"You'd have thought I'd recommended killing somebody"

I finally got around to John Paul Newport's Saturday column on "club life in the Great Recession" and found this interesting about the plight of course GM's in the cost cutting era:

Nothing better illustrates the difficulty of achieving that balance than the matter of on-course refreshment. Montammy spends about $20,000 a year to stock ice chests around the golf course with private-label bottled water. To an accountant, cutting the bottled water looks like low-hanging fruit, but not to members. "It's an upscale perk that members really like," Mr. Claisse said, so the water remains.

But speaking of fruit, the club was also spending in excess of $50,000 a year to provide fresh, cut-up fruit for golfers making the nine-hole turn, a Montammy tradition. Since much of the fruit went to waste, Mr. Claisse suggested offering fruit cups instead and asking members to pay for them. The reaction? "You'd have thought I'd recommended killing somebody," he said. So a compromise was reached. The fruit continues to be free, but whole fruit only, not cut. Such is club life in the Great Recession.

Comments

[thusgone]

that reads like something written by p.g. wodehouse!

[Tighthead]

Correction - read.

[Dick Mahoon]

I wonder if there's anything free at the 19th hole?

DM

[Steven T.]

How about cutting the pretzels,chips & nuts in the locker room?