The difficulties of Ashbourne CC back in the mid-90's were, also, a game-changer for the Golf Association of Philadelphia.
As a long -time member of GAP Ashbourne was aware of the by-laws of GAP which stated all member clubs had to have "exclusive use of their course" and by becoming semi-private and "daily fee", Ashbourne CC would violate that rule.
Ashbourne's officers partitioned GAP for by-law change; GAP worked with member clubs to see the wisdom of such a change and by the late 90's the membership clubs voted to rewrite the by-laws.
Ashbourne CC stayed a member and then, many newer golf clubs were invited to join and GAP's growth continued.
It's always sad to see a golf course/club disappear (particularly among a group like this) but Ashbourne's problems generated new thinking and direction for the GAP which has lead to its high ranking today among regional associations.
This post is slightly OT but any postmortem should have a little history beyond par, yards and doglegs, don't you think?
Tom...I'm interested in your take on this.