The story has been well told: During the pandemic, the safest refuge was outdoors. But if mountain climbing, spelunking and being out on the water away from crowds did not float your boat, then your most challenging alternative may have been golf. From the pre-pandemic year of 2019 to 2024, golf’s popularity grew by 38%, and total rounds played in the U.S. reached 545 million, a record-setting number. In the first full year of the pandemic, 2020, the number of golf rounds played in the U.S. jumped 13%, according to the National Golf Foundation. Overall, on-course participation nationwide increased by two million, the majority of that coming from beginners.
If you are having trouble in 2025 snagging a tee time the day before you want to play, blame it on the pandemic. If you have noticed a green fee increase every year since 2021, same culprit. If your former four-hour round is consistently longer than four and a half hours, COVID’s to blame for that too. (I recall my first 18-hole round when I shot a 115 and putted everything out, even the one-footers, before I knew better. The adult foursome behind my group of 14-year-olds was livid.)
The beach inside the gates of DeBordieu ColonyAs green fees have risen at public golf courses, the pandemic’s effect has been even more profound at private country clubs. According to Golf Operator Magazine, initiation fees at many private clubs have tripled in the last five years, with those clubs that formerly charged $5,000 to $20,000 now assessing $50,000 and more. Monthly dues, the operating lifeblood of all private clubs, followed suit, rising from the mid hundreds to well over $1,000 per month. And despite the higher tariffs, private club waiting lists are now the rule rather than the exception.
What is a retired couple to do if their pre-retirement assumptions about private club fees are no longer valid? (That same quandary faces younger families working remotely and planning to move to a community where excellent golf is available inside the gates or conveniently nearby.) The quick answer for all parties on the move is that you have enough exciting options to find the one that works for you, from both social and financial standpoints.
I wrote and published Glorious Back Nine: How to Find Your Dream Golf Home in 2020. What I wrote then about the thought process behind which type of country club to choose is as accurate today as it was back then. Only the price tags have changed. In the book, I identified tangible and intangible reasons for paying more to join a private golf club inside the community where you choose to live rather than opting for daily fee golf just down the road. Here are the tangible reasons:
The chief intangible reason for joining a private club is what I call the “Cheers Bar” effect. Remember the theme song to that overwhelmingly popular show? It ended with, “You wanna go where everybody knows your name.” Of course you do because that means you will be treated with care and respect that cannot be duplicated at most public facilities. Staff at public courses tend to come and go, but the staff at well-run private clubs stick around long enough to get to know your name. Their bosses insist on it.
Your first calculation in deciding whether a private country club is right for you is literally a calculation, a financial one. For those who feel strongly that private club membership is a must, I suggest folding the initiation fee into the total cost of the golf community home you are going to buy. Unless you join an equity club that will return your initiation fee when you leave the club – fewer equity options these days – you can kiss the initiation fee goodbye. But the monthly dues will be a significant part of your budget, and the most important component of your financial calculations to decide whether the private or public option is right for you.
Many of the metropolitan areas in the Southeast, the territory I cover, feature a mix of private and public clubs, and some of the public clubs will feature golf that is as high quality as many of the private clubs. The green fees at the best of the public courses can top out at $100 or more; that provides a good start for comparing the costs of a private club you are considering with the best public golf in the area. Consider the following comparison from my own experience. (I am not a member of either club but I know them well.)
The railroad ties are decidedly Dye at DeBordieuMyrtle Beach, SC, offers more quality golf per square mile than virtually any other area in the nation. Of its 80-plus golf courses within 60 miles, only a half dozen are private and half of those are located at the far south end of the Grand Strand. Debordieu Colony in Georgetown, SC, features a Pete Dye golf course and a three-mile Atlantic Ocean beach inside its guarded front gate. The layout is one of the best on the Grand Strand, and it shows off most of Dye’s iconic flourishes, such as railroad ties separating green from pond and his signature pothole bunkers wedged into fairways and beside greens. When I last reviewed DeBordieu a little over a decade ago, the initiation fee for a full golf membership was $30,000. Today, the club is charging new members $91,000 and annual dues are $8,640, or $720 per month, which seems super-reasonable given the quality of the club and its robust initiation fee.
Caledonia Golf and Fish Club, in Pawleys Island, SC, is located less than 10 miles north of DeBordieu and shows up on national lists of the best public golf courses in America, most recently at #70 nationwide on Golfweek’s list of “Best Courses You Can Play.” The magazine also ranked Caledonia, and its companion course True Blue, at #4 and #5, respectively, within the golf-rich state of South Carolina. Caledonia and True Blue were designed by the late Mike Strantz whose legendary Tobacco Road and Tot Hill Farm, both in North Carolina, are among the most memorable and talked-about layouts in America. With an annual Caledonia/True Blue membership you will pay $40 each time you play, just $30 in the off season (see annual fees below). It is a great deal for anyone who lives most of the year in the area. If you choose not to purchase a membership, green fee rates range from around $100 in the off season (summer and winter) to $200 in-season (spring and fall).
The following is my back-of-the-napkin calculation of the relative costs of joining DeBordieu compared with Caledonia/True Blue. You can run the same rough exercise with private and public golf clubs in areas you are considering for a golf home. I suggest that my clients consider an initiation (joining) fee part of the cost of the home they buy; a country club membership, after all, hastens integration into the social life of the golf community. And if you are targeting a golf community for your future home, quality golf and an active social life should be high on your list of preferences.
| Club Name | Joining Fee | Monthly Dues | Cost per Play | 16 times per month |
| DeBordieu | $91,000 | $720 | $0 | $720 |
| Caledonia | $2,299* | $192** | $40 | $640 |
*Caledonia’s joining fee – what it calls “membership access” – is a one-time initiation fee.
**The monthly dues amount is calculated by dividing the club’s annual fee of $2,299, for a single member between the ages of 35 and 75, by 12. (Senior member annual rate is $1,699.) Membership applies both to Caledonia and its sister course, True Blue. The major difference between the cost of play at the private DeBordieu and the public Caledonia/True Blue, for those who play four times per week, is in the initiation fee. Other costs are comparable.
The view from behind the 18th at Caledonia Golf & Fish ClubFor sure there are other private clubs in the Myrtle Beach area that charge lower initiation fees than does DeBordieu, and since all homes for sale in the gated beach community are now listed at $1 million and up, the assumption is that most residents there can afford the fees. There are also other fine public golf courses in the area that do not charge the annual fee that Caledonia does, but their green fees are higher than $40 per play.
In the end, those who don’t have to worry about the relatively steep tariffs at a private club will lean toward the built-in camaraderie, excellent course conditions, a long list of amenities and the upscale treatment by staff and consider the initiation fee no big deal. However, for those with a more modest budget, and who are confident they will be able to build a social network within their new golf community without membership, a top-ranked public course nearby will be a viable option.
Virtually every hole at True Blue golf course is a sandscapeA recent article at TopRetirements.com ranked the most inexpensive states for cost of living. West Virginia ranked 51st – the District of Columbia was also ranked on the full list – and Mississippi at 50th. I responded to the list with the following published comment:
When I see a ranking list like this, I recall the story of two friends dining in a restaurant, and the one says, "Isn't this food horrible?" And the other responds, "Yeah, but it is the cheapest restaurant in the area." If you have any health issue, or expect you might someday, you'd be nuts to consider any of the states at the top of the cheap-living list. According to the Commonwealth Fund, every one of the top five states is toxic when it comes to healthcare. Commonwealth's 2025 Scorecard on State Health System Performance ranks Mississippi dead last, actually 51st because the District of Columbia is also graded. The most affordable state, West Virginia, is ranked fifth to last. Oklahoma, the fourth most affordable state is also the third most dangerous to your health. Texas, renowned for its zero state income tax, holds down the second worst position for healthcare (and, perhaps, disaster preparedness). Rounding out the top 5 cheapo states, Alabama is ranked 42nd for healthcare and Kansas 33rd. Arkansas, by the way, makes the top five cellar-dweller list for healthcare at position #4. Sharp TR readers might have deduced a common trait among these unhealthy states, besides how much you'd save living there. (Not going to make the obvious political statement here.) But what is truly surprising is that the performance of virtually every Sunbelt state is in the bottom half of the Healthcare Scorecard. I can report that virtually all are located in the Sunbelt, a magnet for retirees because of the weather climate. But the climate for healthcare is a different story.
Lest you think the Commonwealth Fund might be unfair to the states they rank lowest, USNews & World Report ranks Mississippi #50, West Virginia 49th and Oklahoma 48th.
You will find a few excellent hospitals in the Southeast to consider in your relocation plans. They include MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston, SC, recognized as the #1 hospital in the state for many years; Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC, the #1 hospital in the Charlotte region according to some sources; and the Mayo Clinic-Florida in Jacksonville, FL. On a personal note, I once made an unplanned visit to the ER in Georgetown Memorial Hospital in Georgetown, SC and received great treatment. Georgetown is about 50 minutes south of Myrtle Beach.
Thanks for reading,
Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC
