Changing Your Golf Club?

[Rick Sides]

I just wanted to ask a question to the group.  MY current club is a really nice course but the membership is rude and gets a bit crowded.  The cost is also a bit expensive for my budget.  I was asked to join a nice club right across the street from my house with a good membership and the course is nice, but not the same as my current club.  Plus, the course across the street is affordable.  What should a man do?

[Jud_T]

If the club is too expensive:  Unless the course is so wonderful that you simply couldn't live without it, dump it.  A club is more than just the course.  Why would you pay up for a non-fun membership and an overcrowded course?

[Rick Sides]

My current club is like a 7 on the Doak and the club I'm considering is a 6

[Keith OHalloran]

A Doak 6 with better membership and closer to home? Do you really need our input?

[Rick Sides]

Keith,
I think your probably right on the money

[Tim Martin]

If the club is too expensive:  Unless the course is so wonderful that you simply couldn't live without it, dump it.  A club is more than just the course.  Why would you pay up for a non-fun membership and an overcrowded course?

+1

If you find the membership rude and not to your liking then it`s time to bail. Seems like the new club is the way to go. The quality of the new golf course across the street is very good not to mention the other pluses that you mentioned. I think you have to really like most things about the club especially when you are writing a good sized check to partake.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Only you can decide.

[Mark Chaplin]

A gentleman should spend his leisure time in the company of other gentlemen not louts, urchins and vagabonds.

[Brett_Morrissy]

Rick,
When you leave your old club for your new one across the road from your home, meet with the general manager and explain to him why you are leaving as you have detailed above.
Everyone will be the better for it. The greater good may well be served in the long run.

[Dan Herrmann]

How much $$ will you lose if you change clubs?

[John Shimp]

He wont lose any as its alreay gone.   Payback period on savings between the 2 considering a new initation is a different qestion.

[Jeff Shelman]

Nice club. Good membership. Across the street. Less cash.

Seems pretty good to me.

[Craig Disher]

A gentleman should spend his leisure time in the company of other gentlemen not louts, urchins and vagabonds.

Quite.

[Garland Bayley]

My current club is like a 7 on the Doak and the club I'm considering is a 6

It just seems to me it's not about Doak 6 vs. Doak 7. It's about the games played and the opportunity to play. I belong to the course near my home. I could belong to much better courses, but I prefer to have the opportunity to get to the course often.

When I am competing with my friends, I am not thinking about the quality of the golf holes, but what shots I have to make to win the hole.

[Bill_McBride]

He wont lose any as its alreay gone.   Payback period on savings between the 2 considering a new initation is a different qestion.

It's a legit question.  There are clubs where somebody buys your membership at market value, but it could take a while.   

[Scott Stearns]

Is there a third club in your town that has the best course?

do you use the practice tee--if so which is better?

where do you want to be on saturday at 8.30 in the morning?

generally if you need a shove to do these kind of things you dont want to do it.

[Mark Smolens]

A gentleman should spend his leisure time in the company of other gentlemen not louts, urchins and vagabonds.

Chappers, that could be one of my favorite lines. "Louts, urchins and vagabonds." Have to admit that many have considered me to be each at one time or another. Sounds like police report I once read about a group of "habitual ne'er do wells" who were congregating in a stairwall at Cabrini Green (a former public housing project in Chicago).

I'm not a club member, in some measure because there isn't one close to my neighborhood. While I have no desire to play most of , or a great majority of, my golf at a single club, I certainly understand one's reasons for doing so -- I like the endless variety of options facing the public golfer here in the Windy City. Given the choice, I'd pick the course that's closer to home, creating greater access, especially if I liked the membership better.