Country Club Salaries 2026: What GMs, Membership Directors and Superintendents Actually Earn

Most boards that debate country club salaries 2026 start in the wrong place — with one person’s number, usually the general manager’s. Start here instead: the private club industry generated $32.6 billion in revenue and paid out $17.4 billion in payroll, according to the Private Club Industry Economic Impact Report produced by Club Benchmarking, CMAA, and the National Club Association. That is roughly 53 cents of every revenue dollar going to people — $14.6 billion in salaries and wages plus $2.8 billion in payroll taxes and benefits.

No other line item on the P&L comes close. So when a board asks whether it is paying its GM too much, it is asking about a rounding error inside the largest expense category the club has — and usually asking without the data to answer.

One caution before the numbers, because the industry is full of confidently cited pay figures with no traceable source: there is no free, public, role-by-role club salary table. Credible role-level bands live inside CMAA’s Compensation & Benefits Report and GCSAA’s Compensation Survey, both behind member access. What the public industry data can tell you is the structural economics that set the ceiling and the floor on what your club can pay — which is more persuasive in a board meeting than a national median anyway.

The Per-Employee Average Is a Trap

The Economic Impact Report counts 573,000 employees across 3,887 clubs — those with revenues above $1 million, out of roughly 5,659 private clubs nationally. Divide $14.6 billion in wages across 573,000 people and you get about $25,500 in average wages per employee, or roughly $30,400 fully loaded.

Do not carry that number into a compensation discussion. It is an average across an extraordinarily barbelled workforce that spans full-time year-round roles, full-time seasonal roles, part-time year-round roles, and a long tail of part-time seasonal work. With 83% of clubs operating year-round and 17% seasonal (GGA Partners’ 2024 Club Leader’s Perspectives Report), a single club’s headcount can swing by a third between February and July. A property like Pebble Beach, running resort and club operations against peak season, carries a fundamentally different payroll shape than a year-round city-and-golf operation like The Olympic Club.

The $25,500 figure is the arithmetic result of a handful of six-figure department heads sitting on top of a very large hourly base. Its only real use is as a denominator check: if your payroll-per-employee sits far above or below it, you are either running a leaner full-time-heavy model or carrying more seasonal load than the norm. That is a staffing-structure conversation, not a salary one.

The more actionable framing is revenue scale. The 3,887 reporting clubs average roughly $8.4 million in revenue each. GGA’s respondent pool — 90% general managers, CEOs, and COOs — reported an average total operating revenue of $13.1 million, with 25% of clubs at $15 million or more and 19% under $5 million. A $4 million club and an $18 million club are not competing in the same labor market for the same GM, and pretending otherwise is how clubs lose good executives.

GM Pay Tracks Tenure, Not Title

The most striking leadership finding in the public data has nothing to do with dollars. Club Benchmarking’s 2025 Club Governance Survey found that 38% of clubs have a general manager with two years of tenure or less — 19% at one year, 19% at two. Only 40% have a GM at five years or more.

Tenure is not a neutral statistic. It correlates hard with performance:

• Where the GM had five to ten years of tenure, 72% of respondents said the board governs effectively
• Beyond ten years, 71% said the same — and other performance outcomes rose significantly
• Among clubs in the bottom 25% for financial results, only 32% had a GM with five-plus years, versus 42% in the top quartile

“For GMs with a tenure of greater than 10 years, not only did 71% report that the board governs effectively, but other performance outcomes also increased significantly, perhaps an indication that longer tenures give GMs more sway with the board.” — Club Benchmarking, 2025 Club Governance Survey

Read that as a compensation argument, because it is one. The clubs with the worst financial results are disproportionately the clubs churning general managers. Every search costs a year of institutional knowledge, a placement fee, and a board that reverts to operational meddling in the vacuum — the same survey found 29% of presidents are active in the management of club operations, and that involvement measurably depressed strategic board performance. Retention money for a proven GM is cheaper than the search that replaces them.

GGA’s data shows the same split from the manager’s side: average tenure in current role of 7.4 years, but with 40% of leaders at three years or less and 25% at eleven years or more. Two industries in one. Worth noting for anyone building a compensation philosophy: GGA’s club leader respondents were 88% male and 12% female. Any club serious about widening its executive pipeline should assume the market rate it thinks it knows was set by a narrow sample.

Membership Directors Are Selling Into a Growing Market

The role that has changed most since 2020 is membership director — from waitlist administrator to revenue owner. The market context supports paying accordingly. Growth Market Reports valued the global private club membership market at $32.7 billion in 2024, projecting 7.2% compound annual growth to $61.7 billion by 2033.

That growth is not evenly distributed across membership products. The same report segments the market by type — individual (standard, under-30, founders), family, corporate (SME and enterprise), and others including seasonal, honorary, and trial — and by application, from business networking to client entertainment and co-working. Each is a distinct sales motion with its own pricing structure.

A club with a genuine waitlist, like Seminole or Augusta National, is not staffing for demand generation. Almost every other club is. If your membership director manages initiation-fee revenue, a young-executive category, corporate memberships, and a trial program, they are running a multi-product sales organization. Benchmark that role against a regional sales manager, not an administrative coordinator, and build the package with a variable component tied to net membership growth and initiation revenue — the two numbers the board actually tracks.

Superintendents and the Amenity Arms Race

Superintendent compensation is the clearest case of scope driving pay, and the reason a single national figure for country club salaries 2026 is close to useless in this role. The job at a 27-hole property with a racquets complex, an aquatics center, and new pickleball courts is not the job at a single course with a practice range.

Multi-course properties make the point plainly. Medinah runs three courses. Winged Foot runs 36 holes. Championship rota clubs — Oakmont, Merion, Baltusrol — carry years of pre-tournament agronomic preparation, capital projects, and volunteer coordination that never appear in a job title. Augusta National’s agronomy standards are a category unto themselves and should never be used as a benchmark by a club that cannot fund them.

Two structural forces are pushing this role’s market value up regardless of club size: the amenity expansion documented across the industry data, which adds maintained acreage and specialized surfaces without adding golf holes, and the seasonal labor problem. In the 17% of clubs that are seasonal, the superintendent is also the recruiter, trainer, and retainer of a crew that turns over annually. Price the role on maintained scope, capital responsibility, and crew size — then compare against the club’s own revenue band, not the national average.

What to Do Before Your Next Budget Cycle

Three moves, in order. First, calculate your own payroll as a percentage of revenue and compare it to the industry’s 53% — that single ratio reframes the conversation faster than any salary table. Second, buy the real role-level data: CMAA’s Compensation & Benefits Report and GCSAA’s Compensation Survey, filtered to your revenue band and region. Third, treat GM tenure as a financial metric and defend it in dollars.

Private Club Marketing works with clubs on the revenue side of that equation — membership growth, initiation revenue, and the marketing infrastructure that lets a membership director be measured on results instead of activity. If your board is heading into a compensation debate without the numbers to support it, let’s talk about building the case with data your members will accept.

Sources

• Club Benchmarking, CMAA and the National Club Association — Private Club Industry Economic Impact Report — $32.6 billion in direct revenue and a $17.4 billion payroll — $14.6 billion in wages plus $2.8 billion in payroll taxes and benefits; 573,000 employees across 3,887 clubs with revenue above $1 million, out of roughly 5,659 private clubs nationally
• GGA Partners — Club Leader’s Perspective 2024 — 83% of clubs year-round and 17% seasonal; average total operating revenue of $13.1 million, with 25% at $15 million or more and 19% under $5 million; respondents 90% general managers, CEOs and COOs, and 88% male to 12% female; average tenure in current role 7.4 years, with 40% at three years or less and 25% at eleven years or more
• Club Benchmarking — 2025 Club Governance Survey — general manager tenure distribution and its correlation with board performance and financial results; board-effectiveness rates by tenure band; club president involvement in operations
• Growth Market Reports — Private Club Membership Market — global private club membership market valued at $32.7 billion in 2024, projected to grow at a 7.2% compound annual rate to $61.7 billion by 2033; segmentation by membership type and application
• CMAA — Compensation & Benefits Report — role-level compensation bands for club management, available to members — the source recommended in this article for club-specific benchmarking
• GCSAA — Compensation and Benefits Report — biennial superintendent compensation and benefits study broken out by state, metro area and facility type