Savvy diners know that when you order off the a la carte menu in a restaurant, you spend more and the restaurant makes more, generally speaking. The complete meal, or prix fixe, is a better deal –- if you like what’s on that menu.
The standard in most high-end golf communities we visit is to offer resident and non-resident club memberships, each with the payment of an initiation fee. (Some offer just the resident memberships, whether you are a non-resident property owner waiting to build your home or not; and some make some form of membership, often just a social plan, mandatory.) Non-resident dues can run to a few hundred dollars per month; for a couple not ready to use the facilities for a few years, this can be off-putting enough to look elsewhere for a golf community home.
Photo courtesy of Big Canoe
Most golf community clubs would do well to take a page from a restaurant menu and offer an a la carte option to those members who don’t play enough golf to justify paying dues for a full-golf plan. The break even point on such full golf plans can be as much as three or four days of play per week, 52 weeks per year. Even serious golfers don’t play those 150 to 200 rounds a year, and if they chance it, some could very well be headed for divorce court, which would only add to the expense.
