[mike_beene]

I would not want to think about it but the cost is mitigated Because we have a 12 month season.I play probably 3 to 4 rounds a month so 200 dollars US but I get all the practice I want including balls and good short game areas and I get a lot of use out of that so no apples to apples is possible

[Sam Morrow]

I pay $150 a month, have played 18 twice out there since June but hit balls almost everyday, I still am getting over on the deal.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Just curious to see the range.  What do folks think is their average green fee cost per round?

I think folks have got the wrong end of Sean's stick - he was asking about green fees, not membership dues divided by rounds played.

But to answer both questions;

Most clubs in the UK charge between £750 and £1250 per year for unlimited golf. Play twice a week like myself and you're down to £10 a round. Many guys at my club play five times a week working out at £4 a round. Conversely, others play maybe 30 rounds a year at a cost per round of over £30.


As for green fees, good quality second-tier courses like the ones Sean espouses typically have a rack rate of between £40 and £60. Search out on-line deals however, and the same courses can often be played for £20 - £30.

Drop down a tier and perfectly enjoyable golf can be played at many private members clubs for a green fee of £10 - £15

[Kevin_Reilly]

I think folks have got the wrong end of Sean's stick - he was asking about green fees, not membership dues divided by rounds played.

He mentioned mandatory fees for private club members, so what else would that be except monthly dues?

[Duncan Cheslett]

I don't know - the question is somewhat confused.

Sean?

[Mark Chaplin]

£1500 in dues and around 30 games a year so £50 a round, high by UK standards!! If Sean is asking about greenfee rounds then it's lower as I'm usually a guest so they cost an average of £25.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Why is this important?

I curious about your question. There must be a cut-off point for most golfers, where the cost/round becomes too expensive to justify membership. Maybe it's $30 for one person and $300 for another.

[Mac Plumart]

I feel that the golf experience is not as simple as cost per round.  Perhaps much like the car you drive.  You could go really cheap and drive a used piece of junk and have a really low cost, which would make sense doing a simple analysis like we are doing on this thread.  But that overlooks safety, reliability, performance, etc.

Given this, it seems that many of the people on this site would love to be members of Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Merion, Sand Hills, or some other wonderful club/course.  If afforded that opportunity many of us would take it, even though it may be more expensive than the cheapest local muni near where you live. 

Along those lines, we all have a cost range that we can afford and certain things we value.  I'd imagine, most of us seek to strike the balance between what we can afford and what we like rather than simply get the cheapest form of golf.

Rather than "Average Cost Per Round", I think we should focus on "Enjoyment Per Round."  From there it is up to each of us to stay within our budget and live within our means...assuming you want to do that.

[Jud_T]

Isn't this mostly down to geography and number of rounds?  There are guys who belong to very expensive clubs yet play 150 rounds a year and there are guys who live in the middle of nowhere yet only play a couple of pricey rounds a year on vacation.  There are guys who belong to 30 private clubs and may only get out once a year at each (believe it, I met one), and there are guys who belong to bargain clubs and milk it for every red cent.  Fyi, the cost of golf is not the same within an hour of Tokyo or New York as it is here:

http://prisonviewgolf.com/
 
56 cents a hole and scenery!

Personally, in the good old days I used to drop $225 a round, now it's probably a third of that yet I'm playing better courses.  Thank you Brad Klein and GCA..... Of course now I don't have paper slippers in the shower and Tiger and MJ making the turn.  

[Sean_A]

Well

I wasn't trying to pinpoint price per round merely at one's club.  I was shooting for price per round overall and hoping guys would flesh it out as they pleased.  

For instance, I reckon my per club rounds are about £25 per game.  My away games are more plentiful and probably more costly.  Maybe pushing my average to £30ish/$50ish per game while playing ~30 different courses in year.  I reckon this about tops my tolerance level so far as green fees are concerned.  If prices increased more I would probably start cutting back on the golf.  After a long period of increasing spending on golf when I moved to the UK, the past five years I have gone through two cut backs when I left my local club and later ditched a country membership.  I also crossed off several courses from MY PLAY LIST due to increased green fees.  My rounds have certainly gone down, but my price per round went up - yet not to the point where I spend more than previously.  I wonder how many other folks on this board are being driven away from the places they love or at least want to love because of cost?  

I still consider myself very fortunate.  While I could certainly play cheaper in Michigan and surrounding states on good enough courses, I don't believe the quality, variety or access exists to keep me fully engaged in the game the way I am now.  This is where your enjoyment factor comes in Mac.

Ciao

[Scott_Burroughs]

Even as a 'cheapskate', I long ago stopped obsessing about it (though I still think about it on occasion), especially since I've been at a private club for over 4 years now.  How do you figure price per round when you factor in the initiation fee?  Is that just overhead?  My daughter and wife play, too....so those are other factors that go into the denominator.  Range is included, too (these are all factors that differ vs. public courses...also F&B minimums that I otherwise wouldn't spend at those rates).  I forgot about the nice facilities for pool & tennis, too.

Also, being a member forces you to 'use it' (play) more.  And by that, I mean we're paying for it, so the wife let's you 'use it' more.  

The convenience, tournaments, and camaraderie make up for any differences in cost per round.

[Jud_T]

Sean,

I'd say on this side of the pond things have gotten a lot more reasonable since the financial bubble burst.  On the private side initiation fees are down dramatically at most clubs and nonexistent in some cases.  Access is also much improved.  On the public side there are plenty of reasonable options available.  It's a buyer's market for golf in the states.  Finding courses and conditioning which meet our standards is another matter.  I'm surprised that pricing is heading the other way in the UK.  Perhaps it's because it was so reasonable to begin with.

[ChipRoyce]

I'm going to play 60 rounds or so this year and figure my cost (50 private + 10 rounds while traveling/vacation/buddies trip) will get me to an average round of about $75 per round. I backed out the part of my private dues that modestly covers tennis & pool that we also use at our club.

[David_Tepper]

Weekend green fees at most of the good to very good public/muni golf courses in the San Francisco area are in the $50-$70 range. The "resort-type" courses are probably $20-$40 more.

[Brent Hutto]

Oh Lord, was I supposed to count my day at Kiawah in this year's average? That adds like four bucks a round to my average, right there. Sounds like to get back in line I'd better go play a bunch of rounds at the $15 course I played when I was a beginner.

[Garland Bayley]

I feel that the golf experience is not as simple as cost per round.  Perhaps much like the car you drive.  You could go really cheap and drive a used piece of junk and have a really low cost, which would make sense doing a simple analysis like we are doing on this thread.  But that overlooks safety, reliability, performance, etc.

Given this, it seems that many of the people on this site would love to be members of Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Merion, Sand Hills, or some other wonderful club/course.  If afforded that opportunity many of us would take it, even though it may be more expensive than the cheapest local muni near where you live.  

Along those lines, we all have a cost range that we can afford and certain things we value.  I'd imagine, most of us seek to strike the balance between what we can afford and what we like rather than simply get the cheapest form of golf.

Rather than "Average Cost Per Round", I think we should focus on "Enjoyment Per Round."  From there it is up to each of us to stay within our budget and live within our means...assuming you want to do that.

Sorry Mac, but I have to disagree. Enjoyment per round goes up very very slowly if you love golf. I can play a low cost track and laugh and enjoy myself and my playing partners very much. Playing a high cost track needs mental analysis to conclude I enjoyed it more, because if you love golf, there is a high baseline of enjoyment already built in just by getting the chance to play. That said, there are definitely disappointments that can detract from a round. Those disappointments are things like losing a ball, hitting OB, and hitting into a pond.

That said, when I joined my club I figured I was paying $6 per 18. My play has slackened off considerably since then, but I am looking forward to driving that down below $6 in retirement.

EDIT:
Actually, I was asked to curtail my joviality this year at a GCA event. So it seems that sometimes the more you pay the less you enjoy.

[Mac Plumart]

Garland...

To each, their own.  I respect what you say, but disagree.  We value different things in the experience of playing golf...not just you and me, but all of us.  Cost for me is not as important as achieving the experience I desire on a golf course.  If you find what you want on a $6 per round golf course...GREAT!  I haven't found that where I live and/or travel to.

But again, I respect that you do.  But we can not paint the entire golfing world with one brush regarding what golfers enjoy and/or what they are willing and able to pay.  That is why I question the point of this thread...everyone is different.

[Carl Rogers]

Riverfront in Suffolk, VA, an early Renaissance Design effort cost $1650 a year.  For that you get to play all the golf you want and bang all the balls you want on the range.  However,
1. before noon on the weekends, you pay $15 for the cart (you can walk at other times, but there are some long green to tee distances that will easily add 30 minutes to the round) 
2. they do not tell you that the course is basically closed down each Friday for private outings
3. a complete absence of a no slow play  - marshall policy, the course in IMO is way too hard for beginners
4. the cart girls throw it around and that for me is very tiresome
5. the golf association is relegated to the first tee times starting at 7:00 am ... hard to get the late 50's self up and going that early

For me, these trade-offs, have caused me to give the yearly "membership" a time out.  Maybe, I am too snippy.

I still play there a good bit, but I have determined that I would like to take some regional golf trips for approximately the same yearly golf budget.

Course management a month ago came up with a "local yokel" rate, 3 rounds for $99 w/ cart all weekdays and after noon on the weekends.

[astavrides]

.

[JeffTodd]

I will chime in on this one. One, because I am a spreadsheet dork who has a built a database of everything I can think of as it relates to my golf game. And second, because I am (I presume with a high level of certainty) a GCA outlier in terms of access, income, and associations.

I’m hardly impoverished, but I don’t earn enough that I can write off golf without regard to some form of a value equation. At 41 years of age two upcoming college educations, two weddings (possibly), and a retirement still take precedence.

Over the last ten years I average less than $40 per round, never averaging more than $38 or less than $28. I have never been a member of a club.

I could afford to join a club, but find myself in a position where – along the lines of Groucho Marx – I don’t care to play most of my rounds at any club that would have me as a member. Despite my lack of pedigree I am, at heart, a golf course snob. The variety of a la carte golf – even with its inherent drawbacks – supersedes the appeal of less than spectacular private golf.

I spend as much on green fees in a typical year as many members of your average private club in the USA. For every $20 round I play on some random muni, I will happily fork over $100, $200, or more, for a unique golf experience. For me, being an unaffiliated golfer allows me to explore other courses without regard to the expense because I have no overhead. I play wherever I want, whenever I want, as long as they will have me.

[Brent Hutto]

JeffTodd,

There's a lot to be said for that approach, assuming one lives in an area with an affordable variety of public golf options. It's what I did for quite a long while before "going private". For me it was driven as much by the combination of my insisting on walking rather than riding and most public course insistence on having everyone in carts at weekends (nearly the only time I play).

Back in the mid-90's when I took up the game, that was not the norm. All but a handful of local courses allowed walking as an option at any time including weekend mornings during prime season. The economics then prohibitively favored public play unless one was able to derive non-golf benefit from being a country club member. Now that the cart takeover is nearly complete, around here a private golf membership is in part a premium one pays for being allow to walk the course at all times. Kind of the flip side of the courses up north, much discussed on this forum, at which membership at some clubs obliges one to play with a caddie every round.

All of which is damned odd when you think about it but there it is.

[Carl Nichols]

JeffTodd:
Where do you live?

[Carl Rogers]

4. the cart girls throw it around and that for me is very tiresome

What does that mean?

The golf course is not a Hooters.

[Jud_T]

4. the cart girls throw it around and that for me is very tiresome

Definition of a GCA stick-in-the-mud:  A very attractive scantily clad girl offering you a cold beer during a round is a nuisance because she arrives on a cart.  Perhaps if she'd walked over hill and dale in plus fours carrying an antique shag bag full of vintage sarsaparilla that would fit your world view better?

[Brent Hutto]

From the day I played at my club as a prospective member until the present, I consider it a modest plus that we have no beverage cart making the rounds of the course. Instead we have water coolers at approximately every other hole and of course a well stocked snack bar in the clubhouse available at the turn.

For one summer and fall right before the big crash a few years back we outfitted a cart and hired a young woman to staff it at weekends. It was reasonably popular but I don't recall any tears being shed when it was discontinued after a few months due to being more trouble and expense than it was worth.

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