Best Private Course that's 'joinable'

[Carl Nichols]

Carl,

It was not an attack on you, per se.

What it was an indictment that anyone here, other than a particular club's member, has ANY worthwhile insight on what it takes to join a certain private club. Providing a list that suggests, insinuates, or even alludes to some judgement upon availability is speculative at best, and misleading at worst. It is, IMHO, exactly contributes to the dilution of respect for this site by those in the golf world outside the immediate sphere of architecture.

Steve:
I understand and appreciate your opinion that it's not appropriate to discuss private club membership here.  But do you really believe that the only club I have "ANY" insight into joining is the club to which I belong?  My club is within a five-mile radius of six other clubs, where I've been lucky enough to play many times with good friends, and with whom a typical topic of conversation is membership, including the current waiting list and initiation fee, etc.  One of those clubs (not mine) is a Golf Digest top 100 that's not a GCA favorite, and hence it's not on the unofficial GCA top 100 list.  But I can assure you that my views about what it takes to join that club are neither "speculative" nor "misleading."  I understand you might not think it appropriate for me to provide that information here--which, by the way, I haven't--but  I don't think it's fair to claim that there is no basis for that information. 

[Steve Lapper]

Carl,

It was not an attack on you, per se.

What it was an indictment that anyone here, other than a particular club's member, has ANY worthwhile insight on what it takes to join a certain private club. Providing a list that suggests, insinuates, or even alludes to some judgement upon availability is speculative at best, and misleading at worst. It is, IMHO, exactly contributes to the dilution of respect for this site by those in the golf world outside the immediate sphere of architecture.

Steve:
I understand and appreciate your opinion that it's not appropriate to discuss private club membership here.  But do you really believe that the only club I have "ANY" insight into joining is the club to which I belong?  My club is within a five-mile radius of six other clubs, where I've been lucky enough to play many times with good friends, and with whom a typical topic of conversation is membership, including the current waiting list and initiation fee, etc.  One of those clubs (not mine) is a Golf Digest top 100 that's not a GCA favorite, and hence it's not on the unofficial GCA top 100 list.  But I can assure you that my views about what it takes to join that club are neither "speculative" nor "misleading."  I understand you might not think it appropriate for me to provide that information here--which, by the way, I haven't--but  I don't think it's fair to claim that there is no basis for that information. 

Carl,

   If you had limited your list and response to the 7 (or 8,12,14) clubs in your nearby neighborhood and identified and qualified the information(color-coding) to just those, you'd be neither speculative, nor misleading and assumptive. If you'd attributed whatever opinion about any of the others beside your own, it could be considered valid.......but you did neither.....instead ventured nothing more than conjecture and reiterating some misleading group-think (i.e. Friar Head). To boot, you added a further assumption about the potential costs and the guess of whether others "might" be available.

   I live inside the NYC Metro area, own part of a private club that openly seeks more members and belong to others that do and don't, giving me plenty of good reasons to announce their availability. Yet, despite the desire to expand our membership roles, I DO NOT SEE GCA.com as the place to advertise, judge availability or unreasonably promote. I'm always happy to sponsor a GCA'er for play, but selling them on a membership is something I'm not trying to do. The experience(s) at each club should accomplish that.

  I respect each and every private club's right to conduct their own business their own way and while there are plenty of places I'd never care to join, I'd vehemently defend their right to define their membership on their own terms....not the subjective allusion of what might be easy, easier, or hard according to colors.

[Bill Seitz]

There are some requirements (eg, must belong to another club and not reside within 75 miles) which are spelled out on the club's web site - which is why I am comfortable sharing the info here.

http://www.stonewalllinks.com/pages/partnership.html

Kevin, what's the rationale behind requiring one to be a member at another club?  Is it just because it's so close to New York that they don't want national members to use it more than national members might typically be expected to use a facility (say, roughly once a month or so)? 

[Kevin_D]

There are some requirements (eg, must belong to another club and not reside within 75 miles) which are spelled out on the club's web site - which is why I am comfortable sharing the info here.

http://www.stonewalllinks.com/pages/partnership.html

Kevin, what's the rationale behind requiring one to be a member at another club?  Is it just because it's so close to New York that they don't want national members to use it more than national members might typically be expected to use a facility (say, roughly once a month or so)? 

Bill,

Good question. I'm not 100% sure, but that may be part of it (although the number of rounds allowed is pretty liberal - playing all weekend counts as one visit). I think that in part it outsources any vetting process - if someone belongs to another reputable club, odds are that they know how to conduct themselves on a golf course. But Stonewall is VERY relaxed, and I would add that since joining 2 years ago I have been treated as if I were a full fledged member (I wondered if I would be treated as a second class citizen being a national member - nothing could be further from the truth).

I forgot to add that the club is hosting the Mid-Am in 2016.

[Howard Riefs]

Now, another question, just to avoid violating protocol in the future.  I know it is possible my family could be moving to one of a couple destinations in the south in the future.  I've often thought if that happened, I'd reach out here for suggestions on clubs, because this site tends to be represented everywhere.  Obviously, the preferred method is to try and be familiar with posters so it's easy to reach out to those in the area to gather information, but is there something inherently wrong with saying "I'm moving to city Y and looking for information on the clubs in that area"?

Perfectly fine and acceptable. Here's a good recent example:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58169.0.html

[Carl Nichols]

Steve:

I used the clubs near me just as examples of clubs where my take is non-speculative, even though I'm not a member of them.  But there are other clubs, including several that I highlighted (or didn't) on the list, where my take would be similarly non-speculative.  I will candidly admit, however, that that's not true of every course I made a judgment about on the list -- especially many that I assumed are very difficult to join but don't have any direct knowledge about, such as ANGC.

As for the "might" category, I was trying only to highlight, out of the universe of all the Unofficial GCA Top 100 (which includes many public and/or international courses), those (a) private clubs (b) in the United States that, as I said, (c) "might be reasonably easy to join but I have no idea if that's the case."  I wasn't trying to suggest that I believed they were easy to join, only that I had no information either way.  The underlined language was specifically designed to make that clear, although I can see how it got lost. 

More generally, we will have to disagree about the level of discourse about membership that's appropriate here.  This thread struck me as a very general discussion about whether some club is hard to get into or not, and that seems pretty harmless to me; I doubt Carmargo cares a whole lot that we are discussing the fact that it's a hard club to join, even if that might not be the impression it wants to give off.

(Note that on a thread earlier this year regarding how difficult it can be to find out specific membership information about certain clubs, my reaction was that, if a prospective member was really serious about a club, s/he easily could find that information out -- either by talking to someone, calling the club, or otherwise doing something other than just going on the internet.  I still feel that way, but primarily because such information is easy to get for someone who's serious about joining a place -- not because there's something wrong with talking generally about whether a club is hard to get into or not.)

[John Kavanaugh]

The reputation of Friars Head has been greatly damaged by this thread.  I could care less to go out of my way to play a course that anyone can join.  Before I had understood there was a wait list just to play.

[Nigel Islam]

The reputation of Friars Head has been greatly damaged by this thread.  I could care less to go out of my way to play a course that anyone can join.  Before I had understood there was a wait list just to play.

Maybe its because I live in Indiana, but I really know nothing about Friar's Head other than who designed it. I am not sure I really know anything now either. I am not sure there has been all that much revealed in the thread that we don't already know. There are very few modern clubs that are doing so well that they can keep people on a wait list for 10 years. Once you get into the old money clubs then the game changes......

[Jud_T]

Carl,

It was not an attack on you, per se.

What it was an indictment that anyone here, other than a particular club's member, has ANY worthwhile insight on what it takes to join a certain private club. Providing a list that suggests, insinuates, or even alludes to some judgement upon availability is speculative at best, and misleading at worst. It is, IMHO, exactly contributes to the dilution of respect for this site by those in the golf world outside the immediate sphere of architecture.

Steve:
I understand and appreciate your opinion that it's not appropriate to discuss private club membership here.  But do you really believe that the only club I have "ANY" insight into joining is the club to which I belong?  My club is within a five-mile radius of six other clubs, where I've been lucky enough to play many times with good friends, and with whom a typical topic of conversation is membership, including the current waiting list and initiation fee, etc.  One of those clubs (not mine) is a Golf Digest top 100 that's not a GCA favorite, and hence it's not on the unofficial GCA top 100 list.  But I can assure you that my views about what it takes to join that club are neither "speculative" nor "misleading."  I understand you might not think it appropriate for me to provide that information here--which, by the way, I haven't--but  I don't think it's fair to claim that there is no basis for that information.  

Carl,

   If you had limited your list and response to the 7 (or 8,12,14) clubs in your nearby neighborhood and identified and qualified the information(color-coding) to just those, you'd be neither speculative, nor misleading and assumptive. If you'd attributed whatever opinion about any of the others beside your own, it could be considered valid.......but you did neither.....instead ventured nothing more than conjecture and reiterating some misleading group-think (i.e. Friar Head). To boot, you added a further assumption about the potential costs and the guess of whether others "might" be available.

   I live inside the NYC Metro area, own part of a private club that openly seeks more members and belong to others that do and don't, giving me plenty of good reasons to announce their availability. Yet, despite the desire to expand our membership roles, I DO NOT SEE GCA.com as the place to advertise, judge availability or unreasonably promote. I'm always happy to sponsor a GCA'er for play, but selling them on a membership is something I'm not trying to do. The experience(s) at each club should accomplish that.

  I respect each and every private club's right to conduct their own business their own way and while there are plenty of places I'd never care to join, I'd vehemently defend their right to define their membership on their own terms....not the subjective allusion of what might be easy, easier, or hard according to colors.

Steve,

Thanks for not only defending a club's right to conduct it's business as it sees fit, and in private if they so desire, but also for your discretion in not using GCA to proselytize for the club you're involved with.  Frankly it makes the club that much more attractive to those of us who still value such things. Now if others would only show as much restraint...

[BHoover]

The reputation of Friars Head has been greatly damaged by this thread.  I could care less to go out of my way to play a course that anyone can join.  Before I had understood there was a wait list just to play.

So which course do you care less to go out of your way to play than Friar's Head?  I'm curious which course that would be that you actually care less to plat, because you have indicated that it is indeed possible for you to actually care less.

[Howard Riefs]

The reputation of Friars Head has been greatly damaged by this thread.  I could care less to go out of my way to play a course that anyone can join.  Before I had understood there was a wait list just to play.

Since when do you take all that you read here as gospel?

[Sean_A]

People gotta lighten up.  Golf is game no matter if its played at a holy shrine of the sport or on the streets.  The thread was harmless enough despite JakaB's typical laments.  If mistakes were made so be it - what does it really matter?  Be like the Dutch, live and let live.

Ciao

[David Lott]

Riviera?
Valley Club?
MPCC?
Eugene?
Waverley?
Palmetto?
AugustaCC?
Clear Creek?

Palmetto--no problem. Valley Club--you are dreaming. No clue about the others.

it would be fun to live on Long Island, no doubt

[John Kavanaugh]

The reputation of Friars Head has been greatly damaged by this thread.  I could care less to go out of my way to play a course that anyone can join.  Before I had understood there was a wait list just to play.

So which course do you care less to go out of your way to play than Friar's Head?  I'm curious which course that would be that you actually care less to plat, because you have indicated that it is indeed possible for you to actually care less.

After reading this thread I would put Friars Head on par with Sage Valley just a notch below The Alotian. Before this thread I had it equal to Oakmont. I'm sorry but internet rumors hurt reputations.

[BHoover]

The reputation of Friars Head has been greatly damaged by this thread.  I could care less to go out of my way to play a course that anyone can join.  Before I had understood there was a wait list just to play.

So which course do you care less to go out of your way to play than Friar's Head?  I'm curious which course that would be that you actually care less to plat, because you have indicated that it is indeed possible for you to actually care less.

After reading this thread I would put Friars Head on par with Sage Valley just a notch below The Alotian. Before this thread I had it equal to Oakmont. I'm sorry but internet rumors hurt reputations.

I'm going to go on record and say that I'll happily take your place if and when you are supposed to play Oakmont. I'd hate to make you suffer, so I'll jump on that grenade for you!

[J.D. Griffith]

People gotta lighten up.  Golf is game no matter if its played at a holy shrine of the sport or on the streets.  The thread was harmless enough despite JakaB's typical laments.  If mistakes were made so be it - what does it really matter?  Be like the Dutch, live and let live.

Ciao

+1  I take my golf seriously, but try not to take myself, or where I choose to golf too seriously.

[Mike Sweeney]

After reading this thread I would put Friars Head on par with Sage Valley just a notch below The Alotian. Before this thread I had it equal to Oakmont. I'm sorry but internet rumors hurt reputations.

John,

Can you list your Top 10 courses played east of the Ohio River not located in Florida. Europe can count too.

Thanks

[JC Jones]

After reading this thread I would put Friars Head on par with Sage Valley just a notch below The Alotian. Before this thread I had it equal to Oakmont. I'm sorry but internet rumors hurt reputations.

John,

Can you list your Top 10 courses played east of the Ohio River not located in Florida. Europe can count too.

Thanks

Questions the man who spends all of his time in New York City, New England or Disney World.

We midwesterners all know that you northeast elite view your part of the world to be so superior to ours.

[John Kavanaugh]

Brian,

I'm sorry you misunderstood me. I'd go out of my way to play Oakmont.  I don't have a problem with the OP's original question. It's the answers that bother me.

As a matter of fact I'm sure that Friars Head is not easy to join. Anyone familiar with the history of the club and the integrity of the ownership knows better. I'm just illustrating that when people spread rumors about clubs the negative affect can be far reaching. I was probably all ready blackballed anyway given my ongoing feud with their GCA gatekeeper.

Mike,

That would be no courses. I have zero interest in playing golf in that region of the country. Once I get to New York I never want to leave the city, but you knew that.

[BHoover]

Brian,

I'm sorry you misunderstood me. I'd go out of my way to play Oakmont.  I don't have a problem with the OP's original question. It's the answers that bother me.

My mistake. But you'll still take me to Oakmont, right?

[Mike Sweeney]

We midwesterners all know that you northeast elite view your part of the world to be so superior to ours.

Someday, I might even introduce you to my surf dudes:


 
If I can't bring these guys to my club, no need for me to apply. 

[John Kavanaugh]

No. I really don't understand the point of the question.

Damn, I forgot about when I drove my daughter's car back from Cornell. I have played some courses out east but don't feel like doing the research required to remember their names. We played a series of courses along the shores of Lake Ontario. Even stopped along the route at a public course just long enough to watch Tom Watson blow the Open. Great trip, great people.

[BCowan]

The word private should mean something, otherwise we're just a society of places like Radrick Farms.

Ok, please define private in the modern golf world.

Not public.

JC,

   go call Radrick and see if you can get on.  Don't have your HP call for you.  Just because the place doesn't have stock and initiation doesn't mean it isn't private!  It is accessible, not exclusive.  When your course has a waiting list, then come back and post your 2 cents!  Any place that takes you in, isn't private IMNSHFO!  

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Groucho Marx was a member of Hillcrest, even though he once famously proclaimed that he would not want to be a member of any club willing to have him as a member. When one club offered to waive its no-Jews rule for Groucho, provided he abstained from using the swimming pool, he remarked, "My daughter's only half Jewish, can she wade in up to her knees?" Groucho once noted: "As you may recall, the Hillcrest is the only country club in all of Greater Los Angeles that will accept Talmudic scholars such as myself as members."