Private country clubs are losing members as professionals and families have less free time and more options for leisure, including public golf courses.
“Every aspect of a club, there is somewhere you can go and do it for less money,” said Mel Grills, director of operations at Cleveland’s Westwood Country Club.
The shift is forcing clubs to try new ways to attract members, including discounted rates, merging with other struggling clubs and incentives to members who recruit their friends.
Membership at country clubs statewide is down slightly, said Jim Popa, executive director of the Ohio Golf Association.
“They had to change to be competitive in the marketplace,” he said.
Much of the competition is coming from public courses. In 1990, there were 8,036 public golf facilities in the United States and 4,810 private facilities. In 2005, about 3,500 more public facilities were open and more than 400 private facilities had been lost, according to the National Golf Foundation.
The median fee to play on a public course is $34, according to the foundation. A private club golfer can expect to pay $3,400 to $6,290 in annual dues on top of initiation fees that typically range from $10,000 to $35,000, said Jim Kass, the foundation’s research director.
Grills said golfers used to have to join country clubs to gain access to a well-maintained course. Now “almost everyone has the ability to get to a nice course and play on it,” he said.
The Toledo Country Club uses a high-tech approach to finding potential members. Computer software helps membership director Rebecca Adams look at members’ neighborhoods for other good candidates, based on location, value of houses and presence of children. She then asks members if they want to refer their neighbors for membership.
Adams added 70 new members in the past year while losing 50.
“It’s good to break even in this market,” she said.
The Sand Ridge Golf Club in Chardon and Mayfield Country Club, both in the Cleveland area, merged and members are allowed to use both facilities, which are 18 miles apart. Fees at the new Mayfield Sand Ridge Club stayed mostly the same, with an average family membership costing about $700 a month.
The Mayfield golf course built in 1911 is classic but old-fashioned, associate general manager Peter Conway said. The much-newer Sand Ridge course has been nationally recognized for its design but doesn’t have a pool or tennis courts.
The merger gives members “a very, very good country club with all the tradition and history and at the same time they’ve got this race car of a golf course to go along with it,” Conway said.
Moundbuilders Country Club in Newark has added 120 members since February because of a program giving members incentives for recruiting others.
General manager Wayne Sorenson wouldn’t specify how much money the top recruiters saved but said the incentives were much more successful than traditional advertising.
While the biggest recruitment efforts typically come in spring, the Toledo Country Club will be working through the winter to add people as social or dining members, Adams said. When the weather gets warmer, the club will offer a membership upgrade to add golfing, tennis and pool privileges.
The Urbana Country Club has drawn 19 new members in 2006, which house manager Kris Nixon attributes to the club’s reasonable prices. The club offered a special deal where a family could pay a $2,500 initiation fee, $200 in monthly dues and a $25-a-month food minimum.
But waiving the initiation fee hasn’t helped much at Athens Country Club, said President Rick Oremus. This month the club had three new members, four resignations and two downgraded members.
Northwood Hills Country Club in Springfield, where families pay about $3,000 a year for a golf membership, also has eliminated its initiation fee with little success, board secretary Joseph Herrman said. The club has lost half its membership from about 15 years ago, cut about a third of its staff and leased its restaurant. It is considering asking members for a rate increase.
“It’s a day-to-day operation,” Herrman said, noting that if something expensive broke, such as the golf course watering system, the club would have to shut down.
Small-town clubs are suffering most because their members’ children often move to bigger cities after college, Popa said. But he thinks clubs willing to try new ways to get members will survive.
“I don’t think the future’s bleak at all,” he said. “I see a lot of creative thinking going on out there.”
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On the Net:
Ohio Golf Association: http://www.ohiogolf.org/html/oga.asp
National Golf Foundation: http://www.ngf.org
The Mayfield Sand Ridge Club: http://www.sandridgegolf.com/
Urbana Country Club: http://www.urbanacc.com/
