November runs three calendars at once: the 60 days after the dues letter, the Thanksgiving-to-December event season and the year-end membership close. A dated week-by-week plan, with six club examples.
Tag: Pricing Strategy
Stephen Ross, Michael Jordan, Jim Crane, Bill Foley and other team owners have built or bought private golf clubs. Here is what they own, why they do it, and what club leaders can learn.
1,447 member-owned clubs added $7.66 billion in assets between fiscal 2019 and 2024. Net assets, not liabilities, carried most of it. What the filings show, and what boards should take into 2027.
Florida’s ten highest-revenue member-owned clubs, ranked from their own Form 990 filings. Boca West leads at $95.1 million, and the top ten grew 60 percent from fiscal 2019 to 2024.
Form 990 filings from 1,382 clubs show expenses up 38.1% since 2019. Revenue kept pace, but costs outgrew revenue at nearly half of clubs last year.
Private clubs run on two ledgers: dues carry daily operations, while initiation fees and assessments fund buildings and courses. Here is how each revenue stream works, with sourced industry data and examples from Boca West, Jacksonville Golf & Country Club, Carolina Golf Club, and The Club at Forest Ridge.
Whether a private club is worth it depends on usage, life stage, and fit; here is a cost-per-use framework and a trial checklist to decide.
What a country club membership really costs: initiation, dues, minimums, assessments, and the under-40 tier most clubs don’t advertise.
Private clubs reported $1.45 billion in initiation fees and capital contributions on fiscal 2024 Form 990s. In a constant 864-club panel, fee income grew 64.8% in five years, outpacing revenue.
Private clubs are still booming in 2026, but the peak has passed. NGCOA data shows 58% of private clubs grew membership, while GGA Partners finds waitlists have stopped lengthening and smaller clubs are seeing softer demand. Here is what the sourced numbers say, and what they mean for membership marketing.