military
for numerous security reasons,
including better limiting the risk of
some American president someday
wanting to invade the natural
resources of their best friends to the
north. Elbows Up!
Bringing this silver linings
discussion directly back to golf, I think
we are very fortunate to be in the golf
industry during this crisis. Since our
core business is a service, we are
somewhat sheltered from much of the
direct tariff impacts that industries
such as manufacturing, energy,
agriculture, forestry, fisheries,
technology and retail are exposed to.
In addition, our golf industry
enters this trade war from a starting
position of strength. Although many
other sectors of the Canadian
economy have been somewhat
weakened in recent years, our golf
business is riding an all-time high and
probably has the strength to endure
some short-term pain. Golfer surveys
also indicate that their affinity for golf
is so strong that most will not
drastically reduce their golf spend
until the very last resort if times get
tough.
It is also worth reminding
ourselves that we are in the business
of “fun”. As demonstrated during the
covid crisis, golf can be a wonderful
respite from the heightened stresses
of life. We may well have another
opportunity here to leverage golf as a
significant part of another much-
needed solution providing that fun,
safe, social, physically and mentally
healthy activity to a Canadian society
forced to endure this unjustified
stress.
In the long run, I think Canada will
successfully navigate past the
immediate pain of these tariffs, to
emerge even stronger. I believe the
same can be said for Canadian golf.
In solidarity,
Jeff Calderwood, CEO NGCOA Canada
jcalderwood@ngcoa.ca
Golf Business Canada 9