[Patrick_Mucci]

better positioned to weather the membership storm ?

Off the top of my head I can only recall Baltusrol, Pine Valley, Shinnecock, Adios and NGLA as being strictly golf clubs.

Are they better off because of their:

a)  culture
b)  finances
c)  other

[scott_wood]

Pat, pls add Chechessee Creek to your list of golf only examples, And, it's neighbor Secession.....

CCC Is doing just fine....on the 2nd go round.....Only get to Secession once annually, so, unable to report.......

CCC 'healthy status' due, IMO, to both a and b, for sure,
And especially to it being a very high quality, intimate, fun course, properly run......
It passes Brad's 'Walk in the Park Test' with flying colors......
And
Like a thread from the recent past, grows on you like good wine.......

[Mark Chaplin]

Patrick the examples you give remind me of a friendly argument I heard this earlier this year. We were staying ironically with a PV member in his very smart house, a dinner guest was saying 5500sq feet is around average for a house. Our host pointed out they live in a rather rarified world and 5500sq feet is a massive house and far far bigger than the property owned by Mr & Mrs Average.

I didn't spot a pool or tennis courts at Old Elm or Cypress Point and suspect both of them will survive all but plague or nuclear war.

[Paul Gray]

You can add to the high end examples you gave about 98% of all clubs in the UK, i.e. golf clubs which are solely just that.

Dumbing down, and by that I mean making yourself dependant on fair weather lawn enthusiasts, can only ever increase your market volatility. Forget any arguments about eggs in one basket, theme parks cost more to run than golf clubs and revenue is far more elastic.

[Anthony_Nysse]

better positioned to weather the membership storm ?

Off the top of my head I can only recall Baltusrol, Pine Valley, Shinnecock, Adios and NGLA as being strictly golf clubs.

Are they better off because of their:

a)  culture
b)  finances
c)  other

One of your own clubs, Pine Tree. We do not have tennis, pool only small dining and social. Strictly golf.

[Brent Hutto]

To the extent that golf-only operations in USA are either very high end (like almost any of the clubs mentioned so far in this thread) or very basic public tracks then yes they are well positioned in difficult times.

The great middle section of the country-club market is where pools, tennis courts, banquet/wedding halls, weight rooms and the like are common, almost universal. And as in so many parts of life, it's that great middle that will be hollowed out as our economy shakes out into its 21st-century form.

I think there will eventually not be enough $100K-income families with high aspirations and $200K-income families who grew up used to country-club life to keep all of these $10K-a-year all inclusive country club operations fully subscribed. And with the cost structure that comes from all that "stuff" it won't take long for the shake-out to be completed.

I do think there's an awful lot of fairly recent high-end, golf-only clubs out there. I suppose at some point there could be an attrition in the number of those supportable by a no longer booming upper-middle-class demographic. But they are probably on better footing than the suburban country clubs which require several hundred family memberships active, just to keep afloat.

[John Shimony]

Torresdale - Frankford CC in Philadelphia has become a golf only club in some respects.  There are seperate memberships for the pool and golf.  They are trying to make the golf only option more affordable by removing monthly dining and pool fee requirements for full bond holding members.  There was already an option for non-voting golf only memberships that included dining fees.  Now those dining fees are gone for all classes of members.  I assume the course and pool are still under the same management so the bottom line of one still affects that of the whole but in terms of increasing membership by lowering fees I believe they are seeing results.

[PCCraig]

Pat Mucci,

I think your original premise is a myth, or at least it doesn't apply here in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN metro area. At my home course, the introduction of a social membership in 2006/2007 was a key factor in allowing it to survive the recession. The club allowed for 100 new memberships that included the clubhouse, dining, pool, and tennis. Now social memberships account for roughly 20% of the members. They pay roughly half of what golf members do. Granted, you could say that they are covering non-golf related activities at the club, but the extra dues revenue surely supplements the golf operations and impacts the overall health of the club significantly. The club wouldn't be able to generate this revenue without pool, tennis, and dining facilities.

There are a couple metro clubs that I can think of that offer mostly golf and minimal dining service that struggled through the recession and continue to struggle even as consumers are beginning to return to the luxury item that is golf and country clubs.

[Josh Tarble]

Pat, the problem with your control group is that not only are they golf only, they are the best of the best.  They are doing well because of a rich heritage and they are blessed with some of the best golf courses in the world.

In Indianapolis we have two golf only clubs and they are a great example:

Crooked Stick has the heritage, tournament venue, great course, top 100 rating and is doing well.
Wolf Run is a great course, but not as much of the history, no rating and is struggling a bit.

[PCCraig]

Pat, the problem with your control group is that not only are they golf only, they are the best of the best.  They are doing well because of a rich heritage and they are blessed with some of the best golf courses in the world.

Right, Old Elm in Chicago will survive nearly anything because it has 100 very wealthy, strong supporters of golf in a very affluent and golf crazy area. The same can be said for the other clubs mentioned in the first post. They wont survive simply because it's golf only.

[David_Tepper]

I would tend to agree with Josh T. and PCraig. Using some of the oldest, most prestigious golf clubs as a control group is a bit disingenuous.

You could easily argue that clubs such as Piping Rock, the Olympic Club and the Country Club (Brookline), which offer a wide array of amenities besides a golf course, show that being "all things to all people" is the best way "to weather the membership storm."

Neither the clubs cited above or Pine Valley, Shinnecock, NGLA, etc. are representative of the universe of golf/country clubs at large.

[Andrew Buck]

better positioned to weather the membership storm ?

Off the top of my head I can only recall Baltusrol, Pine Valley, Shinnecock, Adios and NGLA as being strictly golf clubs.

Are they better off because of their:

a)  culture
b)  finances
c)  other

Those clubs are well suited to thrive because of the quality of their golf course (and in some cases, location).  Full Service Country Clubs with similar quality, such as Winged Foot, Quaker Ridge, Oakmont, Seminole, The Country Club, Medinah, etc are on similar solid ground.  The only way these places suffer is if American society is so drastically altered that we wouldn't recognize it.

If you go down a notch down, I can look at Bull Valley Golf Club, in Woodstock, IL that has a far superior product to neighboring Crystal Lake Country Club, however Bull Valley is in and out of foreclosure and Crystal Lake is fine, because most families need at least a humble pool to justify joining a club.  In Erie, PA, do you think Kahkwa Club or Lakeview Country Club (golf only) will survive private the longest.  The reality is, if you are in a city under 250,000, and want to remain private you need, at minimum, a pool to survive (excluding the elite golf experience that can draw a national membership).  

I would guess you'll see the "middle of the pack" golf courses and low end Clubs become more simple and be public.  The low end publics to go under with increased competition down.  The elites to be fine, and the cost conscious clubs that cater to women and families to do fine.  

[Brent Hutto]

The elites to be fine, and the cost conscious clubs that cater to women and families to do fine.  

I think my club will be a test case of the latter, over the next few years. We've always tried to strike a balance between the social and golf aspects. Arguably the nicest course in town and a long history of very good players. But a lot of the long-time members also like the dining, holiday parties and the like. There was a core group of golfers and a core group of social members and very fortunately a huge overlap between the two groups.

As dues, fees and assessments have gone up during the current hard times (actually going back nearly a decade to before the financial crisis mentality) there's been attrition in the hard-core golf members. Especially the ones over 60. Never any huge number leaving in a given period but over several years it really added up.

So it doesn't make me particularly happy (as a hard-core golf only member) but to try and revitalize the club, or at least stabilize the balance sheet, we have made a very aggressive move into the younger, more female, more family oriented, less golf-specific demographic. Almost all of our members added in the past year or two are either social/family memberships or full (golf) memberships from younger families who have maybe one golfer and the rest pool users, basically. Of course that draws mostly from the housing developments within a few miles of the course and it is especially attractive in summer time.

We'll see. I have not noticed any stanching of the drip-drip-drip of yet another long time (golf) member or two dropping each month. And the new family/social members, at least the ones who opt for the no-golf social membership, are adding to the membership rolls but at a very reduced monthly contribution to the bottom line. One can only hope during the summer their kids are loading up on poolside snacks and hamburgers, keeping the per-family monthly invoice a healthy total size!

[Andrew Buck]

Pat, the problem with your control group is that not only are they golf only, they are the best of the best.  They are doing well because of a rich heritage and they are blessed with some of the best golf courses in the world.

In Indianapolis we have two golf only clubs and they are a great example:

Crooked Stick has the heritage, tournament venue, great course, top 100 rating and is doing well.
Wolf Run is a great course, but not as much of the history, no rating and is struggling a bit.

Wolf Run would probably be a great example, similar to Bull Valley.  A great golf course (even if a bit overchallenging), and I suspect there are several Clubs in Indy with inferior golf products that are on more solid ground due to offering some other amenities.  

[Steve Kline]

I was going to say that I would find Wolf Run much more challenging to play on a daily basis than Crooked Stick. It's been a long time but I seem to remember Crooked Stick as being easily walkable but Wolf Run more difficult.

[Andrew Buck]

The elites to be fine, and the cost conscious clubs that cater to women and families to do fine.  

I think my club will be a test case of the latter, over the next few years. We've always tried to strike a balance between the social and golf aspects. Arguably the nicest course in town and a long history of very good players. But a lot of the long-time members also like the dining, holiday parties and the like. There was a core group of golfers and a core group of social members and very fortunately a huge overlap between the two groups.

As dues, fees and assessments have gone up during the current hard times (actually going back nearly a decade to before the financial crisis mentality) there's been attrition in the hard-core golf members. Especially the ones over 60. Never any huge number leaving in a given period but over several years it really added up.

So it doesn't make me particularly happy (as a hard-core golf only member) but to try and revitalize the club, or at least stabilize the balance sheet, we have made a very aggressive move into the younger, more female, more family oriented, less golf-specific demographic. Almost all of our members added in the past year or two are either social/family memberships or full (golf) memberships from younger families who have maybe one golfer and the rest pool users, basically. Of course that draws mostly from the housing developments within a few miles of the course and it is especially attractive in summer time.

We'll see. I have not noticed any stanching of the drip-drip-drip of yet another long time (golf) member or two dropping each month. And the new family/social members, at least the ones who opt for the no-golf social membership, are adding to the membership rolls but at a very reduced monthly contribution to the bottom line. One can only hope during the summer their kids are loading up on poolside snacks and hamburgers, keeping the per-family monthly invoice a healthy total size!

Lord knows my wife and kids are loading up on lunches and snacks at the pool.

I think a lot of this is area specific and depends on the other options and demographics.  For my club, our biggest expense is the golf course.  We have an extremely modest clubhouse, a tent for weddings, and a modest pool.  With loss of members, we too have been hit with assessments.  However, we didn't lose members because dues were going wild, we lost members because there is a semi-private course in town, with great condition and nice layout that will let you join for $1,000 a year, including guaranteed tee times on mens night and weekend mornings.  They can do this because they supplement, run outings on a couple days (but have arranged reciprocals for those days, and do a good wedding/public dinner business.  The reality is, even if we closed the pool and went to burgers and brats, the dues would need to be 4X that to maintain similar conditions and you'd likely lose a lot of members for doing away with the other stuff.  

Basically, for the no frills effort of golf only (in many locations) you need to go at least semi-private.  That said, it really is location specific based on demographics and competition (excluding nationals).

[Scott Sander]

Pat, the problem with your control group is that not only are they golf only, they are the best of the best.  They are doing well because of a rich heritage and they are blessed with some of the best golf courses in the world.

In Indianapolis we have two golf only clubs and they are a great example:

Crooked Stick has the heritage, tournament venue, great course, top 100 rating and is doing well.
Wolf Run is a great course, but not as much of the history, no rating and is struggling a bit.

Add Twin Lakes in there - just a couple of long tee shots away from Crooked Stick.
Totally different price point than the other two, but it's also golf-only.  
Wouldn't venture a guess as to how it is doing other than to note that the specials it is running put it thisclose to free to join and painless to leave - which would not seem to indicate an exceedingly strong guarantee for the future.

[Mark Pritchett]

I do not think generalizations apply to this premise.  It is really a market by market basis on which clubs (regardless of golf, country, pool, tennis, hunting, equestrian, curling, etc.) will be successful, coupled with smart management of course.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

I would tend to agree with Josh T. and PCraig. Using some of the oldest, most prestigious golf clubs as a control group is a bit disingenuous.
Not at all, and since when is Adios one of the oldest, most prestigious clubs in golf ?

You could easily argue that clubs such as Piping Rock, the Olympic Club and the Country Club (Brookline), which offer a wide array of amenities besides a golf course, show that being "all things to all people" is the best way "to weather the membership storm.

How do you know how Piping Rock, Olympic and TCC aren't concerned about weathering the membership storm ?
We've already heard from people who informed us that one of the reasons Merion hosted the Open was to bolster their membership.
If an iconic, old, prestigious club like Merion has membership concerns, what makes you think that other old, prestigious clubs don't have the same concerns ?

Neither the clubs cited above or Pine Valley, Shinnecock, NGLA, etc. are representative of the universe of golf/country clubs at large.
Why did you leave off Adios ?

The clubs I listed aren't supposed to be representative of the "universe of golf/country clubs" they are clubs that came to mind that are representative of clubs that only offer golf as a sporting activity.

[JMEvensky]

I do not think generalizations apply to this premise.  It is really a market by market basis on which clubs (regardless of golf, country, pool, tennis, hunting, equestrian, curling, etc.) will be successful, coupled with smart management of course.  

This X 1000. Each club's future is so location/demographic specific that generalizations are almost worthless.

[Andrew Buck]

I do not think generalizations apply to this premise.  It is really a market by market basis on which clubs (regardless of golf, country, pool, tennis, hunting, equestrian, curling, etc.) will be successful, coupled with smart management of course.  

This X 1000. Each club's future is so location/demographic specific that generalizations are almost worthless.

This is actually said much better in fewer words than my responses above. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat Mucci,

I think your original premise is a myth, or at least it doesn't apply here in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN metro area. At my home course, the introduction of a social membership in 2006/2007 was a key factor in allowing it to survive the recession. The club allowed for 100 new memberships that included the clubhouse, dining, pool, and tennis. Now social memberships account for roughly 20% of the members. They pay roughly half of what golf members do. Granted, you could say that they are covering non-golf related activities at the club, but the extra dues revenue surely supplements the golf operations and impacts the overall health of the club significantly. The club wouldn't be able to generate this revenue without pool, tennis, and dining facilities.

What makes you think your club or any club is out of the "membership" woods yet ?
The financial/membership problem is ongoing.
And, with the infusion of 100 new members at one time, I'll guarantee you that the culture of your club will change, especially since those 100 new members aren't golfers.

There are a couple metro clubs that I can think of that offer mostly golf and minimal dining service that struggled through the recession and continue to struggle even as consumers are beginning to return to the luxury item that is golf and country clubs.

Offering "mostly" golf isn't offering "only" golf, thus your comparison is invalid.

[Josh Tarble]

Pat,
Do you think Merion is having difficulty finding new members because they are golf only or because their exorbitant membership dues are covering the expense of all the changes they had to make to host an open?

[Brent Hutto]

Andrew,

We have numerous such low-cost options in the greater metropolitan area. And a handful of them are within 15 minutes drive of our club, including one that is literally next door on an adjoining bit of property. All are formerly for-profit private clubs that are now opening up as de facto public courses. Most are about 1/3 to 1/4 the total yearly cost of our club.

None of them have remotely as nice a golf course. And none of them will allow golfers to walk (not that you'd want to walk most of them). But for someone who uses a cart anyway and is on a fixed retirement income, well they are willing to give up an awful lot of course conditioning as well as the ability to walk once in a while in return for knocking their yearly bill down from about 8K a year (including 150 rounds of cart rental) to maybe 3K a year. And there's one nearby formerly-private course that offers unlimited golf including use of the cart to those 60+ years of age for well under $2,500 per year.

Heck, there's one much lower-end frankly public course that offers seniors an all-inclusive yearly subscription for $1,100 including unlimited golf with no cart fees. Write a check for $1,100 in January and then some of these guys play 200-250 rounds a year of cart golf. Unless you have a lot of money or are a real conditioning snob I can see why paying my club nearly $8,000 in dues and cart fees for that same amount of golf seems hard to justify.

Our problem is that of course a 27-hole golf course is the single biggest expense to operate. But a ginormous old clubhouse that must be heated, cooled and maintained plus a pool that must be maintained and staff (in summer) plus a few other amenities are also very sizable expenses. So fewer and fewer heavy users of the golf course pay the full fare, a fairly sizable number of social members pay a much lower rate and the costs of both the golf course and the rest of that stuff are darned near fixed and must be spread over a smaller and smaller base of members...who have an ever-increasing number of discount options elsewhere.

Sorry to vent so much negativity. But I just don't see how a beautiful, excellent golf course that's been there for half a century can continue to exist. The market realities in a overbuilt, mid-size metro area like mine just no longer provide a 300 or 400 golfer base from which to keep the enterprise afloat. And even if we shuttered the clubhouse, closed the pool and laid off 80% of the club employees to become a golf-only club we'd still have that biggest line-item (golf course maintenance) but now we'd be down to only the revenue stream from 100 or so golfers. I'm as big a golf course snob as you'll find and even I have a hard time paying 1/100th the cost of a fine golf course when "pretty good" ones are right down the street to be played for 30 bucks a round or less. Yikes!

[Rob_Waldron]

Pat

It seems to me that the "Golf Club Only" concept could be very successful in may markets throughout the US. By avoiding large clubhouses and other amenities that serve as loss leaders the majority of the expenses would be golf related. The target market is empty nesters and dedicated golfers who do not need pool, tennis and fine dining. A good golf course, well-conceived practice area and a bar/grill with a good lunch menu would do it for me.

Historically Golf Clubs have succeeded in affluent metropolitan areas where most members also held memberships at family oriented country clubs. As America ages the option of golf only clubs appears to be a good alternative for those only interested in enjoying the game with like minded golf enthusiasts.

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