Posted on May - 19 - 2010
Golf no longer enough at some clubs
Not long ago, Rhode Island Country Club could afford to charge prospective members $40,000 just for the privilege of joining. After all, the exclusive club had a full complement of 300 members and a long list of people eager to get in.
But not anymore. Not after the Great Recession.
These days the club, which offers an 18-hole golf course, pool, squash and clay tennis courts in affluent Barrington, has shrunk to about 285 members and no waiting list.
In January, club officials temporarily slashed the initiation fee to $17,500 in a bid to pump up its membership, the financial lifeblood of a country club.
Still, Rhode Island Country Club remains among the healthier clubs in the area. Club officials note that they haven’t had an assessment – an end-of-the-fiscal-year charge to members to close a budget deficit – in years. Also, they held off hiking dues for 2010.
“Membership is never where you want it to be, but we’re in pretty good shape,” President David Piccerelli said recently.
Some of the other two dozen private clubs in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts can’t say the same thing.
The economy, a leveling off of golf’s popularity and a change in family lifestyles have squeezed even clubs for the well-to-do in recent years. Nationwide, private golf courses are reporting shrinking memberships and debt troubles that in some cases have led to conversions to public use, bankruptcies and closures.
In Rhode Island, Warwick’s Valley County Club filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year. A dwindling number of members couldn’t foot the loan payments for multimillion dollar course and clubhouse improvements undertaken in years of prosperity.
To avoid a similar fate, many local clubs are shelving the air of exclusivity and aggressively marketing their locations for outside meetings and gatherings, and others are advertising for members in local newspapers.
Almost all have discounted or eliminated initiation fees, and many are offering more affordable membership options.
“The dues structure at private clubs went up significantly when the economy was good,” said Robert Ward, executive director of the Rhode Island Golf Association. “When the economy went bad, people just didn’t have the disposable income. … They’ve done the math per round and have decided that a public course may be a better option.”
Not helping matters is the sheer number of private courses vying for a diminished number of members. Half the courses in the association are private. “That’s an extremely high ratio,” Ward said.
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