The only golf club I ever was a member of was when I was a young boy back in England, and my dad paid my yearly membership subscription fee of £3.
It was a lovely nine-hole course within walking distance of my home.
As you can guess, I was there most daylight hours within a day -- even school days.
I was asked recently as to what I personally would like to see from clubs I would now consider joining, and this got me thinking.
The following is part of an article I read this week:
"Old clubs are the product of decades of different committees, owners, management companies, and club managers who made thousands of good and bad decisions. Decisions that they thought were the right thing to do at the time. Many of those decisions, in regard to fees, club rules, policies, budgets, and membership options, are still in place although often hopelessly out of date or counter-productive to their current market conditions," it said.
"Many clubs try to increase business by pandering to multiple special interests and creating multiple memberships that appeal to small groups of people. On the surface, this seems like a perfectly logical thing to do however what it actually does is cannibalise the one or two offers that give the club the best chance of business success. Multiple offers muddy the water and confuse people from choosing the option that's in the best interest of the club."
Obviously, new clubs are in the enviable position of learning from others' mistakes and have the opportunity of getting things right from the day their established.
Out of Bounds: Groucho Marx said something along these lines -- "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member and because I've been told that my character is remarkably close to that of Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, I don't think that I would be a welcome asset to any membership."