Angus Phillips, outdoor columnist for the Washington Post, in today's paper announces that he no longer wants to be involoved with member run clubs. His preference is for benevolent dictatorships. From the article:
"Schwartz agreed with me that the best kind of hunt club is not a democracy but a benevolent dictatorship. You need a central figure who owns the place, sets the rules unilaterally and picks who gets to come and who doesn't.
There are no meetings. Instead of paying to be a member, you bring a bottle of good whiskey, some nice cigars or a pot of venison stew. You follow the rules when you're there, smile and be thankful, and remember to send a Christmas card. It's just old-fashioned good manners. If you want to try something new such as rabbit hunting, check with the boss. If he says yes, you're in.
Tony Soprano would make a good hunt club dictator, but he's busy up in New Jersey. In his absence, my favorite capi di tutti capi are Bill Rowland, who owns a couple of farms on the Virginia line on the lower Eastern Shore where we hunt ducks, deer, quail and geese, and George Hughes, who has a 60-acre patch of woods along a creek near Easton that's good for deer, ducks, geese and wild turkeys.
Both have their foibles, and if they tried to introduce some of their rules in a democratic club they'd be drummed out. But they don't have to clear anything with anyone, and once you get used to their quirky rules, it turns out they actually enrich the experience."
The article then goes on to discuss some of those quirky rules for the hunt clubs.
www.washingtonpost.com for the entire article.
A couple of questions:
If given the preference of a dictatorship or a member managed golf club what's the preference?
Are there any quirky rules that golf club dictators have held that actually "enrich the experience?"