In my view, increasing the size of the clubhouse should only be done to suit the members and even so only if it can be afforded on a sustainable basis.
By sustainable I mean not making assumptions that the good days will last and that you will always have visitor income to not only pay for the build but also the increased running costs.
That said, that's just my view and the membership in general might think different. Each to their own.
Niall
I've been calling that Country Club Disease for at least three decades, and if you think it might happen here and there in Scotland, it's practically an epidemic in the parts of the U.S. that I've lived in.
The course i grew up on, the course I played in South Dakota, the country club I joined in Kansas and the club my parents joined in after retiring were all sunk, or nearly sunk by clubhouse debt.
The first one was bailed out by a group of local "angel" investors who saw the place as important to our little town. Without their money, I'm not sure where the club and course would have gone.
The second had gone under as a private club shortly before I moved to Pierre having been owned by a country club and an Elks Club. The city was leasing it and there were shoulder-high kochia weeds in the bunkers. The city later bought it and it's been operated as a muni since the late 1970s.
The third was a thriving club in 1988 when a fire destroyed the clubhouse. The Board at the time wasn't satisfied with rebuilding on the insurance money. So they borrowed about $1.2 million to build an edifice. It was porrly designed and used materials that required too much maintenance.
When I joined in the late 90s the club was still carrying almost a million dollars in debt and didn't reduce it at all while I was there. In the end the bank took it over after about 25 years and it is now operated by Great Life Golf and Fitness, who I think bought it for about the debt.
My mother's club is still okay but has had some tough times over the years. I don't recall how long ago, but the board proposed a new clubhouse and members voted it down. The had to authority to remodel without approval and when the demo was done there was almost nothing left but a bare concrete slab. IIRC they spent more than $3 million.
Having asked questions of some of the people involved in these decisions the usual answer was that the clubhouse was going to subsidize the golf course with all the "events" they were going have. It's fantasy land, because F&B pretty much never makes a profit at private clubs unless you do the accounting without charging F&B for any of the clubhouse overhead.
At my club in Kansas, the only costs F&B showed in the books was labor and materials. Worse, the golf course budget didn't show one dime of income.
A longtime member and several time board member told me, "(the superintendent) and his crew do great work but they're just a drag on the budget. Without Food and Beverage we'd have gone under a long time ago."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
K