I don't think that this has been great for everyone - resort courses will have suffered, especially courses in jurisdictions that had very tough lockdowns. Take Cabot Links - until July 1 of this year visitors from outside of the four Atlantic Canadian provinces had to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Nova Scotia. That meant that they had almost no out of province visitors during 2000 and the first part of 2021. I imagine courses in Scotland and Ireland that depend a lot on revenue from overseas travellers will also have seen their guest revenue drop to almost nothing, perhaps getting a bit more back from locals. But don't some of these courses have a revenue structure where one foursome of visitors brings in more revenue (say 1000 Pounds or Euros) than a member's annual dues?
Furthermore, most of the resort enterprises use golf as an attraction to fill their hotel rooms, host the events, fill their restaurants and drink their alcohol....all higher margin revenue lines than golf. All those related businesses suffered considerably from Spring 2020 through to Spring 2021. Sure, many are now booked solid, but the fear emanating from the Delta variant has already led to significant near-term cancellations across the hospitality spectrum.
Most well-run private clubs did reasonably well under Covid, but their guest and outing play, along with in-house F&B suffered. Smart clubs adapted swiftly and are reaping rewards with more engaged memberships and more interest from prospective members. Many, especially in the Southeast and Southwest regions have jacked up their initiation fees and dues accordingly.
As the owner of a well-positioned semi-private in New Jersey, we had a record year, but are already starting to see a distinct post-Covid demand softening. Our private club in NY continues to do very well with the event and F&B businesses returning and a reduction in round counts (net of weather-related) of 5-10%.
"Giddy....," maybe for speculative course developers and desirable private clubs, but hardly the case elsewhere. A consistent industry-wide boom with any mid-to-long term sustainability is far, far from guaranteed.