Life beyond golf:Club Car rapidly diversifying into new worlds

Jason Goldberg of Club Car

Pine Valley, Torrey Pines, St. Andrews – many of the world’s most prestigious courses use Club Car golf cars and utility vehicles. Yet as the global golf leader approaches their 3 millionth vehicle milestone, it is looking beyond fairways into new growth markets with the help of finance solutions partner DLL.

In the past decade the global leader in golf has begun to diversify into new markets and explore new geographic territories.

“It is a purposeful diversification,” says Jason Goldberg, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Club Car. “True growth in this sector lies beyond golf and in segments like education, industrial, hospitality and resorts.”

Life beyond golf

“Back in 2007-2008, at the height of the real estate bubble and ensuing financial crisis many declared golf course real estate dead,” says Derek Meinders, Vice President, Program Management & Remarketing at DLL. “In retrospect, it was the perfect time for DLL to team up with Club Car. The low growth encouraged us to think bigger than golf.”

Today, more than half of Club Car’s sales still come from global golf, but the market is quickly moving towards commercial utility, rentals and private vehicle use.

“People are buying cars for lakeside summer homes, small farms, urban use in rural communities, industrial complexes, and city governments looking for greener transport alternatives,” says Kent Heiden, President of Midwest Golf and Turf in Michigan, an authorized Club Car dealer.

Commercial Territory

In addition to providing new and used leases, inventory finance, rental fleet financing and commercial leases and loans, DLL is also working with Club Car to explore new relationship structures and finance penetration into new territories beyond their core markets of the US, Australia, Canada and the UK.

“With an increasing focus on commercial markets, we each bring something important to the table,” says DLL’s Meinders. “Club Car offers a portfolio of competitively priced, well-designed and innovative, high-tech vehicles, and DLL provides leasing products and leasing solutions that are completely new to the market, especially at the dealer level.”

DLL also provides Club Car dealers with inventory financing lines of credit in the US, Canada and Europe, which allow dealers to offer their customers a full range of Club Car products on attractive terms.

“The collaboration with DLL goes beyond financial transactions,” says Goldberg. “We share resources, capacity and capabilities. From a competitive standpoint, it’s a level of connection I’ve not seen elsewhere.”

Urban Mobility

Meanwhile, Club Car remains the world’s leading golf car brand. To consolidate this position, Club Car will continue to invest heavily in technology services such as vehicle connectivity, smart screens and energy utilization. This raises the question of what role Club Car will play in providing urban mobility solutions.

“The convergence of technology, reliability and point-to-point transportation in cities like London, Shanghai and New York is absolutely on our minds,” says Goldberg. "Right now we treat resorts and university campuses as mini cities, and the information we gain is invaluable for bigger urban solutions.”

“We’ll obviously support Club Car when they decide to move into urban mobility,” adds Meinders. “DLL’s access to mobility solutions is already quite sophisticated, so we’ll be ready when they are.”