Thanks to all for posting. I like reading about everyday golf clubs. Sometimes I find myself wondering “what’s wrong with your club?” and why more folks don’t write more about where they play most of their golf. I guess that I fall into that category of golfer that would rather be playing golf at almost any venue than not playing at all. Good to hear that many of you find your golf club meets your needs and expectations. For me, golf is all about having fun with friends.
I own and run a very ordinary golf course located in a pretty spectacular place. It’s all about affordable golf. And, yes, you can play here all year for the cost of one round at Pebble and a portion of your rate for a night in the Lodge. It’s a public course but functions very like a golf club as most of the rounds are played by season pass holders who call themselves members. The conditioning is minimal to keep the cost low. It’s a sand-based course and plays beautifully firm and fast. The clubhouse is modest and even more informal than Rich’s ideal club in Scotland (I love the place, don’t change it). The dress code is you have to wear clothes. There is a well-used bar and just basic food (sandwiches, burgers, dogs, etc.) on a daily basis, breakfast only on weekends and holidays. We do specials and dinners for events, outings, weddings, and other functions that we cater. F & B prices are inexpensive so our goal is to break even or make a few dollars. The staff is under-paid but love working here, especially the golfers. The course is fun to play, has great bones, very scenic, easy to walk, and easy to get on almost all of the time. We’re open year-around, however December and January can be cold and snowy and some years we only have 9 holes open for play during those winter months. The pace of play is decent, mostly under 4 hours, but, being public, we do have issues on very busy days. So, in many ways, we share some attributes that many of you describe as ideal.
As for my personal afflictions, I’ll be 65 my next birthday and many of our golfers are similarly experienced. I like to play fast, so I choose to play when I can play at a pace I enjoy. That’s not a problem for me or my golf pals. We play a lot. So do most of our “members” who probably average 50 or more rounds a year. By fast I mean 3-3.5 hours in a group of 4 or 5, but I have played many rounds in the 2-2.5 hour range, as I did recently at Clear Creek Tahoe with a golf pal, and somewhat surprising to the host pro. (Very cool course, BTW, we were about the only golfers, and didn’t mind a bit that they were punching the greens).
When I say our course is ordinary, I’m taking into consideration that most of you guys play some incredible golf courses. I’ve played a few as well and appreciate the difference between a great course and almost everything else. However, I love our course, our golfers, the club, and think that most of you would have a very good time playing golf here. You would remember your round, even if you thought the course was short (6800 yds), quite scruffy, quirky, and the service friendly, but minimal. It’s just a solid, small town golf course in a pretty wild and wooly place.
I won’t go so far as to say it’s an ideal club because it’s very hard to make it all work as well as we do. It’s a fun job being the benevolent dictator of your own golf club, but it’s also a very difficult business to be in if your goal is to make a lot of money. I wish every day I had a bunch of golf nuts like you guys as members. We could be a very good golf course and club. We’ve got our share of golf nuts, of course, and I love them all, but a lot of them have very different expectations about the game from those expressed here.
Affordable is a relative term. As far as the golf goes, we’re a downright cheap place to play. Cheap and good is a difficult combination to pull off. I’m not complaining; it’s a good life and most of the time really fun. Another difficult thing for me is that I’ve drunk the kool-aid about how good golf can be, know how much better our course could be, while also understanding our golfers and market. Very frustrating knowing what we should do, what would be ideal for us, but also having to be realistic about the business side of things.
So, if any of you guys are looking for an ideal club, have a burning desire to turn a large fortune into a smaller one, don’t mind life in the rural West, want to exercise your golfing imaginations on a unique landscape, I’ve got just the place. Otherwise, enjoy your golf wherever you can. It’s supposed to be fun.