I've never re-printed an article as many have on GCA.com, but couldn't resist this since it is from my home community, and this Green Bay CC effort when first developed beat my effort to the local market in 1992, to develop strictly a quality golf course and modest club house. The issue then was whether the local market wanted a solid golf only well designed club, or were they looking for a full service facility with traditional full service country club ammenities. The GBCC started as a rather full service facility, with decent F&B, good practice facility, swim pool, no tennis however. It had a full subscripiton of members immediately upon opening (pretty much cornering the market and getting ahead of the effort our group was making to prospect for local members in a golf facility centerpiece and limitted F&B facility.
The course that GBCC built was a Dick Nuggent design. Barely walkable, and hardly anyone does, and pretty much standard cookie cutter architecture. Maybe a Doak scale 5.
The full subscription of members began to decline (as we have seen across the country) partly due to the rising costs and assessments, and partly due to other facilities opening that offer more affordable golf. I know of a few who even dropped out of GBCC to buy a season pass at our county course which is arguably a better and more enjoyable test of golf (though no where near the conditioning of GBCC on the aesthetic side). The county now has a restaurant facility that is affordable and good food and good service.
So, if you are interested in this sort of thing, and many of you have been through this drill with your own local club experiences, what say you about the the approach being taken by this GBCC club to boast membership, and provide more ammenities and activities, but at a higher membership cost?
Do you think they are being led down the primrose path to be a better club, or following a well worn road to greater financial failure that many other clubs have reportedly followed?
By Lee Reinsch
lreinsch@greenbaypressgazette.com
BELLEVUE — The Green Bay Country Club breaks ground today on a $3 million addition aimed at making the grounds more family friendly.
A new clubhouse, which will accent the current clubhouse, a larger swimming pool with diving boards and a 130-foot-long water slide, lighted tennis courts and an 18-hole natural-turf putting course are among the changes.
The groundbreaking celebration will be a rare chance for the public to see the grounds of the exclusive club. The public is invited for an open house that will include a continental breakfast and tours.
“The expansion was always part of the long-range plan, ever since the concept of the club was born in 1991,” clubhouse manager Jeff Johnson said.
Over the last 10 years, use of the country club got to the point where parking was scarce, the pool often crowded, tee times were frequently filled and the need became clear that an expansion had to be made. Plus, “we had a large desire to have tennis out here,” Johnson said. “We had a lot of people who were waiting for tennis courts before they would join the club.”
Current food service operations allow for “a limited menu” in the facility’s formal dining room of the clubhouse, but the expansion will “allow for a more extensive dining experience” Johnson said.
The new expansion is about a quarter-mile west of the main clubhouse. It brings the total acreage of the country club grounds to 306 acres.
Chad Gouin, 22, employee of the country club, said he thinks the expansion will be well-used by members.
“It’s a good idea because the club’s growing,” he said.
The expansion will mean 20 more jobs in the area, including a tennis pro and assistant, wait staff, lifeguards and kitchen manager.
Green Bay Country Club opened in May 1995 and is the brainchild of several members of the Green Bay business community.
Features of the expansion include:
• A 15,000-square-foot clubhouse and cabana with full-service restaurant and potential for a health facility, golf swing area and game room in the future.
• 7,500-square-foot outdoor swimming pool, whose zero-depth entry will make it accessible to those in wheelchairs. The pool will feature a 130-foot-long water slide for children and six 75-foot-long lap lanes for lap swimmers.
• Six lighted tennis courts, which will be usable until midnight most days, weather permitting.
• Six Par 3 holes.
• Elevated driving range tees.
• Practice bunkers.
• Putting greens.
• An 18-hole natural turf putting course.
• Tennis pro-shop.
“We wanted to make this a destination site,” Johnson said.
The pool, tennis courts and cabana are expected to be finished June 1, and the Par 3 golf holes are slated to be completed in spring 2007.
The new pool — 230,000 gallon capacity — will replace the existing pool, which has less than half that capacity. Grounds superintendent Marc Davison said the existing pool will be leveled to make additional parking spaces. Two houses will be razed to make way for the expanded area.
Johnson said the $3 million for the expansion came from increased dues and additional initiation fees for social members and does not include the price of the land.