Joe:
I don't know what “semi-private” means. Either a course is public, meaning anyone can pay a greens fee & play, or it is private, where only members can play. Semi-private seems to be a marketing term to make public golf look like more than it is.
I live outside of DC. Public (or semi-private, if you prefer) golf costs between $80 and $150 per round on weekends. Annual passes (or semi-private membership, if that sounds classier) cost between $3000 and $6000. One would need to play more than 40 rounds at the course makes that cost effective and probably more than 50 to justify limiting course choices to one a rewarding deal. Playing weekdays increases the number of rounds, but the equation changes little as weekday fees are much less.
No doubt there areas of the country where costs are much less. There are 4 NLE courses withing 10 miles of my home, all closed within the last 5 years and at least that many operating in Chap-11.
Currently I play with a couple of regular groups who shop the online tee time brokers for the best deals, restricting it to the half dozen best design/conditioned courses. I think that golf discounting is a temporary thing. When enough courses close, demand-supply will be back in balance.
A private club runs $15K-$100K and up for initiation, and anywhere from $500 and up monthly. (A couple of the above NLEs were private, including one that I was close to joining which took with it $50K of initiation from my neighbor...)
Ben:
Sounds like we agree in many areas. The point that I was trying to make, but likely didn't do a good job, is that private clubs should not try to be everything to everybody. They need to pick a specific product offering and stick to it.
Either cater to a specific market. For example:
1 - Hard core golfers with an affordable golf-focused offering (no fancy restaurant, pool, or other non-golf add-ons) [Many UK courses?]
2 – Families (have an easy to play course, lots of tee lengths, pool, tennis, kid stuff, no expectations of fast-play golf)
3 – Elite private (big name course, manicured conditions, fancy clubhouse & restaurant, high prices, exclusivity)
4 – “Goofy golf” (foot-golf, large holes, blasting music, fancy food, less than 18 hole rounds) [Maybe TopGolf has this one]
Over a long golf career, I've belonged to the first 3. This winter, I'm going to TopGolf for grins to round out the sample. I prefer #1. I acknowledge that others with different needs will prefer others.
Again, my point is that clubs need to decide on a focus area and stick to it. Trying to do it all alienates a lot of the potential members for one reason or another.