Niall - The thought of 100+ acres of golf course land being sold for housing is finacially wonderfull, I suspect land is worth 50 fold with building permission (two years ago it was 300 fold). However, it is very hard to get permission and getting permission for 5 acres may be as hard as getting it for the lot. The planning laws are complex and 'limited infill' can sometimes be used in obtaining permission. Primiarily golf courses in the city and very loved as are parks and sports pitches, the city areas need greenery and these spaces provide it, an application is likely to be met with huge opposition to the proposal.
Many golf courses own land with covenants, many just lease the land, many are in green belts, but obviously many do hold the land with good and free title, another problem however could lie in the constitution of the club and some may be set up CASC, which is very restrictive, lots of clubs have turned CASC recently in order to avoid paying full business rates, it needs very carefull thought if you have ownership of land because the methodology of an Amateur Sports Club means not for profit and any land profit becomes the profit for the government rather than the golf club. It is minefield and the clarity of the document itself makes for differences in its interpretation.
A possibility how a club could raise money could be raise money via selling shares in the club itself, so it changes from being a club to effectively private, You could issue £1,000,000 value of stock say offering each member the right to buy. If you had 500 members each share would be £2,000. A member could buy or decline, there would be a number of decliners and others could take up the excess, like in a rights issue. The club is worth more than £1,000,000, but with convenants and restrictions the non-stockholders could be given some protection, it seems crazy that in theory no one actually owns the club, so effectively the land is common.