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Pre-COVID, many golf clubs had no waitlists to join. For those with an extended process, provided you were a decent person or didn’t show any of your indecencies to the admissions committee, you could expect to wait a few years at most. Now some of those membership lists have waits upwards of seven years, with the added indignity of restricted golf privileges when you finally get in. Are there ways to game out how long you’ll sit on the bench?
Like many great things in life, the short answer is it depends. Waiting lists for private clubs are generally better in the south, tougher in the north. Metropolitan areas, be they New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, Los Angeles or San Francisco, remain tough by that most basic law of supply and demand: fewer courses for plenty of people who can pay high initiation fees.
For people looking to join clubs outside of the most elite ones, the process is more mathematical. If you look at all private golf clubs in the United States—both standalone clubs and residential golf communities—46 percent have waiting lists, and the median initiation fee is $56,000.
“Before the pandemic, the median initiation fee was $25,000, and a quarter of the clubs had a wait list,” says Ray Cronin, founder and chief innovator of Club Benchmarking.
What determines how fast people move up and off those lists is not the list’s size but the club’s rate of attrition, or the number of resignations per year.
“Attrition used to be 5 to 6 percent pre-pandemic, and now it’s closer to 3 to 4 percent,” Cronin says. “With 5.5 percent, you replace the membership every 20 years. At 3.5 percent, it’s 33 years to replace your membership.”
Slower attrition not only impacts new members getting in but also the club’s capital. “Clubs can’t take in as much in initiation fees,” Cronin says.
There are some bright spots for applicants. In the sunbelt, those states stretching from Arizona to Florida, waitlists and property values have changed dramatically.
“Last year at this time most clubs were full,” says Jason Becker, the cofounder of Golf Life Navigators, which evaluates residential golf communities. “There are 90 clubs in Naples. Last year only five had memberships available. Today, it’s 17. Clubs got too aggressive on the initiation fees, and consumers said, ‘We’re not going to pay it.’”
The available inventory of homes in Naples is up 100 percent while prices are down as much as 35 percent. Becker attributes this to the release of pent-up demand to resign club memberships. In a typical year in the sunbelt, around 8 to 10 percent of members resign. These are usually people in their 80s playing less golf and looking to move. They’re replaced by members in their 60s.
But COVID kept a larger number of older members in clubs longer, largely for safety and comfort. Attrition dropped to 3-4 percent. Now resignations are increasing and could top 15 percent in 2025. “The market is 180 degrees different from this time last year,” Becker says. “Pricing for golf homes is starting to return to appropriate levels.”
That’s good for buyers and clubs that will get new initiation fees. It’s not great for sellers, many of whom held on to their homes hoping to cash out.
Standalone clubs are different. What makes joining one challenging is their number has been steadily decreasing. At the peak in the 1930s, there were 5,500 private clubs in the United States; today there are 3,800. In the face of brutal waitlists, golfers are getting creative. Many newer courses in remote destinations offer national memberships that give a taste of a private club over just a few trips per year. Networks that pool access to private clubs are another option, such as Epic Golf Club.
How much a waitlist will impact you might just come down to age. “If you live in a town and the club’s waitlist is five years, but you’re 29, you’ll probably say, ‘I’ll put my name on that list,’” says Dr. Jim Butler, chief executive of Club Benchmarking. “If you’re in Florida and you’re 67, you’re not going to wait.”
Of course, there’s an alternative: Play the local public course and save your money until the next economic downturn when waitlists clear out.
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Main Image: Edu Fuentes
