Annual subscription 2026

arnieboy said:
A bit of a quandary for me on membership renewal. It is due on 1st May and is over £1,500. Unfortunately I am having knee replacement surgery in ten days time so I am hoping that I get a positive result in terms of mobility within the first couple of weeks allowing me to pay up.
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Not sure what you mean by that. I was still on crutches two weeks after my total knee replacement. My consultant said it would be around 16 weeks before returning to golf.
 
woofers said:
Not sure what you mean by that. I was still on crutches two weeks after my total knee replacement. My consultant said it would be around 16 weeks before returning to golf.
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I didn't mean play golf within two weeks of surgery but rather having the feeling that the surgery went well giving me mental reassurance that all will be well in the end.
 
£1460 an increase of 5%. Leeds.

My game is in the bin, but I'd just sit doing nothing so I'll likely pay up 😂

Others in the area..

Otley (£1,571), Headingley (£1,750), and Scarcroft (£1,684).
 
Lord Tyrion said:
Has the area always been quite expensive? I didn't expect Leeds (area) to be that much.
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It went up quite a lot after Covid I think. £1200 for me in 2023, so it's gone up quite a lot.

Headingley also went up after hosting English Amateur in 2021. It's a really good course though, plus new practice facilities. Think there's a waiting list now.
 
Orikoru said:
I can't complain when I've benefitted from the lower rate the last five years though. Nothing ever last forever. 😄 That rate was a big reason we even chose this particular club, it made it a fair bit cheaper than other local clubs at the time. But with the yearly rises it's now similar to all the others anyway.
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Where you playing these days pal
 
sunshine said:
On the Grims Dyke website full membership is shown as £1950. That's the same ballpark as Stanmore which is £1900 and Pinner at £1990. Both are better courses than Grims Dyke. Drainage / playability year round will be similar, so Grims Dyke must be offering something else to compete with these two. Maybe Grims Dyke has fewer members so easier to get a peak tee time?

If I lived your way I would probably be heading to Sandy Lodge. The sandy turf means it's playable year round and it has great practice facilities. I'm sure it's quite a bit more expensive but you're probably spending £500+ a year at the driving range which you would save at Sandy Lodge.
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Sandy lodge was over £2500 with a joining fee of £2000 if I remember rightly (spoke to the staff there), the last time I played there the course was in decent condition although I don’t really remember much about it, I would consider it if I was able to play more than I currently can.
 
Mark1751 said:
Sandy lodge was over £2500 with a joining fee of £2000 if I remember rightly (spoke to the staff there), the last time I played there the course was in decent condition although I don’t really remember much about it, I would consider it if I was able to play more than I currently can.
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£2500 for Sandy Lodge is much much better value than £2000 for Grims Dyke (or others in the same price bracket like Pinner).

I'm not a fan of joining fees though.
 
We have just had our annual purge of our member database following the membership renewal deadline of the end of March.

We appear to have removed 120 members, looking through the list I realized that the vast majority of names I had never heard of...so did a quick count. Of the 120 people who had been purged, I did not have a clue who 97 of them were, 10 names I recognised and 13 more were people I knew personally.

So i did the obvious thing...how many of the folk left at the club do I know...

Seemingly there are 233 names on the members list who I haven't a clue who they are, 81 names are people that I know of or have had fleeting contact with, and 121 people who I know personally
 
nickjdavis said:
We have just had our annual purge of our member database following the membership renewal deadline of the end of March.

We appear to have removed 120 members, looking through the list I realized that the vast majority of names I had never heard of...so did a quick count. Of the 120 people who had been purged, I did not have a clue who 97 of them were, 10 names I recognised and 13 more were people I knew personally.

So i did the obvious thing...how many of the folk left at the club do I know...

Seemingly there are 233 names on the members list who I haven't a clue who they are, 81 names are people that I know of or have had fleeting contact with, and 121 people who I know personally
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Based on that you’ve lost 22% of your members this year. Seems a worryingly huge proportion?
 
The Squirrel said:
Based on that you’ve lost 22% of your members this year. Seems a worryingly huge proportion?
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In simplistic terms, as a one off snapshot, yes. But in actual fact, before the renewals, weve grown significantly over the prior 12 months, compared to this time last year, so the purge merely offsets that growth, to put us at a similar base to where we were 12 months ago.

I think a some of who we "lost" were your typical "transient" members who flit from club to club, combined with a lot of casual players for whom club membership is not a priority in their golfing life.

I took a random sample of a dozen names from the 97 who i didnt know, and had a search to see if they had joined anywhere else...just 3 people had joined other local clubs, the orher 12 were no longer visible on the Dot Golf backend system...not even as iGolf members. Looking at their handicap records, it is clear that many effectively ended their membership at various stages over the previous six months and, whilst they were still technically paid up members, they had been playing their golf elsewhere for some time now.

So yeah...in isolation it looks drastic, when taken as part of the long term trend, the picture is a little more balanced.
 
nickjdavis said:
In simplistic terms, as a one off snapshot, yes. But in actual fact, before the renewals, weve grown significantly over the prior 12 months, compared to this time last year, so the purge merely offsets that growth, to put us at a similar base to where we were 12 months ago.

I think a some of who we "lost" were your typical "transient" members who flit from club to club, combined with a lot of casual players for whom club membership is not a priority in their golfing life.

I took a random sample of a dozen names from the 97 who i didnt know, and had a search to see if they had joined anywhere else...just 3 people had joined other local clubs, the orher 12 were no longer visible on the Dot Golf backend system...not even as iGolf members. Looking at their handicap records, it is clear that many effectively ended their membership at various stages over the previous six months and, whilst they were still technically paid up members, they had been playing their golf elsewhere for some time now.

So yeah...in isolation it looks drastic, when taken as part of the long term trend, the picture is a little more balanced.
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Fair enough, although that means you’re having to run very hard indeed just to stand still in terms of member acquisition - and relying on that continuing. There’s no way I’d be that blasé about an annual attrition rate that high. Club membership was enough of a priority for them to join, so what’s changed? For comparison, I run a business also significantly based on monthly direct debit subscription and our annual attrition is 4-5% (with most leavers either leaving the area or, sadly, deceased). I’d be very worried if it got above 8% and looking at what we were doing wrong that was making people choose to leave.
 
The Squirrel said:
Fair enough, although that means you’re having to run very hard indeed just to stand still in terms of member acquisition - and relying on that continuing. There’s no way I’d be that blasé about an annual attrition rate that high. Club membership was enough of a priority for them to join, so what’s changed? For comparison, I run a business also significantly based on monthly direct debit subscription and our annual attrition is 4-5% (with most leavers either leaving the area or, sadly, deceased). I’d be very worried if it got above 8% and looking at what we were doing wrong that was making people choose to leave.
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One thing that has significantly changed are the membership fees....three years ago the annual subs were £900.....then they were put up to £1150 and this year to £1250....that is enough to make a lot of people reconsider their options regarding membership. Those folks who saw us as a "cheap option" (and we were cheap in quite a few respects) now have to think harder...our fees are now "mid-range...maybe upper mid-range" for the area. On the plus side though...those increased fees have seen an increased investment in the course....better bunkers, re-landscaping, better general condition, new fleet of buggies soon to be GPS enabled etc etc....and this is drawing people to the club on a regular basis from other clubs.

January last year i think we had around 400 male members and 50 ladies....so we are not far down on where we were 15 months ago. The nature of a membership where you have a fixed term and a cut off date for renewals is always going to look drastic statistically, when the annual purge of the database happens....you don't notice the creep upwards in numbers during the year, which makes the April decline appear so much more shocking. Whilst I get what you are saying about attrition rates in business, I also think golf clubs are places that have always had a high turnover of membership numbers....its an expensive sport and many folk will simply go where the best deal is to be had....and its not like you need to be a member anywhere to actually play golf....the running hard to stay still I think is true of many golf clubs.

We've been in a transition since new management took over two/three years ago...rather than make ourselves cheap (low membership, cheap greenfees with lots of deals) which in turn makes us "look" cheap, the management is now trying to raise the profile of the club...increased memberships, higher green fees....placing us in a pricing bracket with other perhaps more well regarded clubs, but improving the quality of the product on offer. The "race to the bottom" which the previous management seemed to be engaged in was taking the club nowhere, except perhaps into closure. Although many of us long term members still shake our heads at some of the things that happen, I think most of us agree that the club is in a better place than 5 years ago, both off and on the course.
 
nickjdavis said:
One thing that has significantly changed are the membership fees....three years ago the annual subs were £900.....then they were put up to £1150 and this year to £1250....that is enough to make a lot of people reconsider their options regarding membership. Those folks who saw us as a "cheap option" (and we were cheap in quite a few respects) now have to think harder...our fees are now "mid-range...maybe upper mid-range" for the area. On the plus side though...those increased fees have seen an increased investment in the course....better bunkers, re-landscaping, better general condition, new fleet of buggies soon to be GPS enabled etc etc....and this is drawing people to the club on a regular basis from other clubs.

January last year i think we had around 400 male members and 50 ladies....so we are not far down on where we were 15 months ago. The nature of a membership where you have a fixed term and a cut off date for renewals is always going to look drastic statistically, when the annual purge of the database happens....you don't notice the creep upwards in numbers during the year, which makes the April decline appear so much more shocking. Whilst I get what you are saying about attrition rates in business, I also think golf clubs are places that have always had a high turnover of membership numbers....its an expensive sport and many folk will simply go where the best deal is to be had....and its not like you need to be a member anywhere to actually play golf....the running hard to stay still I think is true of many golf clubs.

We've been in a transition since new management took over two/three years ago...rather than make ourselves cheap (low membership, cheap greenfees with lots of deals) which in turn makes us "look" cheap, the management is now trying to raise the profile of the club...increased memberships, higher green fees....placing us in a pricing bracket with other perhaps more well regarded clubs, but improving the quality of the product on offer. The "race to the bottom" which the previous management seemed to be engaged in was taking the club nowhere, except perhaps into closure. Although many of us long term members still shake our heads at some of the things that happen, I think most of us agree that the club is in a better place than 5 years ago, both off and on the course.
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Your club sounds similar to ours in the fact that the course (and the whole golfing experience) has been improved greatly in the last 5 years or so. We are also trying to increase the fees to match other clubs in the local area that we are now 'better' than but this isn't going down too well with a lot of the members, myself included. We are making plenty from the range and functions in the bar so don't see the need to get more money just because we can.
 
The Squirrel said:
Fair enough, although that means you’re having to run very hard indeed just to stand still in terms of member acquisition - and relying on that continuing. There’s no way I’d be that blasé about an annual attrition rate that high. Club membership was enough of a priority for them to join, so what’s changed? For comparison, I run a business also significantly based on monthly direct debit subscription and our annual attrition is 4-5% (with most leavers either leaving the area or, sadly, deceased). I’d be very worried if it got above 8% and looking at what we were doing wrong that was making people choose to leave.
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I’m not sure what sort of subscription you are involved in but if you can provide a driving range babes section then I know of a forum member of a devilish persuasion who would be interested 🤣
 
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