Joining Fee.....why?

[Phil2511]

My late father was a member of Carnalea in Bangir Co. Down and I remember he had myself and 2 brothers join although we never played it because he never took us lol. Anyways I remember that it was guaranteed that I would get full membership but my 2 brothers who he had joined up the following year were not due to the large membership numbers.
They had a waiting list and someone had to die or leave before a new member could get in. That was about 20 years ago.

Now though it is completely different. A group from our club just went there at the end of July and they gave them the remaining 5 months of 2011 for £150. Full year is £700.

Clandeboye GC had a joining fee of 3 years green fees which are £877 so £2631 now it is only £877 joining fee and I know a couple guys who joined and start of November and got the 14 months for price of 12. So they saved approx £165 on the 2 free months plus £1751 on the old joining fees.

 

[Toad]

There is still a joining fee at my place, one of the few on the area that does. We are lucky in that we have around 1200 playing members, there is still a big drive on for more members but there are no plans to drop the joining fee, which is 1 years annual subs.
One local course is shutting the doors tomorrow and filling the course with sheep!!!
They have had at most 200 members per year since it opened 15 years ago and it dropped to 160 this year so absolutely no chance of surviving.
The problem was it was done on the cheap and opened far too early.
You could lose balls in the fairway it was that bad and this caused a lot of locals to stay clear.
It has been improving over the years but the damage to its reputation when it first opened killed any hope of attracting enough members .

 

[RobertBirdie]

Hi All,

My first post - so go easy on me - I am thinking of taking up golf and cost is one of the major things I am looking at - it is an expensive hobby both in monetary and in time terms, however I would consider a joining fee just part of the overall cost and feel that a club has a right to set whatever charges it deems necessary.