Hungarian and foreign investors have invested billions of forints in golf courses in Hungary which now fight for survival, the daily Nepszabadsag said on Tuesday.
“Operating a golf-course is indeed a risky business in Hungary,” the deputy director of Polus Palace Thermal Golf Club, running one of the first courses at God near Budapest, told the paper.
Laszlo Tasi said that despite increasing membership, more high-standard annual competitions and the proximity to the capital, the 18-hole course with a five-star hotel had not been able to operate profitably since opening in 2005.
But the owners, many of them foreigners, of other golf course complexes may be less patient than Tasi and his Hungarian business partners who had invested 6.3 billion forints (23.7m euros) to build the golf course in God.
The problem is that there has not been sufficient demand in Hungary, board member of the Hungarian Golf Federation told the paper. The way to increase revenues would be to build clubs with members paying a 300,000-500,000 forint annual membership fee, said Attila J Hegyi.
The solution in the case of God is an attempt to win the young generation, said Tasi. The course there offers special training classes for schoolchildren and junior membership for one year.
Golf on the Gulag!!!
‘Hungarian and foreign investors have invested billions of forints in golf courses in Hungary which now fight for survival.’ Let them go out of business, I say. The ‘investors’ wanted to get rich quick, so if their dubious enterprises fails, it is the best possible resolution for everyone. What, are we supposed to feel sorry for them?
300- 500k annual membership fee? That’s a lot I must say. Here in the Nordics we earn 3-4 times more than average Hungarian salary and we pay 150k for golf. Make sense?
Okay, Johan, but also don’t forget that in Hungary, on average, people apparently can steal a lot more money than you guys can get away with up North. So, they have a lot more dough to spread around on life’s essentials, such as annual membership in the nuveau riche setting of a Western knock-off golf club.
Re the first anonymous commment, where does anyone suggest that you should “feel sorry” for people who may have lost money on a project like this? You are projecting.
Meanwhile, as for the prices of these proposed membership things, I think it all depends on what kind of course and services the club would offer, as well as the “green fees” you’d pay in addition to this annual fee. Building and running a golf course is not cheap.
Erik, if you have NO COMMENT about something, which you obviously did not have in this case, kindly refrain from “commenting” below the article. Since you didn’t add or take away anything, anyhow.
BTW, in the so-called ‘West’ there is an economic crisis going on, in case you hadn’t hear. Golf courses are hurting all over. But perhaps according to you, young Hunagrians should have only one goal in life, and that is paying HUF 300K to 500K “membership fees” to some golf courses usually populated elsewhere by old farts with failing eyesights trying to beat the crap out of a little ball with an iron stick?
Oh, well, whatever…
@Anonymous: Again, where did I or anyone say people should have a goal of paying these fees or even of playing golf? Why so excitable?
Okay, pls re-read what Johan commented on this. The article mentions the HUF 300K to 500K annual membership amount, and the fact that these desperate Hungarian golfies are tyring to entice today’s youth to pump their parents for this much dough. Or something like that. Golfing is something ‘chic,’ after all?
I guess walking around the more downtrodden parts of Hungary’s cities, you see nothing wrong whatsoever with this attitude, right? Heck, after all, Emperor Nero was singing whilst Rome burnt.
I am afraid to say that, like everything else in Hungary today, whether it is a golf course, factory, or shop, the proprietors haven’t got a fucking clue how to operate their business in a free market.
I take the point that anon.1 is making on a social basis that half a million forint can be better spent than on a golf course smacking a ball with an iron bot/stick.
To be fair to bosses though, the MSZP government has virtually made life impossible for entrepeneurs to make ends meet with tax demands and red tape and other assorted official paraphernalia.
The situation in the footrball world is as bad, if not worse?
LimestoneCowboy, thank you for your intelligent and insightful comment. You are 100% right, needless to say.
Three weeks ago, I was in George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Wow! Not exactly like Hungary. There is no value added tax, no personal income tax, no corporate income tax, and no real estate property tax being assessed there. Just to mention a few of the taxes that do not exist in the Caymans. Wow!!
Of course, it is only the seventh highest per capita GNP nation in the world, so the Caymans have a long way to go yet to catch up to Gordon Bajnai’s Klepto-Hungary. :~))
Some very good points made.
Personally I think that the 300-500K is very expensive. It is as golf was 30/40 years ago in the Uk and it is why it was viewed as a game for the rich. Thankfully it is not viewed that way anymore and is now, while not cheap,at least accessible to the majority of people. I feel that if golf is to have a future a more reasonable approach is needed. It should also be remembered when comparing to other countries that you can only really play for 7, maybe 8 months here, which broken down makes it considerably more expensive than elsewhere. When I was in the UK i was a member of a reasonable standard club in the south of the country and did not pay GBP1000 for 12 months golf.