Are Private Clubs The Next Dinosaurs?

More golf courses are built every year, but the number of golfers stays the same. To me that means more supply for the same demand and that equates to more courses competing for the same number of rounds. The fact that more and more private clubs are scrounging for new members seems to support that conclusion.

In New England, where I live, many (maybe most) private golf clubs are having to deal with shrinking membership. They have three choices; 1)raise rates to the remaining members, 2)try to find new members to replace those that die or leave or 3)sell the place to their local real estate developer. The problem with choice 2 is that private clubs are not on the cutting edge of marketing, having been spoiled in years past when prospective members had to literally beg to get in. Those days have been gone for a number of years now.

Today, during 19th hole discussions one often hears about local private clubs trying to actively market their memberships, particularly with rumors of reduced or eliminated initiation fees. Initially these offers sound tempting until you do some simple math to see what you're getting.

For example, one good quality local club is offering to wave the thousand dollar initiation fee. Here's what it would cost for my wife and I when you look at what's left; $7000 for golf and lockers (with some restrictions on player 2), $1000 for mandated cart fees (whether you use them or not) and $1000 for mandated food expenditures. That adds up to $9000 for a season of golf. If money is no object that may be a good deal, but for the middle class it just doesn't work. My extra money is going to increases in gasoline, home heating, health care and property tax to name a few.

My wife and I can play all season at fair to excellent courses for under $2000. That includes at least a couple of rounds at the area's best public course. How can I justify paying 4 times that for golf at one OK course? And by not going for the private course we'll have money to spend on golf if we can get away somewhere warm during the winter.

To my way of thinking, the private clubs are missing the mark big time. They have to come up with new and innovative products to sell or they are going to eventually die. There are only so many upper class golfers out there who can afford traditional private course memberships. And most of these, being older adults, already have their membership somewhere. Apparently today's younger well-to-do players don't think about private clubs the way their parents did. They don't seem interested in joining the old boys and girls clubs. Maybe because after buying the obligatory McMansion and SUV, they don't have enough left for the private club. Or maybe the value isn't there for them when they see how many good local courses they can play for a lot less. Who needs the locker room, wants to pay for carts you don't use or buy food that's not as good as most of the local restaurants.

The USGA, PGA, Club Owners Association and the like had better start to figure out how to sell rounds in new ways or a lot of golf courses are going to be left out to dry or be turned into housing tracts. Groups like the PGA, that feed off amateur golf, should put some of their creative talents into selling the game and not just making a few pros multi-millionaires.

I have a couple of suggestions for any groups that want to address the issue: 1) Focus on teaching the game. One reason that the number of new golfers each year just about equals the number who quit is because they find the game too hard. 460cc square head drivers don't seem to be the answer. All the new equipment in the world won't make up for terrible technique. 2)Make the game easier to sample in small bites; consider selling regional passes that allow a couple of rounds each at a group of local clubs, even if you have to limit tee times to low traffic periods. Sell range passes. Club pros could offer special small group lessons on weekday mornings instead of spending their free time trying to adjust member handicaps who can't quite get their scorecards correct.

Somebody, in a position of leadership, had better step-up to the problem or there will be a lot of hand wringing about the state of the game in the not too distant future.