Apparently, Pat Jones wasn’t the only one taking issue with an article about golf course revenues and expenses in the July issue of GOLF magazine. The NGF’s CEO, Dr. Joseph Beditz, sent GCI the following response to Jones’s June 8 editorial, “Lies & Statistics.”
Pat: As you’ll see, we too took issue with the story that appeared in the July 2009 issue (page 32) by Jessica Marksbury. We had three main problems with the story:
1. No date was referenced for the data (it was 2005 as you suspected)
2. Erroneous and misleading conclusions (which you also realized)
3. No permission asked of NGF (which you failed to consider a possibility)
We believe that this communication to GOLF will prevent situations like this from occurring in the future.
We found your editorial based on the GOLF story to be equally egregious, and surprisingly vitriolic. We have known you for 20 years and would have expected you to have contacted us regarding the story before re-publishing something you knew couldn’t be right.
Letter to the Editor
GOLF magazine
We take great issue with a story that appeared in the July 2009 issue of GOLF magazine by Jessica Marksbury (“Public Assistance”).
The story cites and draws erroneous conclusions from a four year old NGF report entitled: Operating & Financial Performance Profiles of 18-hole Golf Facilities in the U.S. 2006 Edition. The story fails to mention that the data cited reflects 2005 operating conditions and misleads readers into thinking that the data is current. Clearly, much has changed in the economics of the golf business, and this country, between 2005 and today.
In fact, soon-to-be-released research by NGF regarding the current financial health of public courses indicates that over one-third of 18 hole public courses are currently operating at a net loss. This is in sharp contrast to the picture painted by your story.
Publishing a small excerpt from a dated report, without proper interpretation and explanation, does a disservice to the NGF and misleads your readers.
Joe Beditz
President & CEO
National Golf Foundation
Jones replies: “Joe’s absolutely right that I should have contacted NGF before painting them with the same brush as GOLF magazine. In that sense, I’m just as guilty as GOLF in not checking my facts in advance. It’s all too easy to criticize them, but NGF plays a vital role in our industry and data they provide is, unfortunately sometimes misused or misconstrued by consumer golf publications and the general media.”