In my 40 years of writing and advising on golf course design, maintenance and operations, I have acquired a reputation for frankness. Surely that is because of my prior work history as a caddie.
I got to see players’ strengths and weaknesses; their moments of hesitation, delusion and fear under pressure; and their fleeting achievements and the pride they take in those moments of triumph. You also learn a key insight into people—how they treat service staff and those lower on the totem pole (they think!) than themselves, since it is you, as their mobile servant and office manager, who is the recipient of their emotions. In other words, you read their character. As the saying goes, “once a caddie, always a caddie.”
You also learn never to be afraid of rich people, a trait that has served me well in my dealings with billionaires, sports and arts icons, and even a future president. I come from a lower- middle-class working background. Part of my fascination with golf growing up was that it presented me with a lifestyle that would never otherwise have been available to me.
At the same time, I saw how successful businessmen came to rely upon me for advice and comfort under stress. It helped that I could read a golf course in terms of distance, terrain, slope and conditioning, and could advise these businessmen when called upon.
I honed and developed my secret skill over seven summers. I caddied on the PGA Tour while I was in graduate school and finishing my doctorate in political science. By the way, a dissertation on Machiavelli and Clausewitz comes in handy in the business world. Along the way, my understanding of the game evolved—from the golf course proper and how players confronted their own game to management of the business as a whole. Through this understanding of golf as a difficult industry to manage, I have come to know some peculiarities of the golf and country club world.
So, at the risk of oversimplifying, here are seven principles I have learned that apply to clubs with which I deal.
- Inverse Service Exposure
Private clubs are in the hospitality and service industry. Yet an oddity of the golf trade is that clients (members) have the vast majority of their face-to-face interactions with the lowest- paid, least trained service staff.Meanwhile, the highest-paid, most qualified professionals (club managers, golf pros, course superintendents, F&B directors) are hidden from day-to-day service exposure. They spend their time filling out spreadsheets, managing budgets and attending Zoom meetings. Car park valets, junior assistant pros, caddies, wait staff and on-course laborers service members. This is a problem.
Lesson 1: Make sure senior staff switch roles occasionally and occupy high contact positions.
- Golf Is Akin to Family Farming
It helps to understand golf management as akin to running a family farm. The game is unusually land extensive, a commodity which they are no longer producing and becomes more valuable to a potential developer in terms of highest and best alternative use. It is also labor-intensive, a red flag given the rising cost of staff and the increasing difficulty of recruitment and retention.The game is subject to weather variations and climate change. That means rising coastal waters, more sustained heat, greater exposure to periodic torrential rains and greater oscillation in the extremes between drought conditions and flood-level deluges. Golf is also, like farming, basically a retail operation: preparing for immediate consumption a product that can deteriorate quickly and yet must inspire cash flow.
Lesson No. 2: Given the inherent uncertainties of the industry, don’t overpromise; just overdeliver a fresh product.
- The 90/10 Rule
At most clubs, 90 percent of complaints come from about 10 percent of the members. Half of the complainants are miserable, wretched depressives whose basic goal in life, it seems, is to make everyone else as unhappy as they are.They make rational discussion, let alone advanced planning, virtually impossible for management. They make it seem as if the club has a serious problem, when in fact they are the problem. Most members can be convinced to do the right thing if outside professionals are brought in, consulted and listened to. Member forums can help educate rank-and-file members about a club’s long-term needs. At such meetings, don’t expose the experts – architects, financial planners, agronomists, club advisors – to the crowd without planning ahead, planting favorably inclined members in the audience to ask pertinent questions and to prevent the meeting from getting hijacked. Never hold such meetings with an open bar – or at least, close it when the meeting starts.
Lesson No. 3: Don’t let whiners set the agenda. - One-Third of Members Are Financially Stressed
With wealth floating ever upwards in America and many clubs facing full memberships and waiting lists, it’s helpful to remember that a private club membership is a luxury. At every club, I would estimate that up to one-third of members struggle to pay their monthlies.It’s not that members are poor, or even that dues are always overpriced. But, a $10,000 initiation and $750 a month at a modest club, and upwards of $100,000 initiation and $1,400 monthly at an elite club, is asking a lot of many families. Those who can’t afford it drop out. Most seem to manage and often go out of their way to use the facility to justify to themselves (and their family) that continued inclusion is worthwhile.They will keep their expenses modest, indulging extras like hosting guests or having big family dinners. But they will resist club investment that might lead to an assessment or dues hike. What they will tolerate is a sense of getting value for their money, which is why the board and management need to keep in mind that without an identifiable return on investment, investment in the club’s future will seem to such members as unnecessary indulgence.
Lesson No. 4: Identify the value you are providing. - All Aboard
Among the many signs of a dysfunctional club is having the general manager, golf director and grounds superintendent on different pages when it comes to club direction. It’s rarely a matter of open sniping; more like subtle grumbling, with each having their own coterie of loyalists among their respective staff and the members at large. Well-run clubs are all on-message at the top. Weekly meetings help. Liking each other and feeling comfortable personally are crucial. So, too, is a sense of shared journey rather than professional insecurity or competing ambitions. It helps to hold meetings in each other’s quarters on a rotating basis; nothing makes a manager or club president more aware of what it takes to run a golf course than meeting occasionally in the maintenance building. It helps, too, if they travel together to attend golf industry meetings and learn each other’s concerns. That doesn’t require the manager to become a turf grass expert any more than the greenkeeper selecting the wine list.
Lesson No. 5: The leadership team must act as a team publicly and privately. - Service Staff Members Are Crucial
Among the many lessons families learned during the COVID-19 pandemic was that a well-staffed private club provided the safest environment for family-wide recreation. That’s why country clubs flourished. The key to a healthy club is loyal and devoted staff who prize being at work, treat members with respect and, in turn, are treated with respect. Paying loyal staff what they truly deserve is a budgetary stretch. There are also other things, along with pay and medical benefits, that clubs can provide: a work environment that respects their integrity as diverse men and women; not tolerating members or staff who might trespass on their bodily, ethnic or sexual identity; providing for holiday time off that reflects their cultural traditions; giving them family time off when needed; and providing for scholarship programs that reward them and their children for academic advancement. Cultivating a loyal, dedicated staff requires a club-wide effort that has enormous benefits for employees and members.
Lesson No. 6: Cultivate staff loyalty. - The Golf Course Is the Primary Asset
At country clubs, the golf course is the primary asset. That facility draws the most revenue and interest, certainly disproportionate to the expenditures. I’d estimate that golf takes up about 30-35 percent of a club’s budget and brings in about 75 percent of its revenue. Yet at many clubs, members tolerate a course that, compared to everything else they choose for their lifestyle, is not up to the same standard. The parking lot is filled with members’ luxury vehicles. Members wear upscale designer label clothing. They expect haute cuisine dinners at the club and the latest technology in exercise equipment. But they will tolerate a substandard golf course, too hard for average golfers, overgrown with excess trees and that betrays its own historic legacy through successive bouts of “modernization.” For many members, playing golf is a blessing. They are grateful for their home club because it’s the one they know best. Maybe they have not traveled much to other, trend-setting new courses. Or they shy away from raising concerns about the degree of difficulty or the repetitiveness of holes because, as mid- to high handicappers, they feel their voices will not be taken seriously by the low handicappers who tend to run things.Members deserve a fine golf course. One that is fun to play, not a burden. One that provides teeing grounds for all levels of players and is not just cultivating a degree of difficulty. A golf course that provides emotional uplift and strategic diversity on a day-to-day basis. And one whose natural features reflect the topography, culture and history of its setting.
Lesson No. 7: The golf course comes first.
Golf design and maintenance cannot be fully understood without appreciating club culture, politics, budgeting and history. Dysfunctional clubs suffer dysfunctional decision-making. Likewise, clubs with fine golf courses develop clear ways for long-term planning and assessment. In the process, members make investments that yield dividends and enhance their lives—the whole point of club membership is to surround yourself with people you like, in a lifestyle that is comforting, enjoyable and enduring.
THE BOARDROOM MAGAZINE – November/December 2025
Bradley S. Klein is a veteran golf course writer, book author and design consultant. He has previously written for the USGA Green Section Record on golf course renovation planning and other topics. He is an industry partner with KOPPLIN KUEBLER & WALLACE, a consulting firm providing executive search, strategic planning and data analysis services to the private club and hospitality industries. Please contact Bradley S. Klein directly for assistance. He can be reached at igolfbadly@aol.com | 860-508-7696 | @BradleySKlein on X (Twitter)