With the news of some recent golf course closures and cancelled new machinery orders, It’s hard not to feel like we are right back in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash!

Barry Drennan (2nd from left) of Golfhire.ie with his staff

Barry Drennan – Director at Reel-tech describes to Service Dealer Ireland what it was like - “Back then we were a Toro golf equipment main dealer, and had been in the middle of delivering over €290,000 worth of machines to one customer alone when the crash happened. The customer had finance arranged but all of a sudden the bank pulled the finance! Getting paid became a nightmare, credit terms tightened up and to be honest I feel some golf clubs have been in recession mode ever since.”

The bright side of that period for Reel-tech was the increase of business they saw in their hire division www.golfhire.ie

“As golf clubs did not want, or could not get, finance for machines, they contacted us to see if they could hire machines for a few months or for the full season to see how they sat financially at the end of the year. This would help them maintain the course without having to take out a loan, it also gave them confidence in the ability to make repayments going forward. Since then we are constantly looking to add new innovations and responding to requests of our customers. Short term hire of the Toro Procore aerators and Vredo seeders are very common but increasingly we are getting requests for long term hire of reel & rough mowers and other golf course mowing machinery. As Covid -19 has had a financial impact on the income to golf clubs, machine hire is a logical option where a club doesn’t want to tie up all their capital in big ticket items.”