Arn't joining fees making it harder for new members?

[LCW]

Nearly if not all (come to think of it) the clubs in my area have joining fee's and some substantial ones at that but it does not stop them having thriving memberships with waiting lists to join their respective clubs.

We have West Lancs, Formby, Formby Hall, Hesketh, S&A, Hillside & Royal Birkdale all with joining fees last I heard and mostly waiting lists except maybe Hesketh & FH at the moment. Some places are nigh on impossible to get into to without knowing people in the know regardless of how much cash you have.

I guess my take on it is its just personal preference. I paid a joining fee and have no issues with that because I knew I was planning on staying with the club for many years so will get my moneys worth to play at the club I had always wanted too. This was helped by the fact I was allowed to pay in installments over 3 years. I could have joined somewhere a little further afield with no joining fee which i would have gladly done but nothing I seen had everything I wanted in a GC, so i had to pay for my tastes. If I have to pay that fee that's my decision and I have to take it on the chin but I do get why it can be a barrier to entry to some folk.

The courses up here are of pretty good standard and it costs (sometimes alot) to keep the clubs at this standard and I am not just talking about the course itself. I would rather that than a constant increase in annual subs which is how they could levy the current members for income if we had no joining fee I would assume. They could also over crowd the membership leading to lots of issues to generate the lost revenue from joining fee's.

For my money I can play 12 months of the year as well due to the greens teams constant year round work. I also suppose it helps (income) that we charge about £150 a round for a visitor fee :fore:

Suppose as some one pointed it its not a one size fits all & its good we lots of options like municipals (£300 a year i think southport mun is) all the way up to Royal's with clubs in between with and without fee's.

 

[woody69]

If I ran a golf club, I would introduce a scheme where they pay a 'joining fee' that equates to 1 years membership. Then in year 3, this money they have paid is used as their membership. If they leave in the 1st two years or at any point in year 3 they don't get the 'joining fee' (or remainder) back. Promotes loyalty to the club and helps the members budget.

I'd offer a similar scheme for year 4 of their membership, where they can pay up front for year 6 and so on at a reduced rate to the standard yearly rate.

 

[matt71]

Sorry to say but I am struggling as it is to pay for membership at my club and if I had to leave (moving area) and want to carry playing the game and the new club asks for a joining fee then it will be the final straw and would have to go pay and play!

I personally feel that membership fees are a thing of the past and only see the posher or maybe more desirable clubs charging now, even then you still have to be recommend by several members to get an interview to get in. Unfortunately that type of club is not for me !

i can see the pro's and cons for joining fees but as you can guess I am against

 

[Deleted member 21258]

I always thought joining fee were applicable to private member courses, as you 'bought into the club/land etc' Which I can agree with as such. But personally I think it should have been done on a share or debenture basis, which some clubs do.

To pay a joining fee to join a club that is owned by a profit making business, is a joke and just to take money from you for nothing on their side IMHO. Perhaps different for some of the proper top courses, that wish to restrict membership to the 'elite'. Luckily enough the boom of building golf courses for the normal man came about in the late 80s/90s, busier lives, more expensive lifestyles and the 'old view' is now getting much older and the younger view is a coming.

This has meant downward pressure on courses, to drop joining fees, to attract the younger generation and middle aged generation (upto 35ish). I think some of the local course here have a sliding scale of yearly fees, depending on your age to reflect this. As these people of the long term future of clubs and to encourage them to continue playing whilst having a family/home etc, just makes sense, as far better to keep these people playing than not playing at all(so golf will lose a lot more money overall).

Down South it is different, due to the massive numbers of people living in the same area and land being at such a premium.

 

[Crazyface]

http://styalgolf.com/categories-memberships/

This is the way forward in my opinion. The place was rammed when I went. (A Friday morning)

 

[Crazyface]

http://styalgolf.com/categories-memberships/in2golf/

With this being a brilliant option !!!!

 

[351DRIVER]

Flexible membership options are always a good idea, like offering many golf tees, all for that.

 

[Liverbirdie]

I am a member of a course that had a joining fee originally £700, payable over 10 years @ £70 a year, if desired. The last 10 years it has had no joining fee.

Every year recently we have had 60-80 people leave and join, or re-join back. The club has sailed close to the wind a few times, from what I'm led to believe, but has also re-designed a greens complex, or had a whole new extra hole added.

It is harder to plan though.

All the other courses within 10 miles also now have no joining fee, bar 1, whose fee is £1,000. This course is probably the best run, and in the best nick, but I just don't think a £1k joining fee is worth it. £250-500 possibly. I would however pay £2.5 k to join one of the local premium links courses, given the chance.

I think most non-premium courses, who do struggle for members should look at charging a joining fee of say £300.00, but each year for 5 years you get £75 back off your green fees for each year. You would be £75 better off in total, the club keep you, or they make £225 off you, if you leave after 1 year. Nomadic golf is making it harder for clubs to stay alive with one local club at one point offering £500 a year subs (everyone else around here is 1k), as I can only conclude that they were in severe difficulty at the time, They had over 100 new members, whether they are retained when back to £1k, I don't know.

I think some clubs need the middle way.

 

[GB72]

http://styalgolf.com/categories-memberships/

This is the way forward in my opinion. The place was rammed when I went. (A Friday morning)

Now this is something I like, very forward thinking. That said, it would not be ideal for many golf clubs who see the working golfer as a handy cash cow and that is how I feel at times. For many people of my age, golf is a once a week, maybe twice a week thing and it is only possible to play at weekends. Most golf clubs know at that stage that they have the upper hand so long as no alternative fee structures exist in the area. Based on that, the working golfer tends to pay the highest rates at the club whilst playing the least amount of golf. Great for the club, poor value for the golfer. This results in many facing a decision of expensive golf or no golf and that partly explains why you have a far lower number of golfers aged 30-50 at clubs.
It is no real surprise that many golf clubs have an aging membership as to those of retirement age, membership represents great value for money. That same value does not exist for the weekend golfer whose cost per round is far higher.
Ironically, and I have discussed this with a couple of committee members at our club, having a scheme like that detailed in the web link could actually make the club more money. Our fees are about £700.00 per year. If you cut that to £350.00 plus £10 per round at weekends, you could make nearly £900 out of a golfer who ends up averaging a round a week but with less commitment and less up front cost, you may just attract more working golfers to play.

 

[Sports_Fanatic]

Arguably a joining fee is offering a discount to long term members for their loyalty.

For most members clubs, they try to balance the books between income and expenses whilst maintaining or improving the quality. They're not there to try to rake in a mass of profits which goes to one owner.

Very simple example, but if they have say a 1,000 members and need to make £500,000 a year, then each member will have to pay £500.

Alternatively, they could look to make say £450,000 through annual subs, and the rest through a joining fee. Existing members would therefore only pay £450 a year. Yes they would have paid the original joining fee but if you like this becomes spread thinner the more years someone stays at a club.

For completeness the 50 new members would pay an extra £1k joining fee making up the balance of £50k.

I think many people would say a discount for loyal customers is reasonable, and also a long term membership base probably lowers costs for the club around advertising, recruiting etc hence another reason why you could argue there should be a benefit to them.

Saying all that, as a 30 something with young children, the price does factor in to decision making as I'll play once/twice a month at best so my rounds are a higher costs than guests when I look at purely membership price per round. A joining fee isn't ideal then but I can understand why a club may do it.

 

[Val]

I joined my first club back in 2012 and paid a 4 figure joining fee. I didn't settle at that club so left at the end of that season regardless of the joining fee.

I've been at my current club which has no joining fee for the last 4 years but I'm not happy there so am looking around for somewhere else for next season and am most likely to end up back at the club I originally joined in 2012 as most of the things that put me off it in the first place have been changed.

Golf is my only hobby and the cost, joining fees etc. have no impact on my decisions on where to join or whether I'm going to move on or not. I just want to play golf on a nice golf course and be able to play lots of comps during the golfing season.

What was your original club?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

If I ran a golf club, I would introduce a scheme where they pay a 'joining fee' that equates to 1 years membership. Then in year 3, this money they have paid is used as their membership. If they leave in the 1st two years or at any point in year 3 they don't get the 'joining fee' (or remainder) back. Promotes loyalty to the club and helps the members budget.

I'd offer a similar scheme for year 4 of their membership, where they can pay up front for year 6 and so on at a reduced rate to the standard yearly rate.

I have suggested a similar scheme to our committee.

My idea was that new members pay let's say 5 years of bar/food and pro shop money up front - say £500. £100 of this money is put on the members account at the start, another £100 at year two etc. So if the member stays 5 years he gets his money 'back' (though obviously he has spent it in the club). If a member leaves within 5 years then he forfeits the balance.

The response was that it isn't quite so straightforward as we might think as it would require the club to be able to hold and guarantee your money - and that requires a lot of financial services compliance work - and so for instance why my club uses Fairway Golf for members wishing to pay by monthly DD.

 

[hovis]

I'm a firm believer in joining fees, it promotes a bit of loyalty to the club and encourages members to stay long term which gives the benefit to the club of being able to plan and finance long term improvements.

Complete opposite for me. lets say you don't like new changes the club bring in or don't like other aspects. You can't exactly walk away when you've paid 2k to join

 

[hovis]

My argument is without a joining fee, half your membership could walk at the end of the year if there was an issue at a club (poor conditioning etc) but if you have forked out a grand or more you are more likely to ride the storm.

So a golf club can do what they like with no consequences. Thats called ransom!

If they didn't have joining fee's they might just have to take measures to keep customers happy. Imagine that

 

[hovis]

Hate joining fees. Clubs should have to work to retain members and make them want to stay by being better than the competition. They should not have to use financial handcuffs to keep members when their decisions and actions have made them less attractive than the club down the road

Spot on

 

[MarkE]

I'd never contemplate joining a club with joining fees. Membership fees should more than cover the the cost of running a club and if they are in place to dissuade the riffraff I would'nt want to join anyway.

 

[Deleted Member 1156]

Complete opposite for me. lets say you don't like new changes the club bring in or don't like other aspects. You can't exactly walk away when you've paid 2k to join

Private members clubs have committees that are answerable to the members. I wouldn't join a proprietary club that had a joining fee where an owner can do whatever he wants.

 

[DCB]

Interesting thread with two very different points of view.

We had a local club who were one of the first to drop the joining fee. Year one saw a huge number of new members join the club. Given that 30 new members in a year was a good number, they took in over 90 in that first year. We had a wet summer, the course had some serious flooding issues when a burn burst it's banks and the lower part of the course was unplayable for quite a while. Churn reached record numbers the following season when most of those new members upped stick and moved elsewhere.

With two clubs having gone to the wall in the area, you'd think clubs were able to pick & choose their members again. Not so. Pay & play golf is on the up locally and the club's are still working hard to maintain their membership levels.

The problem is, we have lost two generations to the game, something that didn't happen in the past. Several clubs have very low numbers of juniors, again, something that was never an issue in times past. Golf just isn't the draw it once was. We need to be worrying about how club golf will survive rather than argue whether a club can charge a joining fee or not.

 

[Deleted member 18588]

So a golf club can do what they like with no consequences. Thats called ransom!

If they didn't have joining fee's they might just have to take measures to keep customers happy. Imagine that

In a members' club the members are not customers but owners so a joining fee is more akin to an investment in a company where they are, themselves, responsible for the running of the Club via the Committee (all of whom are members) and AGM's.

Obviously it is different at proprietary clubs such as The Belfry where the members have no or limited input into the decision making process.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

My club has had joining fees and currently has a freeze going on. It's called a degree of tension when some newish members paid and find out others didn't, a matter of 4-6 months later. Ultimately though isn't it simply an economic decision in the same way as buying a car etc. and if you want to join and there are fees involved you have to weigh up the pros and cons of the additional cost and make a decision based on that.

If clubs feel they have a need and can still attract new members with a fee then of course it makes economic sense to get as much money coming in as they can.