What would cause you to leave your club?

[John Sabino]

Too many morons playing music from their bags/carts disrupting the peaceful environment. It is increasingly becoming a problem.

[Sean_A]

I quit two clubs. One was because of the liberal use of temporary greens in winter. The other was due to disliking how the club was managed and the resulting poor decisions.

I am thinking of quiting another club because the course is too crowded. Its to the point now where I don't even bother trying to get my optimum times.

Ciao

[Wayne_Kozun]

Paddleball and pickleball. I have never witnessed two made up  sports suck up so much of club finances.

Curling

[Wayne_Kozun]

Location can make this very difficult.  I live in Toronto and there aren't many courses in the city.  I am about a three minute drive from my course, since I joined the club 23 years ago I have moved twice, both times closer to the club.  Other golf clubs would be about a 30 minute drive, or more in rush hour traffic.  Even if I get pissed off about various things it is hard to give up the convenience of living that close to the club.

[Carl Rogers]

An expensive inept remodeling.

[Doug Wright]

Why would I leave my club? Probably nothing to do with the golf course. If the culture changed to where I didn’t want to be there, I’m gone.

[John Kavanaugh]

Nothing more fun than a club that doesn’t want you there so you show up every day out of spite.  Some days you don’t even golf, just have a drink, knock around a free balls, anything to make them look at your ugly mug and smile. Then just when they know they can’t win...Quit.

[Carl Johnson]

About a year after I joined my club I sent the board a resignation letter, effective at the end of the summer season.  Soon after, I said, "whoops," I don't really want to do that and was allowed to revoke my resignation letter before the effective date.  Reason for the abandoned resignation: I was still working full time and in looking at it, I was hardly ever able to play golf at the club, so it seemed like a bad deal for me.  Why the "whoops"?  I started thinking about retirement and that since it wasn't all that expensive to keep paying dues and the food minimum, if I could hold on until I retired and had all the time to play I could work in, it would be a very good long term deal.  It has been.

[Steve Lang]

   Not sure, after 30 years at WCC, seen many things, but hard to beat convenience of playing 5.5 courses at 5 to 15 minutes away... only a big injury would take me out.

[Tommy Williamsen]

  Not sure, after 30 years at WCC, seen many things, but hard to beat convenience of playing 5.5 courses at 5 to 15 minutes away... only a big injury would take me out.

WCC?

[Steve Lang]

   Tommy,


WCC is The Woodlands Country Club, north side of Houston

[Anthony Butler]

Re-appointing Greg Norman as the consulting architect... I have already warned the club president (a former class mate) that my reaction should that occur might be 'unpredictable'.

[jeffwarne]

Re-appointing Greg Norman as the consulting architect... I have already warned the club president (a former class mate) that my reaction should that occur might be 'unpredictable'.

Was he the original architect?

[Kalen Braley]

It seems like the conventional wisdom of the 1 person membership vs  1 + spouse should be questioned.

Who is more likely to spend more time down at the club on the range or the course?  A married guy with additional responsibilities trying to balance the home/work/relationship/leisure?  Or the single person where perhaps its just work and golf?

Seems like a single guy would get far more use of the facilities in the aggregate over a 1+ spouse arrangement.

[corey miller]

I could be enticed to leave a club when the majority of the members try to micro-manage the fee structure in a way to "penalize" others for various reasons rather than being attuned to the collective. 


Every year that ratio changes, I am sure we are getting near the tipping point. 

[Daryl David]

Sounds like a good time to repeat my father’s advice to me years ago.


“Never join a club owned by the members. Only join one owned my a dictator whose values happen to align with yours”.

[Ira Fishman]

Two reasons regarding club itself (versus personal health or wealth):


1. Play becomes too slow, particularly when sneaking out for nine holes during the week.


2. Members think it is okay to treat staff with anything except respect.


Ira

[Jeff Schley]

Outside of losing one of the two courses, probably an unnecessary large assessment for non-golf related capital projects. I have heard about some rather steep 5 figure assessments at clubs and that would give me pause if it wasn't golf related.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Outside of losing one of the two courses, probably an unnecessary large assessment for non-golf related capital projects. I have heard about some rather steep 5 figure assessments at clubs and that would give me pause if it wasn't golf related.

Jeff, I was a member at a club that out to a vote doing one of three things: enlarge the clubhouse, regrass the fairways and greens, and enlarge and improve the practice area. We voted but never found out what the vote was. The BoD decided to do all three and gave us a very large assessment. We lost dozens of members and the club never recovered and was sold.

[Tom Allen]

I quit because of lack of time to play.  As the kids got older, and my weekends were consumed (happily) with their practices and games and tournaments, I could no longer justify paying dues to a course I very rarely played.

[Anthony Butler]

Re-appointing Greg Norman as the consulting architect... I have already warned the club president (a former class mate) that my reaction should that occur might be 'unpredictable'.

Was he the original architect?

The original architect was Alister MacKenzie.. Tom Doak was appointed a couple of years ago.

Both the current and former General Managers have emailed me saying that was the "right decision'...

If I could bounce Norman off the membership list I'd be even happier.

[Jerry Kluger]

The only thing that would cause me to leave my club was if I was no longer able to play golf.  The club is two minutes from my house, we have 3 courses which I would never claim to be outstanding gca but most importantly, I have a group of about 30 guys, nearly all of whom are retired and we have games everyday except Monday when they are closed.  We also have a benevolent dictator as an owner where we pay our dues and we have no food minimums and no assessments.  Sure, there are things that could be better but to me having fun with friends is the most important part of the game and I get that at my club.

[Kyle Harris]

Quitting your club because of overcrowding and the subsequent price increase is a three-way solution.

[jeffwarne]

Outside of losing one of the two courses, probably an unnecessary large assessment for non-golf related capital projects. I have heard about some rather steep 5 figure assessments at clubs and that would give me pause if it wasn't golf related.

 regrass the fairways and greens, and enlarge and improve the practice area. We voted but never found out what the vote was.

This seems to be a constant thing-regrassing with the latest grass/strains of grass,of which there is rarely any grass alive/available to the clubface at all around the greens once the project is done and the maintenance practices applied. The once ON the greens the slopes have to be altered because the "pins aren't fair"
My two most enjoyable rounds of the year came consecutively on the courses with the MOST grass, one with an unlimited budget and a heavy overseed, the other a humble 9 hole muni.
In both cases the fairways had abundant undulation which actually mattered in the fairways because the ball would stop on a severe sidehill or downhill lie in the fairway, encouraging driving accuracy,making angles matter and requiring skill to execute from(as opposed to rolling to a flat area or rough) and in both cases the greens (at least the day I played) were the appropriate speed to make the highly interesting and undulating greens shine, while enabling some more severe, interesting fun pins on slopes of multiple degrees.


I just wish we more critically evaluated the courses down the street(The Jones') and the way they played, before we tried to "keep up with" them