Bill Brightly has got this nailed.
Like it or not, over the last 50 years clubs have counted on certain revenues from banquets and carts. Banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at most clubs. Historically they underwrote all sorts of other expenses. Those revenues are in steep decline at the clubs I know something about. These are all well established, well capitalized clubs.
It is a big problem. Cuts will be forced in golf maintenance, food services, health facilities, swimming, etc. Across the board.
Worse, I don't see the situation turning around for several years. It will begin to show quickly at most clubs, particularly so with respect to gc maintenance. To paraphrase Bette Davis, buckle up your seat belt. It's going to be bumpy ride.
Bob
Bob,
Come on...ya'll are using that same accting firm that stands in front of the memberships at all the ATL clubs and tell them how well food service is doing and golf is out of whack....I will never be convinced that banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at a club....if you take the suare footage devoted to food service and banquets and don't subsidize it with the dies strcuture it will ose every time....
Why don't we see more of these shopping centers with converted grocery chains as wedding halls? It might work if you could have a wedding or two a day but not when it is just weekends and a few Rotary Club meetings....
If one accounts fro food based on food sold per square foot of dining room then the weeinie machine and grill will justify existence...
Say it ain't so BC...don't drink that kool aid.... 
Mike,
I live in the northeast US, and almost every top notch club that I can think of (except maybe Pine Valley, NGLA, Fishers Island, etc.) works under the model of great course, big old clubhouse (read that expensive to maintain) supported by reasonable (not exhorbatant) dues, significant cart revenue, significant outing revenue and weddings/banquets. Personally, I hate the cart revenue line because we beat up our courses with carts, actually FORCING people to ride if there are no caddies...just to generate revenue. I was on my board for 7 years and could not come up with a finacially sound way to do away with a rule that I hate! Outings are a similar problem as they really interfere with a day that should be devoted to golf course maintainance.
The problem is that if you try to ween yourself off of that income, you will be forced to raise dues. The more you raise dues, the more your club becomes unaffordable to the "average guy" and your membership gets skewed to a "wall street" and "daddy wrote the check" membership. So to me, weddings are the least objectionable way to generate revenue to help offset dues increase and allow for a healthy golf course maintainance budget.
One of the things I think we might start seeing is club mergers where two memberships merge and only one of the clubhouses is kept fully open for fine dining and weddings. There are certainly problems to be overcome, and you probably have to go to a tee time system, but there are also tremendous cost saving possibilities: one Superintendent, one GM, shared machinery, outings at one course on a Monday while the maintainance crew works on the other, etc., etc.