My friend Steve Lapper stated very nicely what he and I spend quite a bit of time pondering....how actually to make a reasonable living and get some level of financial return for investing in a golf course or courses.....on the public side; in an above average year (less rain than average, but no drought to cause the course to go into distress) with a product which is received well by the public and a competitive price point (these two matter much more than you would ever imagine) you can exceed you annual business plan and make some money.
In a rainy or poor weather year, your fixed costs - salaries, benefits, course maintenance costs, real estate taxes, debt service, capital leases, etc. -remain constant, but your revenues are less tees times are lost due to poor weather. In this year, you will be writng a check at the end of the year as expenses will exceed revenues and you will lose money. (Once a tee time is unused, you can't ever get it back; it's not like unshipped inventory that you can sell to the next purchaser.)
On the private side, you can either be equity or non-equity club...In an equity club the members own the club and share equally (usually) in the cost of operations....you joins is as important as where the facility is located and what the cost of enrty is. Equity clubs almost never turn a profit and rent out their clubhouses for events (weddings, aprties, etc) to try to reduce the annual assessment ( additional payment in addition to dues and initiation fee) from each member to cover operating losses. You generally need about 200-250 members at a typical equity club to operate at a break even....above 250 you can service your debt on the property. The high end clubs just cover their losses by assessing the members an additional amount at the end of the year.
Non-equity clubs offer no risk to the member as they have no ownership stake in the club; but usually less say in the decision making process. Location, conditions, price point of entry and lastly course design are the keys to making this model work. If the club turns a profit, the owner keeps the cash; if the club loses money, the Owner pays the added expenses as non-equity clubs do not assess memebers for operating losses. The non-equity business model is the one most folks are looking at currently as with a membership base, you collect your dues in the beginning of the year, so you know what your cash position will be and look to incrase revenue thruoutings, food sales etc.
Hope this helps.