Markham's Angus Glen A Thoroughbred Course for Metro by Maurice Cutler In the 1970's, when Arthur Stollery's champion thoroughbreds Kennedy Road and Laurie's Dancer were winning big races at Woodbine and in the United States, he was also dreaming of opening a first class golf course. Stollery did not live to see the fulfillment of that dream. But he probably would have been as proud of Angus Glen Golf Club as he was of his superstar racehorses. Angus Glen's address--10080 Kennedy Road in booming Markham, northeast of downtown Toronto echoes the name of the great Stollery colt. It's about half an hour to 45 minutes from Bay Street, depending on the traffic on the Don Valley Parkway. It was Golf Digest's "Best New Course in Canada" in 1995 and was given a platinum rating by Golf Ranking Magazine. Its 7,376-yard links-style layout is nestled among rolling hills and meandering streams. Arthur Stollery started buying the land for the course in 1957, ultimately accumulating 800 acres. He began breeding champion Aberdeen Angus cattle, and later thoroughbreds. Stollery began building the golf course in 1992 on some of the original horse paddocks and in the valley where black angus cattle once grazed. Parts of the original farm, which is still operating, can be seen adjacent to many of the golf holes. Sadly, Stollery died in August, 1994 just before the course was to open. But his love of the game of golf was shared by his son and daughter, Gordon Stollery and Laurie Stollery MacLachlan who now own and operate Angus Glen as Chairman and President. After some pre-opening tournaments at the end of the 1994 season, the course opened fully for business on May 1, 1995. "That first year was fabulous, we were ready right out of the gate," General Manager and Director of Golf Operations Kevin Thistle told Golf Business. "Right from the opening day we were booked solid with corporate events.
"We decided to position ourselves for high-end public and corporate events and to our great satisfaction we were almost 100 per cent full in the first year. The corporate events were wonderful. We were running at capacity in June, July, August and September. "The public has been very receptive to the golf course, of the service and the overall atmosphere of Angus Glen," Thistle said during an interview in the picturesque Victorian-style clubhouse. "What sets us apart, I feel, is that we have tried to make sure the amenities are right for our customers. We have a beautifully-appointed clubhouse. We've got fine locker rooms with oak lockers. We've got all brand new golf cars which have on-board ball washers and club cleaners. "But over all, we wanted to make sure that our service was first class. When we have a corporate event, I want golfers to sense that dedication to service from the moment they come through the gatehouse and are greeted in the clubhouse. My whole staff knows the most important thing we have to deliver is service. "Then there's the great golf course itself designed by Doug Carrick. Our greens keeper Ernie Amsler has it in great shape." Thistle, who came on the Angus Glen scene during the construction phase in late 1993 said Carrick and Vice President Don McIntyre had to deal with a lot of environmental issues. "The Bruce Creek meanders throughout the course so we had to make sure the fairways were a certain distance back from the creek. We left the fescue there and we were very careful when we had to move trees. On the 12th hole we had a green planned in what turned out to be a sensitive area. The environmentalists said 'you have to move that' so we did move it. "Don McIntyre works very closely with environmentalists and as a result, we think that this is one of the most environmentally-friendly golf courses around," Thistle said. The sod was turned last year on the first 250-unit phase of an associated housing development which ultimately could comprise 500 homes. Nearly 200 homes had been sold by April of this year. While Thistle is proud of the fact that Angus Glen hosts upwards of 150 corporate tournaments in a season, he emphasizes the need to build a loyal local customer base.
"When I put a business plan together, I thought, 'we might have certain people playing once a month or once every two months.' Our green fee is $110 with a tax of $18.90; that's high end, so you're wondering who the customers will be. "We were surprised to find that we have people who have come out and played every Friday since the beginning, almost like they're members. We certainly treat them like members. We don't discount our rates but we do have a corporate membership which is almost an evening membership; we don't publicize it and this rate is very limited. "We go out of our way to accommodate the public," Thistle emphasizes. " Many of our corporate events are afternoon shotguns, so we can handle the public in the mornings. A normal day has tee-off times for the public in the morning; we close the course around 8 a.m. and then have the corporate shotgun in the afternoon. Some mornings we will have the double tee event in the morning and the public on double tees in the afternoon. Another scenario is when someone buys the course for the day and we do a lot of that. "Many people who run high-end public courses say their slow times are weekends because they don't have a solid core of local customers. We have Markham, Richmond Hill, Unionville and Aurora. So our Friday afternoons and weekends are at capacity. A week before Labor Day we didn't have a single teetime available for the holiday weekend." Thistle has taken a hands-on approach to hiring; hand-picking his key staff. A golf professional himself, he personally picked the head pro, Tim Green, and five of the eight assistants. He knew the food and beverage manager before the course opened. In the second year he was finally able to hire the executive chef he wanted. "There was a very deliberate decision to have a head pro," Thistle said. " I've known Tim for a number of years. He is a tournament expert and I would venture to say there are only three people in Canada with Tim's tournament credentials. "A few years ago most golf courses didn't worry about having a tournament expert and maybe a lot of courses still don't have one. I saw the need at our golf course and Tim is our guy. As head golf professional, he runs our golf program, along with several other pros who service the public. But Tim is the guy who goes out and sells the corporate events and the associated food and beverage sales and pro shop items." Of the 120 staff, 17 have gone through the Humber College golf management course, Thistle says proudly. "I'm very high on the Humber program and Selkirk out west which weren't available when a lot of my peers and I were going through post-secondary education.
"The results are astonishing. It's nice to have a Humber College graduate, or what I refer to as a go-getter on bag drop, marshalling, starting or reservation phones. This year I had Humber people on the phones because they're going to school to be golf pros or general managers, so you know they have a vested interest in the long term rather than someone who sees it just as a summer job. "They are rated and scored on their performance. I found these kids were willing to work in the golf business; they understand the business because of their golfing background." "The golf pro in the 1990's has to become a businessperson. Some private clubs may want their pro just to teach and to interact with the members. But now you have to be a businessperson. You're either running a pro shop, running tournaments or running food and beverage. You've got to know cost of goods sold and the staffing and labour costs. Should you rent or lease your golf cars? I spend more of my week on business fundamentals than I do in golf fundamentals. A lot of golf pros are becoming general managers in this new age of golf. "I tell my professionals 'look it's all right to be a good golfer and I want you to be a good golfer. It's well enough to be a good teacher and that's a great component. But besides that you have to be a businessperson.' "Many of our junior management team work from April to November. We have some university students who work from May to September but the majority of our staff are full-time from March to December, and we have four or five ground staff who work for 12 months." Despite the comparatively small size of the clubhouse, Angus Glen does a healthy food and beverage business. The capacity of the clubhouse and a nearby marquee is about 425. One Friday in June 600 meals were served. "We don't have a large kitchen, but our chef and our food and beverage manager do a great job," Thistle says. "We hired executive chef, Frank Cutrara, because we really try to provide fine dining. But if all you want is a burger, we'll give you a burger." The menu changes every month. "We do a lot of weddings, and we do a lot of business meetings. This is where we differ from other golf courses. On a given day, we may have a corporate event, a tour-nament, a wedding and a corporate meeting. Major corporations come up here for business meetings because they like the surroundings. Within 10 minutes drive there is a cluster of accommodation on Highway 7 at the intersection of Highway 404, everything from Comfort Inns to Luxury Suites.
Angus Glen was the first golf course in Canada to have the 24-hour pro shop. The system is from Westan Computers and Datascape in the United States. You can book a tee time 24 hours a day. "At 11 o'clock at night, almost every pro shop in the world is closed except ours," Thistle says. "At Angus Glen we stress the human touch, so during the day we have four lines, with two dedicated reservation receptionists. If a pro is there you then have three people answering the phones. "The human touch is important because customers like to discuss the various options they might have. At busy times, the calls are routed into our computerized system where a recording provides all the pertinent information such as location, green fee, golf car costs and course conditions and if you press zero you get a human voice. "We're working on a web site homepage to be linked to the various golf web sites where we have an entry," he said. "Last year, we booked 30 days out for the public. We are now booking 60 days out. We take a credit card number to secure the time, with a four-day cancellation period for refunds. If we manage to sell the time within that four days we will give them a credit. "We are often quite successful in doing this and it creates a good deal of goodwill. We only run the credit card through if they don't show without any notice. We haven't had a lot of problems with that because we feel we are very fair about this. If you call us two days out, we have a realistic chance of selling that time and giving you a refund." The pro shop is club-owned, but the professionals sell the merchandise, Thistle said. "This situation is a unique one. If you look at Glen Abbey there is such a high volume in the pro shop, electric golf cars, and so on, that it's fair for the course to own everything. Being the general manager, I get to manage the pro shop but I have a merchandising expert Jay Gazelfy, assisted by Will Koopmans and Tim Green. We do all the buying. Jay runs the pro shop from a merchandising standpoint and Will Koopmans sells the product." During our interview with Kevin we asked him a few specific questions: Golf Business Canada: What's the state of golf in Metro Toronto Kevin Thistle: "In the last five years there's been a major move towards interest in golf. I think its two-fold. The juniors are playing more, women are playing more and golf in general is taking off. A lot of this has to do with the improvement in the economy. Two or three years ago, for example, a lot of people used to come out
here and they might say: 'I'm going to golf and I'm going to have a burger. Now they say, I'm going to golf, I'm going to have a burger and a beer and buy a golf shirt. It used to be when you ran through the check-list when you were selling corporate events, the organizers might take two or three items such as breakfast, dinner and golf balls. Now they're taking six or seven items, things such as paying for the driving range for their players, they're picking up breakfast, lunch and dinner, and maybe a cocktail hour. We notice a lot of investment dealers and business people are now getting into golf in a much bigger way than in the past. I've got friends from high school, stockbrokers, who've never golfed, but in the past few years golf has exploded, they're golfaholics now. There are a lot of golf courses around. We are competing with Lion Head, Glen Abbey and Devil's Pulpit, to name just a few. They are in the west end and we are probably the only course of this kind in the east end of Toronto. But in Toronto especially, golfers will drive a long way to get to a good course, so there's competition all over the Metro Toronto area. We have to work very hard to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the market. GBC: Do you have any expansion plans? Kevin Thistle: Because we're operating near capacity, we've talked about expansion of the golf course but there's nothing definite. There are 800 acres on the property so we do have room if we wanted to go ahead. There's definitely going to be a clubhouse expansion, possibly beginning in the winter of 1998. We're getting a great reputation for our food and we want to be known for things other than the golf course. We're doing more weddings, more banquets, more business events, along with corporate tournaments. So we do need a lot more room. GBC: What is your general marketing strategy? Kevin Thistle: We advertise to the local area in the local papers. I love the local papers, they have been very good to us. They write a lot of nice articles about the project. We've become partners in Markham and we feel we've become good corporate citizens. We're also in the trade magazines, and we take out time on radio and television to get corporate events. We feel we have the best of both worlds. We have Bay Street and downtown Toronto 30 minutes away, but we also have a great public market within 15 minutes. You make money with corporate events, but without the public you cannot survive. We're getting a lot of local people coming out to eat at the clubhouse, particularly the luncheon crowd from the local light industrial and commercial facilities. They appreciate leaving the hustle and bustle for 45 minutes or so to sit on our patio and look out at this beautiful setting, overlooking the ninth and 18th greens. We're going to continue to develop that market. Sidebar
Angus Glen At a glance Angus Glen Golf Club Course Opened - May 1, 1995. Located in Markham, 25 kilometers northeast of downtown Toronto, just east of Highway 404. Size - Property covers 800 acres. The golf course takes up 225 acres. Number of holes - 18 holes Course design - Architect Doug Carrick, 7,376 yards from the gold tees, 6,923 from the blues and 6,410 from the whites. Par 72 with slope ratings from 129 to 143. Market size - Metro Toronto and golfers in Canada and the U.S. and foreign visitors. Type of club - Public golf course. Number of rounds - N/A Revenue - N/A Driving range - N/A Pro shop - N/A Car fleet - 100 cars equipped with ball and club washers Tournaments - N/A Green fees - $110/$85 on weekends after 12 noon.