Level of sub's increase at private members clubs

[John Kavanaugh]

sound advice, sometimes you just want him to back up his flippant statement.  He won't ...

Bryan,

What didn't I answer?

[John Kirk]

I'll jump in for a second.  I know which course JK is referring to.

I've invested a lot of money as an early member of a couple golf clubs, helping them get built and established.  It's a bitter pill to swallow when I share the golf course with people who pay a small fraction of what I did, and get all the benefits of membership.  Not only at my club, but others as well.  This should not be hard to understand.  If you try to justify this type of club's existence by saying I should have waited, that I was stupid to invest early and made a bad investment, I'll be irritated at best.

As John says, it's possible to join a golf club and pay very reasonable monthly dues, as long as the club is paid for.  For these beautiful new clubs trying to recuperate their construction costs, it costs more, and these clubs are typically hungry for that little extra revenue they can get from a traveling club like the Outpost Club.  But it's tough if you're one of the members who paid big money up front.

Respectfully,
The other JK

[Bryan Icenhower]

I'll jump in for a second.  I know which course JK is referring to.

As do I.  And what percentage of those that are reading the Best Damn Clubs article know? 

There was not a single club mentioned in the write up of the Outpost club blurb. And when I went to their website there wasn't a single club referenced. 

I fail to see how they rub it in anyone's face in a national publication.

No arguing that getting in at the peak is a difficult pill to swallow.  Its no different than buying stock or a house at the very height.  No way around it, it can't feel good. 

[John Kirk]

So maybe John's referring to our GCA group, that we know which club he is referring.  I don't know.

I kind of feel like an intruder into this conversation, but I felt like sympathizing with that element of jealousy.  I should have kept my mouth shut.

Besides, isn't JK saying how he feels, nothing more?

[Bryan Icenhower]

He is more than free to say he doesn't like it. To say they are publicly rubbing it in his face is inaccurate IMO.

To get it back on topic - I would pay more because its not about justifying the cost for me personally.  More goes into it than a simple division to come up with an ROI. Liking where I play has as much or more to do with the other members, the friends made, the camaraderie, etc as liking the course itself. Getting away from work and escaping by doing something you like to do with those you like to do it with. You can't get that by getting access to a course for one round. You only get that by belonging. 

[Mark Chaplin]

John Kirk I know several people here who joined lovely ultra expensive clubs and for a couple of years enjoyed the fruits of their cash. Sadly the clubs went belly up and the "members" were left with nothing. In one fraudulent sounding case the club remained in family hands and the "members" lost their five figure investment. A little outside revenue may have helped them.

Is JK still boycotting Scotland?

[Thomas Dai]

Some interesting thoughts and numbers and views of other clubs in places afar, plus a line from Paul that rather appealed to me - "Humble golf is usually good golf".

The chap I was chatting to was to me being a bit bravado-like in his '5-10' comment but I know quite a few folk at private members clubs, admitted most, but not all, at the upper end of the golfers age scale, who would pay more. The "as long as I've got the money what else am I going to do with my life?" position is a surprisingly powerful one, the more so to folk for whom golf is a strong key element of their life.

atb

[Adam Lawrence]

Some interesting thoughts and numbers and views of other clubs in places afar, plus a line from Paul that rather appealed to me - "Humble golf is usually good golf".

The chap I was chatting to was to me being a bit bravado-like in his '5-10' comment but I know quite a few folk at private members clubs, admitted most, but not all, at the upper end of the golfers age scale, who would pay more. The "as long as I've got the money what else am I going to do with my life?" position is a surprisingly powerful one, the more so to folk for whom golf is a strong key element of their life.

atb

Yes, the irony is that those guys actually typically pay _lower_ subs because they're eligible for long service type discounts. Now I totally understand why clubs do that, but in some ways their future would look a lot brighter if they instead funnelled the money into discounts for younger people.

[John Kavanaugh]

John Kirk I know several people here who joined lovely ultra expensive clubs and for a couple of years enjoyed the fruits of their cash. Sadly the clubs went belly up and the "members" were left with nothing. In one fraudulent sounding case the club remained in family hands and the "members" lost their five figure investment. A little outside revenue may have helped them.

Is JK still boycotting Scotland?

My boycott of Scotland ended with the death of the released terrorist. 

[Jason Thurman]

John Kirk I know several people here who joined lovely ultra expensive clubs and for a couple of years enjoyed the fruits of their cash. Sadly the clubs went belly up and the "members" were left with nothing. In one fraudulent sounding case the club remained in family hands and the "members" lost their five figure investment. A little outside revenue may have helped them.

This is really the crux of the issue, right? Lots of clubs these days, regardless of where they're located, need a little extra cash on top of members' dues to break even. If they simply increase the number of guests they allow on the course, the members get offended and inevitably some will reach the tipping point and resign.

John may well be the only person at his club offended by their photo on the Outpost Club website, but he's not wrong about members disliking the fact that they pay high dues while unaccompanied guests or outings tee it up for a fraction of their per-round cost. There's a reason that semi-private clubs don't get to charge the same dues as fully private clubs, and it has little to do with the quality of the course itself. Exclusivity sells.

[Brent Hutto]

Our club has definitely gone the opposite direction from giving long-term members discounts. Younger members pay from 2/3 to 3/4 of the dues that I pay (and I'm only in my mid-50's by the way) depending on their age category. I won't say I agree with that decision as we're financially strapped as-is without having actually lowered the dues for about 40% of our existing members overnight.

But just now we're in the process of taking the final step toward our doom IMO. We have announced a new member recruitment program that lets them join and play for one year, no initiation fee, at a total yearly cost of less than half my dues. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather let punters show up and play the course for 50 bucks than have a bunch of transient, temporary members playing for a year at the equivalent of 20 bucks a round. It won't piss me off enough to leave but I suspect it will do for some of my fellow long-timers.

[BCowan]

Our club has definitely gone the opposite direction from giving long-term members discounts. Younger members pay from 2/3 to 3/4 of the dues that I pay (and I'm only in my mid-50's by the way) depending on their age category. I won't say I agree with that decision as we're financially strapped as-is without having actually lowered the dues for about 40% of our existing members overnight.

But just now we're in the process of taking the final step toward our doom IMO. We have announced a new member recruitment program that lets them join and play for one year, no initiation fee, at a total yearly cost of less than half my dues. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather let punters show up and play the course for 50 bucks than have a bunch of transient, temporary members playing for a year at the equivalent of 20 bucks a round. It won't piss me off enough to leave but I suspect it will do for some of my fellow long-timers.

Brent,

   does your course do Monday outings?  You don't think your course could bring in $80-$100 a player for public?  If exclusivity sells as another poster says, how come many of those courses are hurting?  What determines exclusivity, high monthly dues? 

[BCowan]

I'll jump in for a second.  I know which course JK is referring to.

I've invested a lot of money as an early member of a couple golf clubs, helping them get built and established.  It's a bitter pill to swallow when I share the golf course with people who pay a small fraction of what I did, and get all the benefits of membership.  Not only at my club, but others as well.  This should not be hard to understand.  If you try to justify this type of club's existence by saying I should have waited, that I was stupid to invest early and made a bad investment, I'll be irritated at best.

As John says, it's possible to join a golf club and pay very reasonable monthly dues, as long as the club is paid for.  For these beautiful new clubs trying to recuperate their construction costs, it costs more, and these clubs are typically hungry for that little extra revenue they can get from a traveling club like the Outpost Club.  But it's tough if you're one of the members who paid big money up front.

Respectfully,
The other JK

JK,

   So when people invest in a new course, it isn't for the ''Love of the Game'' or ''Spirit of the Game''?  Of course their is types that want to say they were an investor of X exclusive club.  That is a blanket outlook in my opinion.  I make fun of friends who are members or wanna be outpost members. 

[John Kavanaugh]

What determines exclusivity, high monthly dues?
 

Discreteness determines exclusivity.  I know more than a couple of guys who have lost memberships because they couldn't stop bragging about their deals.  We all get it, clubs need revenue.  Clubs have the right to let anyone play be they friends or just guys with cash.

As with all things, be they illegal, immoral or just downright gross, you can do anything that your imagination can conceive if you just master the art of honest discreteness.  

[BCowan]

What determines exclusivity, high monthly dues?
 

Discreteness determines exclusivity.  I know more than a couple of guys who have lost memberships because they couldn't stop bragging about their deals.  We all get it, clubs need revenue.  Clubs have the right to let anyone play be they friends or just guys with cash.

As with all things, be they illegal, immoral or just downright gross, you can do anything that your imagination can conceive if you just master the art of honest discreteness.  

Jkava,

  Not every club can be founded by Bobby Jones or top CEO gettaway clubs.  It is clubs trying to emulate them that is causing the demise.  Wannabe clubs.  Clubs have more of a spending problem and too many services which create revenue problems.  Again your courses name wasn't on the outpost website.  I thought you just wanted everyone to be happy ?

[Mike Hendren]

Very few members of the treehouse know that there's another big world out there.  Tom Paul's Big World Theory doesn't even begin to touch it. In fact, he's never seen it.  All across small town and rural America there are nine hole courses that having surprising bits and pieces of genuine golf architecture here and there.  They are unpretentious, adequately conditioned, uncrowded, a delight to play and the beer's cold and cheap.  It is golf and "membership" at its truest form.  And yes, dues are generally less than $100/month.  Most folks play all day.

I pity those of you who've never had the experience.  It's the equivalent of sand lot baseball whereas all too often we're focused here on the major league viewed from  luxury suites.

Bogey

[Brent Hutto]

B,

We do have 25-30 Monday outings a year. So that's an income stream although many of them have as few a 20 or so players. Not exactly a gold mine.

No way anyone pays $80-$100 to play our course even if we allowed outside, unaccompanied play. Just too many $25-$50 options in town for the number of round played nowadays. Including a lot of courses who styled themselves as exclusive and/or private just a few years back but now are open to anyone who walks up with $39 in hand for a round including cart.

Heck, there's one formerly private operation nearly contiguous with my club that offers golf with a cart plus lunch for somewhere in the $30's and will sell a monthly subscription for unlimited golf with cart and XXX number of lunches per month all for somewhere in the $120 range. Just nuts.

So other than the quality of the course and the high-touch service with the parking lot attendant, sizable clubhouse staff, etc. the only real draw of my club is some version of "exclusivity". There's a couple hundred of my fellow members for whom, like myself, something must make it worth staying around instead of going cheap somewhere down the street. To be frank, I really can't quite see what it is though. And I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

My own calculation assigns very limited value to "exclusivity". And lord knows I'd be happy to see our day-to-day staffing levels at some much lower, sustainable level. So I must be ponying up for routine access to a course with good-to-excellent putting greens that will allow me to walk the course 364 days a year instead of being limited to cart riders only on certain days or certain times of the day. That's a big deal to me but I'm not sure it applies to all that many people.

[Jason Thurman]

Very few members of the treehouse know that there's another big world out there.  Tom Paul's Big World Theory doesn't even begin to touch it. In fact, he's never seen it.  All across small town and rural America there are nine hole courses that having surprising bits and pieces of genuine golf architecture here and there.  They are unpretentious, adequately conditioned, uncrowded, a delight to play and the beer's cold and cheap.  It is golf and "membership" at its truest form.  And yes, dues are generally less than $100/month.  Most folks play all day.

I pity those of you who've never had the experience.  It's the equivalent of sand lot baseball whereas all too often we're focused here on the major league viewed from  luxury suites.

Bogey

Bingo. There are literally dozens of these places (some are even 18 holes!) within an hour or two of my inner city home. Within an hour of the smaller town where I grew up, almost every course fit the bill except for the one private course in town, which we all imagined was just like Augusta. The snob in me now would almost certainly dismiss the private course as a 3/10 not worth the guest fee today, but I still love those mom and pop courses I grew up on.

[John Kavanaugh]

What determines exclusivity, high monthly dues?
 

Discreteness determines exclusivity.  I know more than a couple of guys who have lost memberships because they couldn't stop bragging about their deals.  We all get it, clubs need revenue.  Clubs have the right to let anyone play be they friends or just guys with cash.

As with all things, be they illegal, immoral or just downright gross, you can do anything that your imagination can conceive if you just master the art of honest discreteness.  

Jkava,

  Not every club can be founded by Bobby Jones or top CEO gettaway clubs.  It is clubs trying to emulate them that is causing the demise.  Wannabe clubs.  Clubs have more of a spending problem and too many services which create revenue problems.  Again your courses name wasn't on the outpost website.  I thought you just wanted everyone to be happy ?

Go to their Twitter feed.  Outpost was great when it first started.  They protected both their members and the clubs where they played.  Now they are just another group a big fat obnoxious slobs bullying their way around other peoples courses and then bragging about it on social media.

The Digest thing was brought to me.  I don't read the magazine and was having a peaceful round when someone approached me asking what I thought and if I would keep paying dues at a club that is now obviously discounted.  It was an embarrassing conversation that I did not feel like having.  It's being made to feel uncomfortable that will cause me to leave a club, not what they are charging me.

[Brent Hutto]

Very few members of the treehouse know that there's another big world out there.  Tom Paul's Big World Theory doesn't even begin to touch it. In fact, he's never seen it.  All across small town and rural America there are nine hole courses that having surprising bits and pieces of genuine golf architecture here and there.  They are unpretentious, adequately conditioned, uncrowded, a delight to play and the beer's cold and cheap.  It is golf and "membership" at its truest form.  And yes, dues are generally less than $100/month.  Most folks play all day.

I pity those of you who've never had the experience.  It's the equivalent of sand lot baseball whereas all too often we're focused here on the major league viewed from  luxury suites.

Bogey

Mike,

That's where I started my golfing life and I'd say there's a distinct possibility that's where I'll finish it out a few years hence. I was in my early 30's when I first set foot on a golf course and the majority of my rounds during the first 10 years or so were at a semi-private places much as you describe (albeit 27 holes and not just 9!). It was three miles down the street from where we lived at the time.

Back then (1990's) there were about 15 or so such semi-privates within a 20-mile radius of my home. The one I played at was $20/round or $70/month which was near the low end price-wise. Most of them were more like $35/round and $100/month. A few of those are NLE but the remaining 9 or 10 of them are still around, still charging exactly the same or even slightly lower green fees and honest to goodness the one I used to play at still has a handful of guys playing there every day who were there when I was a member 15 years back.

The particular place I used to play has gotten very spotty in terms of conditioning nowadays. And that's not just my high-$$$ private country club preferences biasing me against low-$$$ public maintenance practices. It is often pretty darned bad, they've got one Par 4 that has had the tee box and the entire fairway "under repair" for five years now. People just stick a tee in the ground 150 yards from the green and play it like a Par 3! But anyway, the conditions aren't what they once were because now they're doing 8,000 rounds a year at the same greens fee they used to do 20,000 rounds and the money just isn't there.

For my part, the whole fly in the ointment is that around my neck of the woods that under the radar golf culture you're describing is nearly 100% based around riding in golf carts. Finding one of those cheap-n-cheerful places that will let me walk the course 100 mornings a year means severely compromising in terms of conditioning and course quality. But the day may come when I just have to make that compromise. It's very hard to justify having our single largest non-mortgage household expense being my country club membership when there are plenty of places to play a perfectly cromulent form of golf for pennies on the dollar, by comparison.

[jeffwarne]

What determines exclusivity, high monthly dues?
 

Discreteness determines exclusivity.  I know more than a couple of guys who have lost memberships because they couldn't stop bragging about their deals.  We all get it, clubs need revenue.  Clubs have the right to let anyone play be they friends or just guys with cash.

As with all things, be they illegal, immoral or just downright gross, you can do anything that your imagination can conceive if you just master the art of honest discreteness.  

Jkava,

  Not every club can be founded by Bobby Jones or top CEO gettaway clubs.  It is clubs trying to emulate them that is causing the demise.  Wannabe clubs.  Clubs have more of a spending problem and too many services which create revenue problems.  Again your courses name wasn't on the outpost website.  I thought you just wanted everyone to be happy ?

  It's being made to feel uncomfortable that will cause me to leave a club, not what they are charging me.

Very, very true words

[BCowan]

What determines exclusivity, high monthly dues?
 

Discreteness determines exclusivity.  I know more than a couple of guys who have lost memberships because they couldn't stop bragging about their deals.  We all get it, clubs need revenue.  Clubs have the right to let anyone play be they friends or just guys with cash.

As with all things, be they illegal, immoral or just downright gross, you can do anything that your imagination can conceive if you just master the art of honest discreteness.  

Jkava,

  Not every club can be founded by Bobby Jones or top CEO gettaway clubs.  It is clubs trying to emulate them that is causing the demise.  Wannabe clubs.  Clubs have more of a spending problem and too many services which create revenue problems.  Again your courses name wasn't on the outpost website.  I thought you just wanted everyone to be happy ?

Go to their Twitter feed.  Outpost was great when it first started.  They protected both their members and the clubs where they played.  Now they are just another group a big fat obnoxious slobs bullying their way around other peoples courses and then bragging about it on social media.

The Digest thing was brought to me.  I don't read the magazine and was having a peaceful round when someone approached me asking what I thought and if I would keep paying dues at a club that is now obviously discounted.  It was an embarrassing conversation that I did not feel like having.  It's being made to feel uncomfortable that will cause me to leave a club, not what they are charging me.

I understand this point and agree with you.  i don't follow Twiiter or GD. 

[Paul Gray]

John Kirk I know several people here who joined lovely ultra expensive clubs and for a couple of years enjoyed the fruits of their cash. Sadly the clubs went belly up and the "members" were left with nothing. In one fraudulent sounding case the club remained in family hands and the "members" lost their five figure investment. A little outside revenue may have helped them.

This is really the crux of the issue, right? Lots of clubs these days, regardless of where they're located, need a little extra cash on top of members' dues to break even. If they simply increase the number of guests they allow on the course, the members get offended and inevitably some will reach the tipping point and resign.

John may well be the only person at his club offended by their photo on the Outpost Club website, but he's not wrong about members disliking the fact that they pay high dues while unaccompanied guests or outings tee it up for a fraction of their per-round cost. There's a reason that semi-private clubs don't get to charge the same dues as fully private clubs, and it has little to do with the quality of the course itself. Exclusivity sells.

Exactly. So if there aren't enough lords of the empire about to keep the general public out, better to adopt what we're now calling the semi-private model than to cease to exist. If you want the course reserved for you and your friends, better be prepared to pay an ever increasing amount since your circle is shrinking. It's only the same scenario which British golf experienced some years back.

[Paul Gray]

Our club has definitely gone the opposite direction from giving long-term members discounts. Younger members pay from 2/3 to 3/4 of the dues that I pay (and I'm only in my mid-50's by the way) depending on their age category. I won't say I agree with that decision as we're financially strapped as-is without having actually lowered the dues for about 40% of our existing members overnight.

But just now we're in the process of taking the final step toward our doom IMO. We have announced a new member recruitment program that lets them join and play for one year, no initiation fee, at a total yearly cost of less than half my dues. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather let punters show up and play the course for 50 bucks than have a bunch of transient, temporary members playing for a year at the equivalent of 20 bucks a round. It won't piss me off enough to leave but I suspect it will do for some of my fellow long-timers.

This doesn't sound unlike the situation at many of the proprietary clubs in Britain where there's no joining fee, annual fees are settled by haggling and there's no such thing as full. The only way it works for the company is to employ a really good salesman and pretend he's something else by giving him the title of Membership Manager. Membership is essential a conveyor belt operation and so long as your man can get the innocent new members through the door as quickly as the disaffected ones are leaving you can actually make a profit.

[Brent Hutto]

Paul,

The difference being in our case it's a member owned club. But we've gradually taken one page after another from the proprietary playbook, it seems. I'm the least business-savvy country club member in the world so what do I know but it sure feels like an end-game tactic to me, which makes me sad.