The future of country clubs…

Greyman50 said:
Few years ago daughter and husband( surgeon) joined a ritzy CC in N Ga. Went there with them several times to eat and restaurant was very good. Did not ask but they quit it after couple years. Never asked but guess members were just way to uppity?….
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Have they seen the Caddyshack movie???? :D
 
I once had two exclusive CC memberships, but they were job perks and cost me nothing. I occasionally used them to entertain customers with dining and golf, but mainly drinking, for which my company paid the tab. Most of our customers were hard-core alkys who would take a Scotch and soda over a hole-in-one. I honestly tried to learn golf for awhile, but I never caught the golf fever and was usually top man on the score card. My wife was a pretty good Bridge player and several times tried to get into games with the rich "female dogs" who spent every day at the CC card room, but she couldn't stand being around all of the pretentiousness for very long. Among those gals she had a social status near that of a scullery maid or streetwalker. No cabin at Aspen or villa on the Med, nor a private jet to get you there, doncha know.
This is one of those CCs, and the most exclusive. The other has recently ceased operation. Home - Midland Country Club
 
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It's a very exclusive Rifle Club......

Rustyt1953 said:
I have yet to come across a 7000 yard dog-leg rifle range.
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...only for a certain class of shooters.:D



BTW: I have other stuff I want to spend money on. I've played some golf, put it on the far back burner, (no, on the floor to feed the dogs) but they can keep the clubs. Especially the club houses.
My boss was in a company tournament at a country club. One of the regular patrons came up to him and blessed him out about how nice the place was until they let people like him in.

I paid BIG money one time to play in Hilton Head. The course was VERY busy. My wife wasn't a great player and it took longer between holes. A guy came around in a cart and didn't ask us to let some groups play through, but to 'hurry it up', but they wanted us to 'have a good time'. I think that was my last foray into golf. I had more fun playing night golf in Fuzzy Zoeller's little bitty but highly treacherous course on the way in to Hilton Head.
 
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There's a very ritzy and upscale country club not far from me. One Wall Street wheeler-dealer and sharpie applied for membership twice, was sponsored-and voted down. Some of the members had been hurt by some of his dealings-one member had a son who was laid off after one such corporate raid, some of his activities were seen as unethical. As one member told me, "You can be a sharpie and a wheeler-dealer-but you can't be a thief."
 
My current location is on a golf course fairway. It costs 60 K initiation ( up from 40K 2 years ago ) and about 1200 a month. You can use your own golf cart but that costs 100 a month additional. There are 6 courses. People that bought in 40 years ago for 5K got a super deal. Especially since the membership is transferrable with the sale of the property. Now 60K not transferrable.

Very small turnover of housing means a low count of new members. I think they are headed for trouble down the road.

I am not a golf member
 
DWalt said:
I once had two exclusive CC memberships, but they were job perks and cost me nothing. I occasionally used them to entertain customers with dining and golf, but mainly drinking, for which my company paid the tab. Most of our customers were hard-core alkys who would take a Scotch and soda over a hole-in-one. I honestly tried to learn golf for awhile, but I never caught the golf fever and was usually top man on the score card. My wife was a pretty good Bridge player and several times tried to get into games with the rich "female dogs" who spent every day at the CC card room, but she couldn't stand being around all of the pretentiousness for very long. Among those gals she had a social status near that of a scullery maid or streetwalker. No cabin at Aspen or villa on the Med, nor a private jet to get you there, doncha know.
This is one of those CCs, and the most exclusive. The other has recently ceased operation. Home - Midland Country Club
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I have to say, that's the way to belong, and the ONLY way to belong. As a job perk! What was your job?

I can't see folks dishing out that kind of money, but I guess they do.

I always thought that would be a perk I would demand and get, and quickly discovered over 30 years ago with my freshly minted degree that I couldn't demand anything and a perk was health insurance and a 401(k), and that wasn't even guaranteed.

It's sort of sad, really. Not sure where all those jobs went to, I never experienced them.

With record profits, companies should be providing such perks, but I guess they learned they don't have to, and so they don't.
 
There are still some around the Scranton area. The Scranton Muni course closed a few years ago. The one in Honesdale used to have a long waiting list, they were advertising in the paper for membership last year.

My former employers are members at the big rich one. I'm sure the dues and such are a write off.

Just not my thing. I don't golf, and I rather be in someone's garage watching a game, BSing, and drinking a Busch Light than be at a hoidy toidy club.
 
When private country clubs start advertising new membership specials you know they are in financial trouble. Have played golf for many years and it has been at least 20 years since I was a golf member of a semi private club. My golf buddies and I are in our seventies now and play for the fun of getting together not social hobnobbing. Yes it is nice to play a well manicured private course but we have just as much fun on a public course that some would call a "dog track".
 
Before I moved to NC people up north were telling me about all the great golf courses. I've never played a single hole of golf in my life and don't intend on starting now. Just think it's a waste of my time, I prefer going to the gym. $70 a month.
I don't begrudge anyone enjoying what they want to do with their life.
 
VaTom said:
When private country clubs start advertising new membership specials you know they are in financial trouble. Have played golf for many years and it has been at least 20 years since I was a golf member of a semi private club. My golf buddies and I are in our seventies now and play for the fun of getting together not social hobnobbing. Yes it is nice to play a well manicured private course but we have just as much fun on a public course that some would call a "dog track".
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That was my point. I really didn't want to belong, still don't want to (unless my employer pays for it), and, in the past, they decided you would get in, or not. I also seem to think I needed to know someone, and use them as a reference, IIRC. I didn't know anyone over there and still don't.

I assume the tables have turned and the mailing I got went to all my neighbors as well. It seems like the future has to be murky, at best.

I just don't know a lot of folks with this level of disposable income and, if they have it, they don't seem interested in tossing it at the country club.

Most younger folks I know have massive amounts of student loans and owning their own house is a dream. A country club…not even on the radar!
 
mrcvs said:
I have to say, that's the way to belong, and the ONLY way to belong. As a job perk! What was your job?.
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At that time I was a regional tech services engineering manager for a large well servicing company operating in the Permian basin. Our main service was performing well completion. Specifically, designing and performing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and acidizing jobs after the well was drilled. Most of the greenies who want to ban fracking have no idea what the term means, or maybe they do. Without fracking, a well cannot produce oil and gas. The company failed in the mid-1980s as the result of a series of bad business decisions regarding expansion projects, got financially overextended, and took Chapter 11. It was later sold off to another similar company. It was fun while it lasted.

BTW, the second CC in Midland I referred to earlier was Ranchland Hills, now closed. Apparently the City bought it as a site for a new High School campus complex. No idea of the details but likely RHCC ran into cash flow problems, making the land worth more than the CC business.
 
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Slightly off topic, but one of the perks of belonging to an expensive country club are the employment benefits. I knew a nice (but not overly bright) guy who was the president of his family's company. When it went bankrupt he got two more presidencies, one after another, because other members of his country club felt sorry for him.
 
Several golf courses around here have closed and they became housing additions. The land has become too valuable and golf is not that profitable. We have owned built in swimming pools before but don't want the hassle plus like the festive environment and being served food or drinks at a country club. We are checking into summer membership at a club because we don't want to go to public pools with all the screaming kids but golf has never appealed much to me.
 
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