Faster, shorter, easier, “funner”…ideas to break down long-standing barriers and build inviting new paths to more enjoyment of, and participation in, the game are starting to flow freely—and bring real results.

As a middle-school guidance counselor, Alan Ford has a pretty keen sense of which types of kids will gravitate to which types of activities. But even Ford admits he’s been a bit surprised by the broad-ranging appeal of a new golf club activity recently introduced at his school, EJ Hayes Middle School in Lexington, Ky.

The golf club at EJ Hayes is not run by the school’s athletic department, like soccer or basketball. It’s an after-school activity, like glee club or chess club, but it’s not held at the school—it requires going to practice twice a week for a six-week period at Greenbrier Golf & Country Club in Lexington, and there’s a not-insignificant cost involved, too ($175).

But Ford, who serves as the school’s staff sponsor of the golf club, says none of those factors proved to be an impediment when the activity was first introduced last fall, and he expects to have an even easier time getting signups for this spring’s season, which begins April 16.

“The numbers aren’t overwhelming, it’s 20 to 25 kids each season,” Ford says. “But we’ve had great support for the idea, and what’s really interesting is how it’s attracted kids of all types and ability levels. For a good portion of them, this is the only [after-school] thing they do; but we also have a good portion who play other sports and decided to do this in an offseason, or maybe even to replace another sport they were playing.”

For Greenbrier G&CC’s Club Manager, Kelly Williams, PGA, the numbers themselves do have a nice impact—and not just from the participation fees that go to the club. Williams, recently recognized as the Kentucky PGA Section’s Golf Professional of the Year, sought out Ford to form a relationship with EJ Hayes after hearing of the PGA’s Junior League Golf concept, which was introduced in 2011 as golf’s answer to Little League baseball and other team-play options for youths 13 and under.

The Junior League setup arranges team-vs.-team competition in structured leagues of middle schools that have partnered with clubs, both private and public, in a region. The leagues use a scramble format instead of stroke play, to emphasize socialization and introduce the game in a less-stressful fashion.

The numbers that have looked best of all to Williams are “one or two,” which he puts as the number of kids participating on the Hayes club team who are members’ children, or, for that matter, have ever been exposed to a golf or country club before. That’s brought Greenbrier a nice new market for lessons, driving range fees, pro shop sales and even a few new memberships, Williams says.

But what’s looked best of all to Williams is seeing kids wearing their EJ Hayes Panthers golf shirts and hats around town. “This is a school club, not a team, so anyone can participate; there are no tryouts or cuts,” he says. “But among the kids involved, there’s still a ton of pride in being part of it.

At Greenbrier G&CC, Kelly Williams (right) is getting as much as he’s giving from his club’s new partnership with a local middle school.

“This is what golf has needed as an answer to organized youth sports for a long time, and I truly believe it’s the future of our industry,” Williams says. “Every club manager in the country should be asking their head professional why they aren’t participating, if they aren’t already signed up to host a team.”

Born of Desperation
The PGA Junior League is just one of many promising new ideas for expanding the reach of golf that have been spawned recently from the industry’s collective awakening, after staring at more than a decade of stagnant growth, to the fact that new ways must be found to break down long-standing barriers to participation in the game.

The momentum for finding ways to show that golf doesn’t have to be too slow, too hard or too stodgy has been accelerated by support from some of the game’s most respected names for concepts that even just five years ago would have been quickly dismissed or shouted down. So it has come to be that Jack Nicklaus can endorse shorter courses, bigger cups and golf in public parks with “nerf”-style equipment. Or that the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore., embraced by golf traditionalists and purists as the game’s new mecca, can get national television exposure for “Speedgolf,” an X Games-like combination of fitness and golf skill (scoring is based on the lowest possible combination of strokes and time).

Bandon Dunes (whose owner, Mike Keiser, has also been a leading proponent and developer of short-course options) has also introduced a competition where contestants can carry only three clubs, total. (“Many players have discussed putting with a three-wood,” promotion for the Three-Club Championship states. “Imagination will be the key.”)

The renewed drive to come up with something—anything—new, rather than perpetuate the perception that nothing can, or should, be done about slow play or other long-standing turnoffs that impede the growth of the game, has even prompted “old school” golf course architects like Bill Amick to sketch out new concepts that would make Donald Ross or Alister MacKenzie jump out of their plus-fours (see “Nothing’s Off Target”).

The management staffs at many individual clubs are also working harder to find inspiration for changing the same old ways of doing things.

All of these approaches are not only getting attention, but showing real results. And the ones that seem to offer the most promise for attracting the most new golfers over the longest period are the new programs designed to get more kids into the game—especially kids who’ve never been to a golf or country club before.

The Teams Take Off
The PGA has contracted with LEJ Sports Group, an Atlanta-based sports agency that specializes in operating and administering “national grassroots youth sports programs,” to set up the Junior League as a turnkey option for golf and country clubs. Keith Johnson of LEJ reports that the program is “definitely growing” and in a “very fluid” stage of development.

Programs and concepts that emphasize the fun and social aspects of golf for players both young and old, and male and female, are being met with enthusiastic response at courses, public and private, throughout the country.

After a pilot season in selected markets in 2011, last year saw 29 leagues with 123 teams formed, Johnson says, and this year he expects to see over 100 leagues involving 500 clubs, representing a reach into 33 states and 30 PGA sections. Participation has been evenly divided among public and private courses that are hosting teams, he notes.

“Last year was our first year for a national rollout, with exposure at the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup,” says Johnson. “We even had a national Junior League Championship, at Cog Hill outside Chicago. And after this year’s PGA Show, our phones were ringing off the hook.”
The pitch that Greenbrier G&CC makes, in partnership with EJ Hayes, for getting involved with the club team starts by saying that the school and the club “are interested in making golf part of an active lifestyle for middle-school students.

“Golf is a game that can be enjoyed for a lifetime and has all the benefits of friendship and being outdoors,” the club signup   form states. “Our mission is to create a fun and welcoming environment for kids to learn the game of golf and the life skills it teaches, through instruction with PGA professionals and positive on-course experiences.”

The form makes it clear that the club is “open to all boys and girls, regardless of skill level,” and that golf clubs will be provided for those who do not have their own set. As a further incentive, Greenbrier offers to provide those who finish the season with a certificate for a complimentary round for each club member and a parent/guardian (the promotion makes it clear this is a $100 value).

Super Influence AS CLUBS PUT OUT an all-hands-on-deck call for suggestions and strategies on how to grow their golf business, some of the most productive and on-point ideas are coming from the professionals with the most intimate knowledge, drawn from what they hear and see on the course every day, of what makes golfers decide to come back for more—or stay away for good. Superintendents are in the best position to create, and preserve, appealing properties that can do double-duty not only as great golf courses but also attract non-golfers to use and enjoy the surroundings. Increasingly, golf course superintendents are exerting their influence in helping properties make the most of their golf course—not only for those who want to play the game, but for an expanded list of other valuable purposes as well. “The days of the superintendent being grass growers and mowers are long gone,” says Jeff Bollig of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) “They are golf course managers, and they have good ideas.” Bollig notes that Pat Finlen, CGCS, the GCSAA’s newly elected President, was recently promoted by The Olympic Club in San Francisco from Director of Golf Course Maintenance to Director of Golf, as the latest example of how many superintendents are earning wider-ranging responsibilities. Superintendents have shown themselves to be particularly valuable to large-scale municipal operations that are under the gun to be as cost-efficient in their operations, and effective in their marketing, as possible, Bollig notes. Examples of especially influential managers on the public side, he says, include James Ward, CGCS, Director of Golf Course Operations for the City of Los Angeles, Brian Zimmerman of the Cleveland (Ohio) Metroparks System, and Dennis Lyon, CGCS, who recently retired from the City of Aurora, Colo. “Lyon had more than 40 years experience growing Aurora golf from one to seven courses, and is considered the ‘godfather’ of municipal golf in Colorado,” Bollig says. In addition to what superintendents can do to help maximize the appeal of golf courses themselves, especially as interest grows in developing new short courses and more realistic practice areas, their ever-growing expertise in environmental stewardship and landscaping is proving to be extremely valuable as management discovers the value of creating other uses for a property. These include trails for walking or running, wildlife refuges and special-event settings that can help drive banquet business.

So far, Williams reports, about one-quarter of the team have been girls, and overall the ability levels have been divided equally between “a third who’ve had some exposure to the game, a third who have a pretty good idea of what they’re doing, and a third who are truly beginners.”

Williams’ biggest initial concern when getting involved with the program, he says, was that kids would become easily bored and non-engaged, especially when they were sitting out of a match (like Little League, Junior League rules mandate minimum playing time for each team member).

But that fear was alleviated, Williams says, “when I saw one of our best players who wasn’t in a match lying on the ground, helping one of our weakest players line up a putt. They’re all completely into it, and it’s all because of the social aspect that comes from the team format.”

Even better, he adds, the parents of many players have been equally enthusiastic. “You can just tell when they volunteer to drive carts, or you see them walking along the 1st fairway to watch, that they’re thinking, ‘This is a lot better than standing on the sidelines at a soccer field,’ ” Williams says.

In Wake Forest, N.C., The Heritage Club just finished its second season hosting a PGA Junior League team. General Manager John Spiess, PGA, who writes the “Club Connection” blog, posted an entry last year that lamented how “twenty years ago, it was not uncommon to see many junior golfers spending their entire summer at the golf course. But since that time, soccer has taken most of the kids from the golf course.”

Spiess went on to express hope that the Junior League concept, based on his club’s first year of experience, could start to swing the pendulum back toward golf as a favored youth activity.

“We are very excited that this new league may create increased interest and awareness for the game,” he wrote at the time. “It allows our industry to compete head-on against the soccer and little leagues that capture our potential junior golfers. The PGA is to be commended for stepping outside the box to try and interest new golfers into the game.”

After a second season, Spiess’ excitement level and optimism has spiked even higher. “A couple of our kids did really well and actually were invited to play on the team that represented [the Raleigh area] in a regional competition at TPC Sugarloaf in Atlanta,” Spiess said in an update. “They and their families traveled to Atlanta last August and had a blast.

“This year we hope to field 16 teams in the Raleigh area, and The Heritage Club will have two of those teams,” Spiess added. “We already have more kids signed up to play than we have available spots on our two teams.

“In my mind, the most important comment I heard last year came from one of the kids at practice one day,” Spiess said.  “The 12-year-old youth said to me ‘Coach, my mother told me that I had soccer practice at the same time as golf practice today, and I told her that I wanted to come to golf practice!’

“That comment is testimony to how we can grow the game, one youth at a time!” Spiess enthused.

Well Teed Up
The rapid growth of the PGA Junior League also promises to serve as a good complement, by providing the missing team component, to the golf industry’s more established youth initiative, The First Tee.

Founded in 1997, The First Tee quickly grew into the leading vehicle for introducing golf to youth through both in-school and after-school programs, while at the same time promoting the values and character-building attributes represented by the game. The organization has now reached 7.6 million participants and engaged 12,000 volunteers, including many from within the club industry.  The First Tee National School Program is now offered in 5,300 elementary schools, which now promises to provide a strong base for raising awareness among future Junior League participants before they move to middle school (the PGA is a founding partner of The First Tee, along with many other leading golf organizations).

The First Tee has also gained some significant momentum of its own this year, most notably with the announcement in February at the Golf Industry Show that John Deere would become a Trustee of the organization and donate $1 million to it over five years.

Of the many benefits that stand to come from this, perhaps the most significant, from a growth-of-the-game standpoint, will be how the funds will in part be used to create and launch a golf maintenance career-oriented youth development program, in conjunction with the PGA TOUR.

Deere’s donation will be used by local chapters of The First Tee to partner with the TOUR’s Tournament Player Courses (TPC), to provide the opportunity for high school-aged participants to learn about topics in agronomy and golf course maintenance careers. As a planned extension, participants will also have the chance to maintain a TPC golf course during a tournament week, including the John Deere Classic held at TPC Deere Run in Deere’s headquarters city of Moline, Ill.

Savvy golf marketers now keep themselves ready to seize any timely opportunity to promote to desired new markets, as in OB Sports’ “If she can do this, you can do this” salute to Danica Patrick.

All of this stands to strengthen the course superintendent profession’s growing influence on the industry’s growth and add to the contributions superintendents are now making to help draw new potential golfers to club properties—including those who might not even be inclined to give the game a try.

“At The First Tee, we rely on strong partners like John Deere Golf to help us carry out our ambitious efforts to reach 10 million additional young people between 2011 and 2017,” said Joe Louis Barrow, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of The First Tee, when announcing Deere’s donation. “We’re thankful that [Deere’s contribution] will help us develop a program to teach our participants about turf care and what it means to be a leader in the golf industry.”

Another recent First Tee-related development that spoke to how the organization continues to raise its profile and extend its reach came with the announcement that Tommy Gaither, formerly a Division I head men’s basketball coach at Charleston Southern and Morehead State universities, had been named Program Director and Director of Development for the First Tee of the Grand Strand, in the golf-rich Myrtle Beach, S.C., area.

“We’re very lucky to get Tommy,” said the director of the youth golf foundation that oversees the Grand Strand program, as well as three others in southeastern North Carolina. “He’s quite a leader, so that’s a big deal.”

In his new role, Gaither, who worked in administration for schools in Georgetown County, S.C., after leaving coaching, will continue the relationships that The First Tee of the Grand Strand has developed with a number of area clubs to host and instruct area students, including Wedgefield Plantation Golf Club, the Tradition Club and Conway Country Club.

The organization’s primary fundraiser for this year, a 32-team invitational golf tournament, will be held in July at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, with a pre-tournament dinner the night before at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club.

Other tournaments and competitions sponsored by the organization are scheduled for St. James Plantation in North Carolina and Wedgefield Plantation GC, as well as the organization’s own facility, The Golf Club at Cinghiale Creek.

Leaving Room for the Ladies
Women’s golf also continues to be an area of strong, and successful, focus for many individual clubs, and management firms, that seek to grow rounds from both existing and new players.

At Blackhawk Country Club in Madison, Wis., General Manager Paul Anthony, CCM, CCE, recently reported on the success of a new “Nine, Wine and Dine” approach that more than doubled participation in the club’s ladies’ nine-hole golfing group.

“By moving the ladies’ nine-hole group from Tuesday mornings to Tuesday evenings, we not only freed up more regular play, but were also able to create a fun, non-competitive group that has become the most social group in the club,” Anthony said. “Meanwhile, we were also able to move junior golf from our busiest day, Friday, to Tuesday mornings, freeing up Friday for regular play.”

A key to making the move successful, Anthony said, was enlisting “a few very outgoing lady members to be ‘cheerleaders.’

“They came up with the name ‘Nine, Wine and Dine,’ ” he said. “We developed a logo and provided shirts and visors. The ladies sold the program themselves, and the group grew from less than 30 to over 60.

“Everyone—ladies, juniors and men—love the new program and hours, and the ladies in our nine-hole group are the best cheerleaders for all club events,” Anthony added.

To help eliminate any excuses that might suppress a potential golfer’s urge to play, the National Golf Foundation teamed up with Fed Ex to develop a new “golf bag box” program for shipping clubs.

Management firms have also shown particular inventiveness, and responsiveness, in their marketing efforts geared to women. OB Sports wasted little time trying to ride the success of Danica Patrick, after she won the pole position for the Daytona 500, by sending out a “Congrats Danica” e-mail blast showing photos of Patrick with her race car and a woman blasting out a sand trap. The message: “If she can do this…you can do this.”

Eagle Golf, meanwhile, has extended its program that allows two women to play at its courses for the price of one to June 30; the program was originally slated to stop at the end of March. Eagle has been positioning the promotion as an opportunity for female golfers to bring a friend or try the game for the first time at a discounted rate.

“We’ve had a good response at our courses since starting this in February,” said Eagle Golf CEO Joe Munsch. “However, due to inclement weather, we’ve not been able to see the full impact of this program.

“We recognize the importance of women in growing the game of golf,” Munsch added, “and really believe this is a great way to get more women out onto the course.”

Glen Echo Country Club, Normandy, Mo.

Despite challenges posed by a changing urban landscape and vastly different lifestyles from when it first occupied the property in 1901, the club is making the most of its special connections to golf and the community.

In 1876, in what came to be known as “The Great Divorce,” the city of St. Louis, Mo., seceded from St. Louis County and became an independent city. Today, St. Louis still exists as one of only 42 U.S. cities that are not part of a county (39 of the others are in Virginia; the others outside that state are Baltimore, Md., and Carson City, Nev.).

For many years after the “Divorce,” the dividing line between St. Louis city and county, was pretty distinct. Where the county started, the country began. This provided much of the initial appeal for Glen Echo Country Club when it was founded in 1901 on an estate in Normandy, just over the county line. A trolley line brought people to the edge of the city, and from there it was just a quick buggy ride to the gates of what had been established as the first private, 18-hole golf club west of the Mississippi River, featuring a course designed by the 1896 U.S. Open champion, Jim Foulis, and his brother, Robert.

Three years after it opened, Glen Echo gained even more distinction when the third modern Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, in conjunction with the 1904 World’s Fair. As part of the competition, the Olympic Golf Championship was held at Glen Echo from September 17-24, with a Canadian, George Lyon, taking the gold medal.

Those remain the only Olympics in which golf was a medal sport (it will become one again when the 2016 Games are held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). And for over 100 years, Glen Echo has remained the only golf course in the world that is permitted to fly the Olympic flag.

That flag can be found on the 18th hole, overlooking a course that is still very much the same as it was in 1904, lovingly preserved these days by Golf Course Superintendent Joe Wachter, CGCS. It’s not too hard to still imagine how Glen Echo looked at that time, after entering the property through its original gates from 1901, and riding up to its Tudor-style clubhouse, which was built in 1927.

But outside and around the gates, much has changed, and the distinction between city and county is no longer as clear-cut. It’s not that it’s a bad neighborhood; it’s just ill-defined. While other clubs in the St. Louis area have settled into unmistakably suburban surroundings, Glen Echo has seen a transitional area, with half-occupied strip centers and modest residential pockets, develop around its property, creating a city/near-suburban no-man’s land that is now largely seen as someplace to go through on your way home, to work or elsewhere.

Successful Appeal
For Glen Echo, the changing outside face of its location has certainly compounded the challenge that all smaller private clubs in metropolitan areas have faced to maintain membership levels, especially during the recent recession. From its loftiest level of 385 members in the late ‘90s, Glen Echo’s membership is now just under 300, after a reduced-dues drive brought in over 30 new members last year. “Ideally, we’d like to get back to 350 members,” says Rob Stewart, the club’s General Manager/COO.

One of many improvements made possible by member generosity, a water feature with an Olympic flame now stands in front of Glen Echo’s main entrance, to provide an ever-present symbol of its unique link to the past and the club’s special spirit.

In turn, lower membership levels add to the challenges involved with maintaining, improving and expanding facilities—challenges that are once again compounded in the case of Glen Echo’s historic course and nearly 100-year-old clubhouse. But here, the club’s unique connection with the Olympic spirit has shown its special value.

After becoming the club’s General Manager in 2008 (he had previously been its assistant golf professional), Stewart saw that he needed to find a new way to supplement capital expenditures funded through assessments and reserves, especially since the club had just completed major irrigation and pool renovation projects in 2007.

Stewart decided to see if he could build some future capital fundraising efforts around special events held for, and supported by, the Glen Echo membership. He identified specific needs and sent letters to the members describing the goal (clubhouse interior improvements), and the plan for reaching it: a golf tournament and dinner at which items donated by members would be sold through live auctions.

Members stepped up immediately and donated valuable items such as vacation home stays, flights in private jets, prime seats and amenities for St. Louis Cardinals baseball games, a dinner prepared by a member who is an accomplished chef, and custom jewelry from another member’s store.

When Stewart first used the voluntary fundraising approach in 2008, close to $160,000 were raised for clubhouse interior improvements that included new furniture, paint, carpet and framed archives to properly display Glen Echo’s history and Olympic connection.

Last year, it was employed again, to help complete a bunker redesign and reshaping project through which golf course designer Kye Goalby, the son of St. Louis-area golf professional and 1968 Masters champion Bob Goalby, created flat-bottom, grass-faced bunkers to dramatically improve aesthetics and visual impact by framing the green complexes, while at the same time preserving the course’s historic character. The project, completed under budget at a cost of $175,000, also stands to significantly reduce future maintenance costs.

Rob Stewart, General Manager/COO

Stewart took care to create separate funds for all voluntary contributions made for these projects, and to maintain full transparency so members could be assured that all donated funds were used for their intended cause, and not diverted to other purposes.

And, while support for both the clubhouse and bunker projects was immediate and enthusiastic (each dinner was a sellout), Stewart resisted the temptation to try to tap the same wells too often. “You can’t continually ask for everything,” he says.

Further, Glen Echo’s staff members have made their own contributions, by finding ways to cut more than $1 million in operating expenses over the past five years. “A big part of it has come from payroll reductions,” says Stewart, “but it has also come from being smarter about expenses for things like flowers and bands, and in general getting away from operating like an old club, and more like a business.”

While Stewart took care not to overextend his appeals to members, he was pleasantly surprised by how the voluntary spirit became infectious, as members came to understand the need to help keep the club’s facilities, and image, in the best possible shape. Several times, when Stewart pointed out another facility need or shortcoming to a member, he received quick, and quiet, offers of contributions to help resolve the issue.

And through one member’s generosity, improvements were made to the clubhouse’s main entrance that included a new water feature commemorating the club’s special place in history with a two-foot-wide, gas-fired flaming Olympic torch.

“One of the great things that came out of doing capital improvements through volunteer funds is the spirit of community that it fosters,” Stewart says. “Both times, the vast majority of the membership came out and supported the cause greatly, and in both instances we raised more funds than were needed. It really made everyone take a personal interest in the club and made their connection to it even greater. As a result, I am sure it has also helped our retention.”

Hole No. 9, Glen Echo CC, Normandy, Mo.

Carrying the Torch
With golf once again set to be an Olympic sport, Stewart and his staff recognize that a special, once-every-century marketing opportunity is presenting itself, and they are not lacking for ideas on how to seize it, to try to gain maximum leverage from Glen Echo’s unique connection to the Games.

“We made contact with Gil Hanse [who is designing the Olympic course that will be used in Rio], to make sure he knew about Glen Echo’s role in Olympic history, and he found it interesting and said that he might try to tie-in a suggestion or feature of one of our holes into his design,” says Stewart. “We’ve talked about trying to arrange an exhibition match here for the U.S. team and then give them a black-tie send-off to Rio. It’s a limited window that we have unique access to, and we’re not going to dismiss any idea that could help more people learn more about Glen Echo and our history.”

There’s even hope that the area’s tie-in to the Games could lead to a revival of the neighborhood around the club, as part of a proposed “Olympic Boulevard”-themed renewal project that would not only have support from the long-divorced city and county, but also from the fast-growing University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) campus that has sprouted within a three-wood of Glen Echo’s back fence.

Rob Stewart is a realist, though, and knows that plenty of political batons could be dropped on the way to trying to bring those plans to the finish line. He also recognizes that other options for Glen Echo need to be kept open.

A pool replacement project that created a family-friendly facility with popular water features was completed in 2007.

“We could be acquired by UMSL, we could consider merging with another club, we could look to move,” he says. “But even if the area stays the same, we still think the best option is to continue to make the most of what we have here. We have a gem of a golf course with a unique story that no one can match, and we have a location that, from a standpoint of where it is on the map, is perfect—it’s ten minutes from anywhere.

“We also have a membership that has shown time and time again that it has a special attachment to the club and is willing to step up to help do what it takes not just to keep it going, but to do so in a way that preserves its traditions and unique sense of community,” Stewart adds.

“Our challenge as a staff is to find ways to convince members and families that even though they may not live or work near here, the club can still be the focal point for all they do,” Stewart says. “That’s not an easy thing to establish when you’re driving up to a building that dates to 1927. But time and time again, I’ve seen people join here and fall in love with the place and the people, and have it quickly become an extension of their home and their family. So I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

Combining always-sharp visions of how to get members engaged with consistent delivery of what keeps them coming back has kept this property at the forefront of the industry for over 100 years.

As in many top service organizations, the ongoing training and direction of the staff of The Country Club of Virginia (CCV), located in the state capital of Richmond, includes plenty of handy reminders designed to help everyone stay on point with what working for the club, and its members, is all about.

All employees are given pocket cards with the club’s mission and motto (“An evolution of excellence through continuous improvement”), as well as a letter-by-letter walk-through of “what it means to Be Platinum” (a distinction the club has held for over a dozen years). For example, the cards remind staff that the “U” in Platinum stands for “U see it, you own it!”

The club’s current President, Harley Duane, also likes to cite a suggestion made by Vice President Jerry Jenkins—that the club’s own initials, CCV, can be linked with “cordiality, consistency and value,” to further reinforce some of its most distinguishing attributes.

The Country Club of Virginia AT A GLANCE Location: Richmond, Va. Founded/Opened for Play: 1908/1910 Layout: Two properties, approximately 7 miles apart Westhampton Campus – 80,000-sq. ft. clubhouse, plus 18 holes of golf, racquet sports facilities, fitness and aquatics James River – 36,000-sq. ft. clubhouse, plus 36 holes of golf Total Acreage – 1,100 (150 at Westhampton, 975 at James River) Number of Members: 7,447 (Single-Privilege Membership) Average Member Age: 54 Golf Holes/Designers: 54 – Donald Ross/William Flynn/Joe Lee Annual Golf Rounds: 55,000 Total Number of Employees: 425 to 625, depending on season Capital Expenditures Last 10 Years: $44 million, without assessment Operating Budget: Exceeds $28 million Operating Departments: 53 Certified Club Managers on Staff: 7 General Manager: Phil Kiester Chief Financial Officer: Angie Stewart Executive Director of Golf: Richard Cromwell Executive Director of Clubhouse Operations:  Tommy Janney Executive Chef: Gary Whitecotton Director of Golf Course Maintenance: Christian Sain Executive Director of Racquet Sports: Tom Wallace Executive Director of Athletics: Charlotte Wright Executive Director of Marketing: Anne Stryhn Executive Assistant: Ellen West

Should CCV’s training team ever want to expand into movie takeoffs to also help drive home the message of what’s kept the club on a steady path to growth and success since its founding in 1908, a redubbing of the famous scene from “Apollo 13” might do the trick. Because as CCV managers from any of the club’s 53 operating departments describe how they motivate themselves, and their staffs, to pursue the evolving excellence and continuous improvement embodied in the club’s motto, the image of Ed Harris portraying Flight Director Gene Kranz keeps coming to mind. If Harris/Kranz were a CCV manager, however, his rallying cry would be a little different—as in, “Been there, done that is not an option!”

Thinking Big from the Start
The cornerstones on which The Country Club of Virginia built its legacy of daring to be great, anticipating the next big thing and transforming its property into a perpetual idea factory were laid with the club founders’ initial plans. Already behind in the game, with several other clubs having gained an earlier foothold in Richmond, the strategy from the start was to make up lost ground, and more, through one bold step that would immediately put CCV on the map as a major player that others could now chase.

“The concept from the beginning was to be large, with vast amenities, so the cost could be spread out among many members,” says Anne Stryhn, CCV’s Executive Director of Marketing. Even more brashly, the club not only took on over 1,200 people in its initial membership, but over a third of them were women, through a single-privilege structure that bestowed membership rights on each family member—this 12 years before the passage of the 19th Amendment granting all women the right to vote, and in the heart of the conservative South.

“You just don’t start clubs like this in Richmond, Va.,” chuckles William (Skip) Harris, who retired last year after over 30 years with CCV, the last 19 as General Manager. “But the [founders] wanted to rival the big clubs of the Northeast. The problem was, to make it work and get it off the ground, they would need to get just about every able-bodied person in the area to join.”

Another fundamental and enduring hallmark of CCV’s development, though, has been how “problems” have been met head-on and viewed not only as challenges, but as opportunities for creative and progressive advancement.

William (Skip) Harris retired as GM at CCV after over 30 years with the club.

This next evidenced itself in the 1920s, when the club decided that attracting the high percentage of member prospects from the area that would be needed to make its model work—while also keeping everyone already on its fast-swelling membership rolls engaged, but not feeling overcrowded—called for the acquisition of additional property. Long before other city-based clubs saw the need to move to, or add, more bucolic settings, CCV added nearly 1,000 acres of historic and scenic property abutting the James River. And in this case, the real beauty lay in the fact that the new land was only seven miles away from the original Westhampton campus. (As an added bonus, the original Westhampton property, despite the fact that it was originally selected because it was at the end of a trolley line, has never been overwhelmed by urban sprawl, and still provides a welcome escape with inviting vistas to members who can get to it in just minutes from downtown Richmond.)

The James River campus has long served the club well as a golf-focused venue, featuring two 18-hole layouts, one designed by William Flynn. A second course, Tuckahoe Creek, was renovated to its current format in 1988, and has blossomed recently, thanks to improvements designed to enhance its natural appeal (while also reducing expenses by converting 40 acres of previously maintained space, according to Director of Golf Course Maintenance Christian Sain). Tuckahoe Creek, in fact, recently became the first of CCV’s three courses to earn Audubon certification.

Current club President Harley Duane (left) and General Manager Phil Kiester (right) are now set to direct new chapters of CCV’s long-running success story.

But the foresight exercised by CCV’s early leaders in acquiring the James River property may just now be coming to its greatest fruition, nearly 100 years later. The property, which includes a boat landing that can accommodate 85 vessels, is also coming into its own as a venue that provides perfect settings for new activities organized through the Outdoor Heritage program that CCV started five years ago, to give members the opportunity to try their hands (and feet, and mouths) at things like stand-up paddle boarding, flycasting or duck calling.

“Outdoor Heritage lets us respond in unique ways, while making full use of a unique property, to members in an urban market who have an affinity for things like hunting and fishing,” notes Phil Kiester, who came to CCV last March to succeed Harris as General Manager. “It’s all about staying relevant and adding activities with value.”

The Final Breakthroughs
For many years after acquiring the James River property, “relevance” for CCV still meant the same as it did for pretty much every other golf-oriented club in the country—providing good locker rooms, card rooms and grill rooms for the male members who wanted to use the club to play golf or swim or just hang out in predominantly male enclaves. While women and children did have their single-privilege status at CCV, they really didn’t have much else to call their own.

But in the late ’80s, the club, under General Manager John Hightower, started serious discussions about becoming truly family-oriented and providing a wider range of facilities and activities that would appeal to all of those who held membership privileges. The discussion was not without controversy among the CCV membership—but eventually, a strategic shift was set and real change was made, most notably with the opening of a fitness center in 1990 that was then expanded in 1998.

“If it weren’t for the shift to become a family club in the 1990s, [CCV] would not be in the strong position we are in today,” says Stryhn. “Other clubs that have fought it continue to struggle with relevance and value.”

The Tuckahoe Creek course became the first Country Club of Virginia course to attain Audubon certification.

Looking back at the timeline of changes made at CCV, compared to how long it took most of the rest of the club industry to get with the same programs, Kiester adds, “It’s amazing how foresightful [CCV’s leaders] were—anyone talking about fitness and family in 1990 was really out in the wilderness.”

After Hightower provided the leadership needed to help break through the long-standing barriers, his successor, Skip Harris, created a culture to help CCV continue to blaze new trails in family-oriented concepts, primarily through constant innovation churned out by newly built idea machines.

As described in a look that C&RB took in its April 2007 issue at club operations that had become known for how they promote, encourage and reward staff-generated inventiveness as part of their day-to-day management routines, CCV, under Harris, was described as a place where “innovation is not just a buzzword, it’s a job requirement.”

Harris engrained idea creation into CCV’s fiber not just by making participation by all departments in the annual Club Managers Association of America (CMAA) Idea Fair a core management principle (there have been years, says Executive Director of Clubhouse Operations Tommy Janney, when the club has shipped over 100 idea posters to the CMAA competition). The idea machine was also turned on full-blast by holding intra-club Idea Fairs; creating a host of Special Interest Committees, through which staff could knock around new concepts; setting up daily employee-idea “suggestion box” mechanisms; and even forming a permanent Imagination & Creativity committee.

Harris—originally a CPA who first grew to know CCV as its outside auditor, before then becoming its controller, assistant GM and eventually GM—says much of the motivation to establish an idea-driven culture came from recognizing that managing an operation as big and diverse as CCV was something he “couldn’t do alone.” Plus as an outside auditor, he adds, he got a first-hand look at the flaws—and costs— of “organizations that didn’t care what their people thought.”

The Country Club of Virginia has as many as eight dining venues, many outdoors.

“My whole time as GM was about finding good people, giving them opportunities, and standing back and watching things grow,” Harris says.

Creating such a fertile atmosphere spawned other pace-setting developments at CCV, including turning its fine dining room into the popular Ollie’s bar/bistro concept in 2006, and unveiling a new $13 million pool complex in 2008. An important by-product of the idea culture has been seamless, ongoing cross-departmental cooperation and innovation, with the club showing the benefits of golf working with F&B, or fitness working with tennis, in mutually beneficial ways.

“The cruise ship industry figured it out pretty well,” says Harris. “Charge one fee, and give people a lot for it. That’s especially critical when you’re dealing with something that people, as club members, don’t have to do, but have to want to do.

“So we’ve always encouraged the whole team to be geared around making everything in the club important to members’ lives—and that once people are here, to make it hard for them to leave, by keeping things affordable and recognizing that people want to use clubs for more reasons than you think.”

Settling In for the Long Haul
After a year as only the fifth General Manager in The Country Club of Virginia’s history, Kiester has new appreciation for what distinguishes the operation from most clubs. Kiester was GM at Farmington CC in nearby Charlottesville, Va., which is also well-known as an idea-driven organization (and was also featured in C&RB’s April 2007 report)—but CCV’s scale and stability provides what Kiester calls the “luxury of time” when creating concepts to sustain future growth.

A $13 million pool complex, opened in 2008, now gets overflow use in the summer and year-round use from 100 members of a Polar Bear club who pay an additional fee to cover the cost of heating and maintaining one pool.

The most looming current need, both Kiester and Harley Duane acknowledge, is to revisit the club’s fitness facilities. What was launched so progressively over 20 years ago has proved to be an unqualified success, with “one in every two members” now visiting some kind of fitness area at least once a week, according to Duane, and many months now registering over 10,000 total visits. But that has put strain on how, and where, all of CCV’s fitness and wellness programs are now offered.

“The latest member survey showed fitness is the highest priority,” says Kiester. “The advantage we have here is that we can be planful and think five years out to do it right, because our operation is stable, with predictable cash flow and money in the bank [CCV has never assessed members for capital improvements]. Fitness helps to add value between October and May, so there’s little doubt it can be money well spent.”

New facilities and activities will only further enhance value measured in a “vitality index” tracking total units of club usage by club members—a benchmark Kiester has emphasized at his previous operations. “In today’s club business, you need to look at the sum total of what each member uses in golf rounds, court reservations, fitness center visits, pool visits, and cover counts they contribute both through regular F&B as well as banquets,” he notes. “Even for a club like ours that has a waiting list and stands to have yearly gains in membership, the aggregate trends of activity are becoming more critical. That’s what confirms you’re continuing to be relevant—the places that people want to be are the places with other people.”

The recession sent wake-up calls to all clubs—and left loud-and-clear messages about the critical need to properly define, and respect, the distinct roles and duties of owners, Board members, committees and managers.

On Club & Resort Business’ LinkedIn site last summer, amid the usual posts from club managers seeking fresh ideas for holiday party themes or suggestions for how to find seasonal workers, a membership director from a Michigan resort property that has a private club component started a new online discussion with this question:

“How do larger clubs use their Board of Governors? Over the years, ours has slowly taken a back seat, and I would like to see them take a bigger role.”

Club & Resort Business will present installments of a special five-part series, “The 21st Century Club,” throughout 2013, to take an in-depth look at how the recession and changing member/guest demographics have reshaped the club business, and to outline the paths that properties of all types, and in all industry segments, must now be prepared to take to ensure success in the decades to come.The January 2013 issue presents Part 1 on Club Structure and Governance, to explore how club properties are now rethinking fundamental issues relating to the makeup of their ownership, Boards, committees and management, and to examine the growing focus on creating and following strategic plans, to position and direct properties towards sustained market leadership in whatever segment they choose to compete.Remaining installments in the series will include:Part 2 (April 2013): Growing Golf—How the business’ most progressive thinkers are seeking ways to shatter the now-too-often-accepted notion that golf rounds, and participation, can only at best stay flat.Part 3 (July 2013): Membership—Which of the many recent attempts to create new membership categories while reorganizing existing ones, and to establish new concepts and “deals” for initiation fees and dues, have proved to have real and lasting merit and impact. Also, which demographic segments for finding tomorrow’s club members have the most potential—and which groups won’t be worth pursuing.Part 4 (October 2013): Grounds and Facilities—How the trend to make club properties more operationally efficient and sustainable, inside and out, stands to affect not only how clubs are managed, but also how their amenities mix may be reshaped and re-prioritized.Part 5 (December 2013): Management—The attributes that are now seen as essential for professional success in club management’s new world order.

Almost as soon as the “ink” on this posting was dry, responses and comments began to pop up from other managers that generally fell into three categories:
1) Did you really mean to say “bigger” role?
2) Have you talked with your General Manager about this, and if so does he/she feel the same way?
3) If the answers to 1} and 2) are really “yes,” be careful what you wish for.

By the time reaction finally started to die down, the topic had sparked one of the site’s most substantial discussions in its history, both in terms of the number of comments received, and their depth and passion (six months later, it still ranks that way). It also drew in some general managers from prominent clubs around the country who don’t normally participate in such groups, but felt compelled to weigh in on the subject after word got around that the question had been posed.

“If your Board is taking a back seat, then you must be doing something right,” said one.

“Many GMs would like this scenario,” said another.

Frayed Nerves
The fact that the question touched such a nerve is not surprising, given the times and their tenor. Clubs, and club managers, finally began to emerge last year from an extended period of hunkering down to make it through the recession—a period marked by an emphasis on short-term survival tactics that also subjected managers to intense scrutiny, and heightened performance expectations, from their ownerships and Boards.

So it was understandable that some managers might react with dismay to any suggestion that Boards could take on larger roles. But if they surveyed the landscape to objectively assess why some clubs were still standing and others had become casualties of the recession, those managers would see the real lesson to be learned about club structure and governance from the industry’s recent traumas. It wasn’t that Boards or owners should always take a back seat—but rather that the club business now requires a properly balanced sharing of the load and a clear understanding of who’s going to drive when, and for what purpose.

Around the same time the LinkedIn posting spurred such a negative, knee-jerk reaction, the McGladrey consulting firm was issuing a report on a series of seminars it had held featuring panels of general managers from private clubs throughout Florida. On the subject of club governance, McGladrey reported, the panelists “debated whether [governance] has been reevaluated sufficiently in recent times.

“Panelists reflected on the roles management should play, versus those of committees and Boards,” the McGladrey report said. “One general manager offered this outline: Board equals strategy; management equals operations; and committees equal recommendations for the Board.”

Lessons from Leaders
Even more powerful lessons emerged through the recession from the examples of leading clubs that, while well-positioned to withstand the economic challenges, still took steps during that period to further strengthen their focus on long-term strategy and assure that it would be properly implemented through an appropriate governance model.

At the 2013 PGA Merchandise Show held in January in Orlando, the Chief Operating Officer of Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., Michael G. Leemhuis, M.A. Ed., CCM, PGA Master Professional, will present on “Future Trends and Issues: A Private Club Management’s Perspective.”

Leemhuis’ presentation, part of the Leadership track of the show’s education module, will be drawn from an internal strategic-planning process that was started at Congressional in April 2010. Even though the club has a substantial waiting list and was well-fortified to ride out the economic storm, it still wanted to take the steps to help it make well-informed decisions for whatever the future might have in store, and to retain its leadership standing.

Those steps started with the formation of a planning group,  made up of an immediate past President, current President and another Board member, who would work with Leemhuis and the consulting team of Dale Lefever and Fred Laughlin. A group of 25 leading private club GMs was then asked to identify the national trends they saw having the greatest impact on their clubs over the next several years. For the resulting list, that group, along with 20 additional GMs, was then asked to rate the trends according to degree of impact on their clubs. Those ratings would then serve as guideposts to help Congressional’s planning group shape that club’s strategic plan.

As shown in the box below, improving management and governance emerged from the survey as one of the highest-impact trends. To Leemhuis, the message to be drawn from this is clear.

“Any club that wants to succeed in today’s world needs to take a good hard look not just at revenue streams and cost reductions,” he says, “but at their governance model and strategic plans as well, to ask ‘Is this right for where we want to go?’ ”

The answers for exactly how that model should look, and for what the particulars of the plan will be, will vary from club to club, Leemhuis stresses. But certain guiding principles, he adds, will always hold true. First and foremost, the club needs to be run as a business, with the Board setting strategic direction and professional management staff entrusted with day-to-day operations. And once a strategic plan has been established, it must be continually revisited and reassessed. “You can’t put it on a shelf,” says Leemhuis. “Ours took 18 months to create, but we still revisit it two or three times a year.”

Managing the Process
While the recession highlighted the importance of a Board’s role in helping to establish and guide long-term strategic direction, the chaos experienced at many clubs during the period also shined a harsher light on structural defects that have long existed in many traditional private-club governance models. These flaws hamstrung many clubs’ ability to make effective decisions for dealing with the unprecedented challenges posed by the economic crisis—and, because those challenges brought threats to a club’s very existence, often proved fatal.

Heading the list of defects that industry leaders say were exposed by the recession are the overpreponderance of unnecessary operating committees, and the fact that many of the committees that are needed are overpopulated with ineffective or disruptive members.

The McGladrey report on its Florida meetings also highlighted a discussion among the assembled general managers about “the common problem of having too many committees that act in more than a purely advisory capacity.” The report added that “A consensus [also] arose that ‘just because you raise your hand and volunteer does not mean you are the right person for the job.’ ”

Congressional’s Leemhuis agrees that the trend is now toward “more compact committees, filled with 12-15 people prepared to do the heavy lifting. You don’t want to have committees of 25, with people who come to the meetings just to be there,” he notes.

The unabashed champion of the need for the club industry to go on a serious committee-reduction regimen has long been Michael McCarthy, Chief Executive Officer/General Manager of Addison Reserve Country Club in Delray Beach, Fla., and an active director on the national level for the Club Managers Association of America, as well as for its largest (Florida) chapter.

Even a leading club like Congressional CC took steps to revisit its strategic plans and governance model during the recession.

McCarthy says he hopes the recession may have helped open the industry’s eyes to the need to fix what he’s tirelessly cited as a critical impediment to clubs’ ability to move forward. But he is still troubled by reports he hears of “old-guard, free-standing private clubs, especially in the North, that are down under 200 members and in deep trouble, because they still don’t understand how they have to change” to appeal to the next generation of membership. Making that needed change, he adds, “starts and ends in the boardroom.”

Clearly Defined Roles
At Addison Reserve, in a governance structure that McCarthy acknowledges may be a bit on the “radical” side, there are now six committees: Finance, Audit, Grievance, Legal, Membership and Nominating. “No greens committee or social committee, or tennis or fitness,” he says. “No one to decide what color the tablecloths should be or how the golf course should be mowed—that’s all done by the professional staff.”

The structure only works, McCarthy emphasizes, because it was created, after he arrived at Addison Reserve in 2007, as part of a plan to redirect the member-owned club through a strategy that was proactive rather than reactive, and goal-driven rather than agenda-driven. The reshaped Board was given four primary areas of focus: hiring (or firing) one employee only, the CEO/GM; approving the budget; setting policy; and developing the strategic plan.

Michael McCarthy, CEO/GM, Addison Reserve CC

That’s not to say that members have no input on club activities. To the contrary, McCarthy reports, “clubs within the club” have flourished under the structure. “Book clubs, travel clubs, cooking clubs, financial clubs—you name it, we’ve got it,” he says. “They’re all organized and run by members, and supported by our staff. They’re just not set up as Board- or committee-level parts of the operation.”

The payoffs to be gained from functioning under this governance model were unveiled at the end of 2011, when Addison Reserve reopened its restored and expanded clubhouse that now offers a variety of innovative dining concepts (“Broader Perspectives,” C&RB, January 2012). The club has also renovated much of its Arthur Hills-designed, 27-hole golf course and made significant upgrades to its spa, fitness center and other facilities, as part of positioning itself to be out front in appealing to women and younger members who are the key customers of the future, McCarthy says.

“It’s a $24 million club operation that’s part of a $1 billion real estate development,” he says. “You can’t run it like a candy store. It’s by no means an easy job, especially when you’re striving for five-star performance in every aspect of the operation. But it’s much easier to accomplish when the Board leaves it to the professionals to achieve, as opposed to having committees, and people on them, who aren’t qualified, but still try, to make all the decisions that go into establishing and maintaining a high standard of excellence.”

In for the Long Haul
Another key component of effective governance, industry leaders agree, is establishing cohesion and stability by requiring longer terms of service from Board members—in particular, club Presidents—and being more proactive, and selective, about how Board candidates are identified and prepared for the job. At the same time, experts add, it’s important to have mechanisms that guard against anyone becoming too entrenched, and to continually inject fresh energy and perspectives into the governance mix. Further, general managers must do their part to ensure that Board duties aren’t onerous, and that those who do serve are properly appreciated by the staff and membership at large.

At the end of 2011, Addison Reserve CC cut the ribbon on a $15.5 million clubhouse renovation that also stood as confirmation of what could be accomplished through its “radical” governance structure.

Addison Reserve’s nine Board members have three-year terms, McCarthy says, and no Board member can serve for more than two terms. “Boards that change every year just invite chaos and open the door for disgruntled individuals or groups who will drive personal agendas,” he feels. McCarthy also makes sure he limits Board meetings to a maximum of one and a half hours, by preparing and distributing detailed reports well in advance. He also ensures full transparency of all activity and decisions, to help all members and staff understand and respect the Board’s efforts to set the long-term direction for the club.

To help put the best-qualified and most committed members in Board seats, many GMs say that constant and “quiet” recruiting of future directors has become an important part of their jobs. “To secure good governance, it’s important to develop a stream of potential Board members and get them involved in the process,” says Congressional’s Leemhuis. “[Clubs] need to take time to develop a bigger pool of potential governors and assess their characters, work ethic, and personality.”

One panelist for McGladrey’s Florida seminars, it was reported, described a way to “connect the dots between useful committees and club leadership, by having a full-time leadership committee that has the sole purpose of identifying and promoting the future leaders of the club.”

Critical Choices for Critical Decisions
The need to pay close attention to who’s on a club Board (and who’s not), and to what the proper structure should be for how those who are on it should function, was all shown to be especially critical during the recession, when many clubs were confronted with an unprecedented wave of make-or-break decisions that needed to be made about initiation fees, membership categories, tax structures, capital plans and other fundamental aspects of the business on which the futures of their operations suddenly hinged.

William P. McMahon, Sr., Chairman, McMahon Group

All of this created something of a perfect storm of opportunity that was potentially “great for consultants,” jokes William P. McMahon, Sr., Chairman of St. Louis-based McMahon Group. But, he adds, there was often little chance to help clubs with poorly structured governance models.

Of these situations, McMahon adds, the most vexing can often be traced to a club having a one-year term for its Board President. While some clubs can make this model work, he says, more often it proves to be a “fatal flaw” that impedes any significant progress towards real long-term implementation of a strategic plan.

“Only about one-third of private clubs have multi-year terms for their President,” McMahon says. “Others tell us they want to make the change, but we really haven’t seen it take hold. There seems to be a ‘you first’ mentality that’s still keeping a lot of clubs from doing it, even though they know it would help slow down the strategic planning process to a more manageable and effective pace.

“Every time you change Board members and committee chairs—and especially club Presidents—you change the character of how the club is directed,” McMahon explains. “When you do that each year, there’s a good chance one of two things will happen: There will either be chaos, as a whole new wave of agenda items are introduced, or everything that the previous President and Board had set in motion will grind to a halt.

“It really takes any Board member, and especially a President, most of the first year just to learn the ropes,” McMahon notes. “Often after nine months, if they know they’re only going to be in for one year, they’re already starting to prepare to turn things over to the next President. But if you can get that second year established, especially with the right person in the position, we find there’s a much better chance of keeping in sync with the strategic plan and bringing about meaningful change for the club.”

Frank Vain, President, McMahon Group

The good news for the industry, adds McMahon Group’s President, Frank Vain, is that ample evidence can now be found for how the recession caused even well-entrenched clubs to recognize how significantly the business is changing. That in turn forced those clubs to search for new ways to respond and stay viable, be it through a revamped governance model or other adjustments in membership or fee structures.

“There’s no doubt the message is getting through that governance models must do a better job of separating the strategy component from management, and that Boards should get out of the way of letting professional talent run the club, as they’ve been hired to do,” says Vain. “That promises to cut down on some of the running around in circles we’ve seen in the past, where management chases every new idea a committee wants to pursue, which isn’t productive for anyone.”

Vain also notes examples of more clubs that have taken successful steps to install strategic planning in their culture, by instituting annual Board retreats that are specifically intended for long-term reviews, with significant side benefits in terms of developing greater understanding and mutual respect between members and staff.

He’s also seen effective formation and use of “ambassador groups” that are being written into strategic plans, to emphasize participation in membership recruitment by newer club members. “[Membership] committee members who are in their 50s and 60s no longer have the kinds of connections to the target markets as those who have recently joined and are more likely to know people through their kids’ schools and other groups,” he says. “It’s basic networking and a good way to get the right people involved.”

Perhaps most encouraging of all, Vain cites examples of clubs that have discovered that, while they may have lost some members to the recession, those who remain are more than picking up the slack. “One club that has 50 fewer members found that its volume was up 15% this year,” he says. “I think that might show we’ve been through the eye of the needle, and that the members who are still around have made a commitment to their clubs as being important to their lifestyle. If that’s a trend that holds, it can help Boards and managers do a better job of focusing part of their strategic planning on providing what [remaining] members want and need.”

The Grand Del Mar in San Diego, Calif.

Magnificent architecture, masterful interior décor and inspired landscaping can create a wondrous property—but aren’t enough on their own to become a player in the high-stakes, high-end resort game. For The Grand Del Mar to make an immediate impact, it also had to strive for new heights in service and amenities.

The handful of members on the practice putting green at The Grand Golf Club include a Division One college golfer, two LPGA Tour members, and three of the highest-ranked instructors in Southern California. The tall guy in the blue shorts and white t-shirt on the far side of the green looks familiar, too. Turns out he’s a former U.S. Open champion, in search of his former short-game magic.

The array of talent on the club’s practice green—which has 150 members and is also open to guests of The Grand Del Mar resort—provides the first clue that this 6,400-acre property,  situated in the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve 20 miles north of San Diego International Airport, and a couple of miles inland from the affluent coastal village of Del Mar, has quickly ascended to the upper echelon of resort properties, even though it just turned five years old.

The Grand Del Mar AT A GLANCE The Grand Del Mar in San Diego, Calif. Location: San Diego, Calif. Opened: 2007 Guest rooms: 249 No. of golf holes: 18 Course Designer: Tom Fazio (Course originally designed in 1999 as Meadows Del Mar; redesigned in 2003) Annual golf rounds: 29,000 President: Tom Voss Director of Golf: Shawn Cox Director of Agronomy: David Yanez Director of Food & Beverage: Ekrem Tercanoglu Wine Director: Jesse Rodriguez Director and Executive Chef, Addison Restaurant: William Bradley Director of Spa & Recreation: Jim Croghan Director of Catering & Convention Services: Charles Stuart Director of Sales & Marketing: Kenan Simmons Equestrian Center Manager & Trainer: Jessica Odom

More substantive confirmation of that status comes from learning that The Grand Del Mar is one of just five resorts in the U.S. to have earned Five-Star ratings from Forbes for its lodging, spa, and fine-dining restaurant, Addison (named for Addison Mizner, the acclaimed architect from the 1920s whose distinctive Mediterranean style served as primary inspiration for Grand Del Mar structures). The resort was also voted number one in the U.S., and number five in the world, by TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice ratings in 2012.

All of this has affirmed not only the foresight and good timing of the Manchester Financial Group (MFG), which spent $300 million to build The Grand Del Mar Resort, but also the infallible follow-through of the management team to bring to life exactly the type of property that Doug Manchester, Founder and Chairman of MFG, wanted to create.

“My vision was to bring a world-class resort to San Diego,” Manchester, known as “Papa Doug,” says simply. “I wanted to offer a top-quality hospitality experience with the very finest in golf, fitness, equestrian, culinary and other amenities. It is highly unusual to have a Five-Star hotel/restaurant/spa all situated at one resort property, and it is something we are very proud of.”

The first signs of just how serious MFG was about achieving those goals were revealed as the property was created. To carry out the Mizner-inspired design, 30 types of masonry, marble and limestone were imported from around the world, along with more than 2,000 pieces of custom-designed furniture, dozens of commissioned paintings framed by an Italian artisan, 25,000 sq. ft. of handcrafted wood floors, Roman pan-tile roofing, more than 50 elaborate chandeliers, over 500 fabrics, and Portuguese glazed tiles. Over 120 carpenters skilled in working with 16 different woods and 35 different finishes were brought in to put it all together, along with 24 artists to stencil and decorate the ceiling frescoes.

All told, it took 800 workers, working over one million hours during a two-year period, to build The Grand Del Mar and bring to life interior designer Warren Sheets’ intention to “create a resort that felt like a grand Italian Villa where, once guests arrived, they would forget they were in Del Mar, California.”

The Voss Man
Creating that impression and making it last through the entirety of a guest’s stay and beyond, however, would also require equal attention to the amenities and service side. That’s where Manchester turned to Tom Voss, a native of Hamburg, Germany who worked in various capacities at his father’s oceanfront golf resort before moving onto hospitality roles in Switzerland, the Middle East, and the U.S., eventually becoming General Manager of the Manchester-owned Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego.

The Grand Del Mar’s Tom Fazio-designed course opened as Meadows Del Mar in 1999.

“I have worked with Tom for many years, and believe he was ideally suited to help open and oversee The Grand Del Mar,” says Manchester. “With more than 25 years in the industry, he has a vast range of international hospitality experience, and understands all aspects of the business, including marketing, operations and staff development, and guest services. I was very pleased we were able to promote someone from within our own ranks, and I’m thrilled with what he has helped achieve for The Grand Del Mar.”

Voss sees his core mission at The Grand Del Mar as creating “the ultimate in guest service.” That’s a familiar refrain chorused by countless managers, public-relations executives and marketing personnel working in today’s upscale resort industry, and it can ring hollow in many cases. But The Grand Del Mar got early affirmation that it was walking the walk when the resort earned a perfect service score of 100 on Condé Nast Traveler’s 2009 Gold List.

“That was one of the proudest moments of my career, as the resort was still new and somewhat unknown,” Voss says. “And I was very humbled that we appeared alongside a number of great hotel properties around the world. Most of all I was proud of the staff and the training we had implemented.”

The Grand Del Mar has sustained that early success thanks to Voss’  hands-on management style and unyielding commitment to the standards that were established from day one. He starts each day by meeting with 20 department heads to discuss arriving guests and in-house events. “I always ask the team what we can do to produce a ‘wow’ with each of these guests/events,” he says.

The Grand Del Mar’s recreation program offers “sublime experiences” and “life-enriching programs” that are made available to resort guests.

Voss then meets briefly with the sales team to discuss incoming business, and how the resort can meet each new lead’s demands. He also talks every day with key personnel in accounting and finance, food and beverage, spa and recreation, golf, the Addison restaurant (which is run separately from the rest of F&B), and marketing and PR.

Voss also makes a point of walking the grounds multiple times a day, taking photos with his iPhone when he sees something out of place, and instantly alerting the appropriate department head. “I also stay in the resort from time to time to check out the rooms and make sure everything is working properly,” he says. “And I work in the various departments for a day at a time, so I can stay close to the operation and be familiar with all the staff.”

All of this is essential, Voss says, to keeping The Grand Del Mar at the level it established for itself from the start. “We employ 650 colleagues from around the world,” he notes. “It is sometimes quite challenging to find staff that can meet our exacting standards. We work hard to hire staff with a gracious, caring personality and authenticity, with keen focus on individuality, personalization and customized service. To achieve this high level of service, we provide an intensive staff training program that includes 1,400 service standards.

“Our goal is to go well beyond the standard services and amenities common to most luxury hotels,” he adds. “Instead of reacting to the needs of guests, we anticipate them upon reservation and strive to customize each guest’s stay.” Staff members contact guests prior to their arrival, to ask what activities they might like to include during their time at the resort. “We then make arrangements for each person, based on his/her likes and dislikes,” Voss says.

Words Into Action
Evidence of how staff members are implementing their training can be seen at every one of The Grand Del Mar’s impressive amenities. It’s hard to say which showcases the resort the best, but the golf course is probably the logical place to start, as it actually pre-dates the resort. Originally a public-access course named Meadows Del Mar, it was designed by Tom Fazio and opened in 1999.

Addison at The Grand Del Mar in San Diego, Calif.

Four years later, Manchester purchased the course and brought back Fazio’s design team to make numerous upgrades. It was lengthened to 7,160 yards, and the bunkers were rebuilt and filled with crushed white marble, to give them a distinctive, Augusta National-like look. A 15-foot waterfall was built at the back of the 18th green, to enhance the view for golfers as well as those sitting on the clubhouse patio.

The course was renamed Del Mar National in 2005, and remained open to the public until 2006, when Manchester decided the time was right to take it semi-private and open it only to the 150 members of The Grand Golf Club and resort/corporate guests.

The Director of Golf is Shawn Cox, a PGA member with a special certification in instruction, and recipient of the 2007 and 2010 PGA President’s Council on Growing the Game Award. Cox, who has been at the course since 2006, is also a Titleist Performance Institute Level 3 Certified Fitness, Biomechanics and Junior Instructor.

While the resort hosts a respectable 29,000 rounds a year, Cox says increasing the round count would be worthless if it meant diluting the experience. “We always consider the experience more than the amount of play we get,” he says. “We want to make golf fun and approachable for our guests.”

To enhance the natural enjoyment that comes from the course and its views of the Canyon Preserve, as well as the  firm conditions provided by Director of Agronomy David Yanez and his staff (who also built the 18th-green waterfall), members and guests can also take advantage of a popular forecaddie program; ten-minute intervals between tee times that help prevent on-course delays; practice and teaching facilities that include a 5,000-sq. ft., double-ended driving range; special clinics, including a golf and wine experience for women only; and complimentary club fitting.

Club President Tom Voss

Serving Up the Sublime
The same attitudes toward providing added touches that contribute to guest indulgence are in ample evidence throughout other departments at The Grand Del Mar. Jim Croghan, Director of Spa & Recreation, describes the resort’s spa operation as “devoted to [delivering] a sublime experience of relaxed, renewed and restorative wellness.” The menu is treatment-based as opposed to product-based, he notes, with all treatments designed exclusively by Anne Bramham, founder of the American Spa Therapy and Education Certification Council.

Croghan’s responsibilities also extend to include “life-enriching programs that incorporate spa experiences with resort activities, such as joining others in an early morning Tai Chi class, riding on horseback, or taking a solitary sunset walk through the canyon.” An extensive range of special twists to more traditional resort guest amenities and activities is also available, including personalized tennis lessons, family fun (outings to the beach or one of the San Diego area’s local attractions, for which lunches are provided), hikes through the Preserve with a qualified naturalist, kids’ adventures at the Explorer’s Club, and equestrian lessons.

An emphasis on options also extends to The Grand Del Mar’s food-and-beverage offerings. Amaya, an all-day restaurant, features the cuisine of Executive Chef Camron Woods, who began his career at the Woodlands Resort and Inn in South Carolina before moving to Four Seasons properties in Atlanta and the Bahamas. Woods makes full use of the resort’s herb garden to serve American fare with a Mediterranean twist that he calls food “people can enjoy and understand.”

Executive Chef William Bradley has helped establish Addison as Southern California’s only Five Star/Five Diamond restaurant, by providing a menu that is “100 percent driven by the seasons.”

The Grand Del Mar’s stunning 50,000-sq. ft. clubhouse houses a nightclub/restaurant/sports bar, Club M, that offers both casual and exotic fare under the direction of Chef Ernest Lopez. Then there’s Addison,  Southern California’s only Five-Star/Five Diamond restaurant. Here, Relais & Châteaux Grand Chef William Bradley offers dishes with mostly French influences that change throughout the year. “Our menu is 100 percent driven by the seasons,” Bradley says. “We have a true understanding of our region, and utilize it to the fullest.”

Bradley began his career at Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego County, and then spent three years as sous chef of the award-winning Mary Elaine’s at The Phoenician in Scottsdale. Before coming to Addison in 2006, he was Executive Chef of the Vu restaurant at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort & Spa, where he was nominated for the James Beard Award “Rising Star Chef” honor three consecutive years.

Addison now serves about 60 guests a night during the week and as many as 80 on weekends, Bradley reports—but the food engenders far greater volume. “Guests tend to order the Seven-Course Tasting Menu,” he says, “so we probably serve upwards of 350 plates on a weeknight, and 560 on a weekend.”

Putting the Wine in Wine and Dine
The dining experience at Addison is further enhanced by  wines chosen specifically for each menu by the restaurant’s Wine Director, Jesse Rodriguez. The former head sommelier at The French Laundry in Napa, Calif., and also a sommelier for The Phoenician, Rodriguez selected over 3,500 vintages for Addison’s list, favoring those that “have not yet made an indelible impression here in San Diego.”

“By finding and showcasing wines that have not been overly exposed, it consistently puts us on the cutting edge,” he notes. “I try to keep it in the realm of classical regions and grape styles, though. We don’t look for obscure varietals necessarily, just whatever works well with the cuisine.”

Most importantly, though, Rodriguez makes it a point to put guests at ease and not have them feel overwhelmed. “Writing a list that satisfies my personal desires is not my goal at all,” he says.

“Ultimately, your wine list has to deliver to your guests. They should feel comfortable and excited when ordering wine, and not apprehensive.”

That same approach to guest relations pervades the entire Grand Del Mar operation—and, as much as the spectacular physical nature of the property, explains how the resort has been able to establish itself so quickly, and through a particularly bumpy period for the business, as a major new player in the field.

“We are a privately held, independent resort, so we do not have the resources of a large corporate brand,” Voss notes. “That means we have to work especially hard to garner national and international recognition. We do that by taking care of our guests, and always with a smile on our faces.”

Mirabel in Scottsdale, Ariz.

To stand out in a crowded field, this Scottsdale club has found the right spots to offer a little bit more—and a little bit less.

For an 11-year-old, Mirabel has seen a lot of the club world—and already has a pretty mature attitude about what it wants to be.

After coming on the scene in 2001 as a Discovery Land Company community at the northernmost edge of Scottsdale, Ariz., Mirabel had to grow up in a hurry. Its original Greg Norman-designed golf course took a $15 million mulligan before it was ever played. (It had been built as a resort course, Stonehaven, that Discovery bought to create Mirabel; Discovery then bulldozed the course, deciding that its design, with just 42 acres of fairway, would be far too difficult for the golfers it wanted to attract to its new development.)

Mirabel AT A GLANCE Mirabel in Scottsdale, Ariz. Location: Scottsdale, Ariz. Opened for play: 2001 Members: 256 golf; 50 social Annual rounds: 17,000 Clubhouse size: 34,000 sq. ft. General Manager: Michael Ryan Head Golf Professional: David Engram, PGA Director of Golf Course Operations: Jeff Goren, CGCS Executive Chef: Joshua Fuehr Membership Marketing Director: Gary Ireton Fitness Manager: Jenny Hall Member Services/Spa Manager: Shannon Mikan Communications Manager: Sally Brown

Mirabel recovered from that rocky start to soon put its own stamp on the crowded Phoenix/Scottsdale golf and club map, with an acclaimed course (with double the fairway acreage) designed by Tom Fazio over the same terrain, along with a distinctive, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Desert Lodge Clubhouse (with 12 fireplaces) and a full complement of pool, tennis, spa and dining facilities.

It wasn’t too long, however, before the club felt it was ready to raise itself. A transition to member ownership was completed in October 2009—not the easiest time to set out on your own, especially in a market where demand for high-end real estate and golf club memberships wasn’t exactly percolating. (Members do not have to own property at Mirabel, but those looking for homes in the Scottsdale area represent a key target segment for the club.)

As Mirabel’s management team buckled down to ensure the club’s short-term operating survival, the staff, and newly formed Board, also needed to confront some major life choices that came with its newfound independence.

“When members took the club over, the caps were for 350 golf members and 125 social members,” says Michael Ryan, Mirabel’s General Manager. “For those levels, and certainly if we wanted to grow beyond them, we were looking at a situation where our facilities would be undersized.

“We faced a choice of a major overhaul and expansion of our clubhouse that could change the character of the club, versus having manageable numbers that would allow us to preserve the intimacy and member experiences we wanted to provide,” Ryan adds.

The price tag for clubhouse improvements that would be needed to properly accommodate a larger membership was put at $6.5 million. But rather than ask the membership to consider taking that route, the Mirabel Board proposed a bold alternative: reduce the club’s caps to 275 for golf and 50 for social. Those numbers, President Mike O’Donnell told the membership as the vote approached, “represent the level of dues that keeps Mirabel competitive with other North Scottsdale clubs, [while reducing] capital requirements for the clubhouse to about $500,000, which is within our cash available.”

Clear Direction
The cap reduction was approved and today, Mirabel is full at the social level and about 20 shy of its golf cap, which it expects to reach within two years. Committing to those levels, O’Donnell says, has now put a spotlight on two key directives for the Board and the Mirabel management team.

As the head of what’s now a member-owned club, President Mike O’Donnell (front row, right) is proud to stand with the Mirabel management team—but he and other Board members also know when it’s time to step aside for the professionals. “We leave the tactical aspects of how to make it all happen to [the managers],” O’Donnell says.

“[Limiting our size] puts a premium on retaining the members we have, by providing a level of service that’s second to none,” O’Donnell explains. “But we have to also make sure we provide that service in a cost-effective manner, to create the reserves that will ensure adequate cash flow so we can maintain our infrastructure at the proper levels, without future assessments.

“It’s a pretty delicate balance, especially when members are accustomed to such a high level of service,” O’Donnell admits. “But that’s what can make us attractive and distinguish us from a lot of other clubs in the valley and downtown.”

O’Donnell also makes it clear that while Mirabel is now member-owned, it is not member-run, and that he and other Board members clearly understand the need to confine their roles to strategic and advisory capacities. “We’ve run a lot of businesses, but we haven’t run clubs,” he notes. “We’ve made a very conscious effort to bring in a strong team of leaders and then leave the tactical aspects of how to make it all happen to them.”

Working Both Sides
Even before the cap reduction sharpened the focus on the “delicate balance” between high-end service and tightly run operations, Ryan and his team got plenty of practice in those areas while the recession was at its deepest.

“We lowered the operating budget $1.5 million over three years, in a way that was invisible to members, by targeting a couple hundred individual charge-line items distributed throughout the operation,” says Ryan. At the same time, the team maximized opportunities for providing popular and cost-effective member services, such as inexpensive taco and spaghetti buffets it introduced for nights when dining room activity was at its slowest.

“We went from having just 25 or 30 covers on Wednesday and Sunday nights to averaging over 100 [for the buffets],” Ryan reports. “We found these were a great way to increase socialization among the members, so they could commiserate [about the challenges of the recession], or share and celebrate victories. Plus, any time you get a lot of people together during tougher times, you always have pretty good bar bills.”

A unique “tennis garden” near Mirabel’s clay courts, complete with a babbling brook, has become a popular event venue.

Thankfully, the pressure to take those steps has now eased—and the management team’s success in steering the club through the recession has made it possible for cash-funded capital expenditures to continue. A kitchen expansion that added a new bake shop was completed this fall, and a planned upgrade of the golf course irrigation system is set for 2013.

Ryan has also made it clear to the Board that the operation has now become about as lean as it can get without starting to compromise service levels. And even in the most challenging period, he was able to meet fiscal goals without cutting into amenities that have become a hallmark of Mirabel service.

“We provide a complimentary breakfast in the morning and complimentary soup in the afternoon,” Ryan notes. On the golf course, the club’s legendary (and also complimentary) comfort stations include self-serve items that go well beyond the usual crackers and waters, with popular items such as house-made ice cream sandwiches and beef jerky. And during the season, Alberto Lopez sets up a portable grill at the eighth tee and cooks up hot, golfer-friendly wraps and sandwiches.

All told, Mirabel spends nearly $200,000 annually for these complimentary services, Ryan says. “It can raise some eyebrows” when those numbers show up on the budget, he admits, but he has succeeded in making the case for the immeasurable value of the good will created by the added touches. That case was further bolstered by the actual measure of a recent member survey, which showed twice the satisfaction levels as the national averages for private clubs.

Dining at Mirabel in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“It’s all about maintaining the service that goes with the expectations we’ve created, and continuing to differentiate ourselves in the market,”  Ryan says. “If you make members happy about the social amenities you provide, you increase their utilization of the club. Plus, while we’ve set a limit for our membership size, we will still always need to have new members join to maintain that level, and when they hear about these things, that will help attract them, too.”

At each department level, plenty of additional initiatives to provide distinctive services can also be found. Director of Golf David Engram, a football fanatic who displays helmets in Mirabel’s golf shop and finds them to be great “conversation pieces” for members and guests from around the country, seized on the opportunity to include attending the Navy-Notre Dame game in Dublin as part of a member golf trip to Irish courses this fall. Engram also put a new twist on the member-trip concept by scheduling a limited number of courses to be played multiple times, rather than an itinerary that would involve more courses, and more travel.

The trip turned out to be a home run—or rather, a 100-yard kickoff return—in all respects, Engram reports. “We sold out in two weeks,” he says. “Getting 17 tickets to the game wasn’t easy, but thanks to help from a member connection, it was definitely worth the effort and added a special dimension to the trip. Playing courses more than once was also well-received.”

On the golf maintenance side, Director of Golf Course Operations Jeff Goren has been proactive in ensuring premium course conditions, taking a leadership role in a consortium of area courses formed to finance construction of an advanced treatment facility for reclaimed water (the effluent made available by the city had a high sodium content that was causing turf loss).

Inside the clubhouse, Executive Chef Joshua Fuehr doesn’t buy in to the idea that club menus need to be limited, even  when there might need to be a heightened focus on controlling food costs. “Especially with the new equipment we now have [from the kitchen upgrade], I want to be 25 restaurants in one,” says Fuehr. “The more I can offer, the more members will want to keep making this their first choice for dining out. I don’t see why the dinner menu shouldn’t be able to change significantly every week.”

The Men’s Lounge at Mirabel in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Fuehr even resists the notion of establishing “signature dishes” for Mirabel. “I think that limits your scope,” he says. “I prefer to think in terms of having great standards and doing a lot of things well.”

For Mirabel’s fitness and spa departments, the emphasis is on going beyond just providing a la carte workout and beauty services. Fitness Manager Jenny Hall and Member Services/Spa Manager Shannon Mikan work together to help members “change their lives” by creating personalized wellness and lifestyle regimens selected from an expansive menu of services.

Mirabel also taps into relationships it maintains with other Discovery Land properties to work out seasonal sharing arrangements for high-end equipment such as the Eurowave muscle stimulator and HydraFacial skincare system that are rarely available in club settings.

This club-wide emphasis on unique and extra services, Ryan reports, has clearly led to more Mirabel members making more frequent and extensive use of the club. “It’s really just a matter of staying creative about what you can provide,” he says.

Out of the mouths of babes…

The Prairie Club in Valentine, Neb.

The global economy and World Wide Web were supposed to have ended provincialism, and made everyone aware of all parts of the planet, long ago. But Patrick Kilbride, PGA Head Golf Professional at The Prairie Club in Valentine, Neb., sheepishly admits he’s a living example of how that’s not the case, at least where the western half of the Cornhusker State is concerned.

“I’m a native Nebraskan, from Omaha,” says Kilbride. “I’d never been to the [state’s] Sandhills [region] before I came to work here. It’s kind of pathetic, I know—but pretty typical for a lot of people who are where I’m from.”

And because that’s typical for people just a few hundred miles from the Sandhills—a striking expanse of mixed-grass prairie on stabilized dunes—it provides a glimpse of the challenges involved with establishing The Prairie Club as a destination golf resort since it opened in 2010. Even getting to the property after you’ve made your way to Valentine, a population-2,800 map dot nestled up against the South Dakota border, takes some effort. Completing the trip requires another 17 miles down a state highway and then close attention to spot the sign for the gravel road that leads the final mile or so up to the club.

Sharing the Secret 
Some golf enthusiasts, of course, have been finding their way for many years to the Sandhills from all parts of the world, drawn first by the Sand Hills Golf Club (70 miles south, in the even smaller town of Mullen), with its acclaimed Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw-designed links-style course that opened in 1995, and then again by the nearby Dismal River Club, featuring a Jack Nicklaus design (with another, by Tom Doak, set to open soon).

The Prairie Club AT A GLANCE Location: Valentine, Neb. Opened for play: 2010 Golf holes: 46 Annual rounds: 15,000 Clubhouse: 42,000 sq. ft. Founder and Chairman: Paul Schock General Manager/Director of Golf: Mark Aulerich PGA Head Golf Professional: Patrick Kilbride Director of Agronomy: Ross Buckendahl Executive Chef: Eric Miller Membership Director: Connie Kier Marketing & Sales Associate: Kyle Schock Food, Beverage & Events Manager: Alexa Steiner Management: KemperSports

These clubs now stand as long-lasting testaments to why the region is seen as one of the best places in the world to build a golf course. Even though western Nebraska hasn’t seen (or will not see, hopefully) any hint of the ocean for many epochs, golf there can still evoke playing in Scotland and Ireland, with the added appeal of much warmer and drier conditions, seemingly endless summer evenings (the Sandhills are on the westernmost edge of the Central time zone) and astoundingly star-filled skies to be marveled at once it finally does get dark.

Golfers also get giddy over how the area’s deep sand base and wind-swept hills and plains, with plentiful grass that’s easy to grow and maintain, combine to help leading course designers use their talents to the fullest and create challenging, memorable holes that offer unusually consistent and firm conditions, from tees through the fairways to the greens.

Being able to experience and enjoy these conditions at the other very-private clubs in the region, however, has been limited to a select segment of the golfing world with the means and connections to gain access to those properties.

That always nagged a bit at Paul Schock, a South Dakota native who was himself a Sand Hills GC member. Despite having earned all the privilege he could buy through success with his private-equity firm, Schock still thought it would be nice if more people could come to know and love the Sandhills region as he did. And not just for golf—while Schock is an accomplished player, he has equal passion for fly-fishing and other outdoor pursuits.

The Prairie Club in Valentine, Neb.

Fishing, in fact, started the sequence of events in the mid-2000s that led Schock to get serious about finding a way to give more people the chance to enjoy golf and other attractions of the Sandhills—and why he decided to do so farther north.

After hearing of a great spot to cast for trout, Schock’s persistence in trying to find it led him to Cleve Trimble, a retired surgeon who, it turns out, was also a Sand Hills GC member. Trimble owned land near Valentine, an area that offers the spectacular bonus of a robust cut of the Snake River Canyon, and had a home perched on a rim above the canyon (and the prime fishing spot Schock sought).

The two men discovered they shared the same vision for expanding the reach of Sandhills golf, and that they both wanted to do so in a way that could help promote and preserve the other special attractions of the area. An agreement was reached for Schock to buy some of Trimble’s land and partner with him in a venture to build new courses, as centerpieces for a destination resort that would invite the world to come discover “the Plains truth” about what made the region special.

Long Time Coming
It took several years from when Schock and Trimble first met before The Prairie Club opened, in 2010, as a semi-private operation with two 18-hole courses (The Dunes, designed by Tom Lehman and Chris Brands, and The Pines, designed by Graham Marsh), plus a unique 10-hole, executive par-3 layout, The Horse Course, that has no tee boxes or routings (players are encouraged to emulate the basketball game and create their own shots). The Horse Course was created by Geoff Shackleford and Gil Hanse, the designer of the 2016 Olympics course in Brazil who is also in line to create a third 18-hole layout, Old School, that is in The Prairie Club’s future plans.

Founder and chairman Paul Schock

Gaining momentum after the club opened was also a bit slow at the start. “We didn’t ever think it would be easy, but it took longer and was harder than we thought; the first year was bumpy,” Schock says. “The biggest challenge was operations, and finding the right people to work in a remote location.”

In part, Schock adds, the initial difficulties stemmed from his feeling that management firms were too “expensive and corporate,” which led him to start out trying to run the club “on our own,” which he now terms a “mistake.” A partnership he then formed with a regional restaurant operator for the club’s F&B business helped to break down that bias, and at the start of this year, realizing the club would be “better served by someone who knows about all parts of the business,” Schock entered into a management contract with KemperSports.

That transition brought a new General Manager/Director of Golf, Mark Aulerich, to The Prairie Club in March. Aulerich, who has opened six clubs in his career, says he has focused on implementing KemperSports’ proprietary “true service” training program, to elevate customer and member service levels and help ensure experiences characterized by “warm welcomes, high energy, and leaving people excited to come back.”

Feedback he’s received this year has made it clear that these  efforts are paying off, Schock says. “We’ve been making steady progress,” he says. “We’ve been busy on the public side, and selling memberships, too.”

The Prairie Club now has over 300 members, reports Membership Director Connie Kier, thanks in part to aggressive sales and marketing efforts that have included cocktail party presentations at private clubs around the country. “We’ve gone to clubs in California, Minneapolis and Denver, as well as Nebraska,” Kier says. “We have a slideshow at these mixers, but we stress that the best way to really see and experience what we have to offer is to come out and stay at least two nights. That makes such a difference in showing how there’s a lot more to do here beyond golf—fishing, tubing, hiking, or just enjoying the incredible serenity.”

Hole No. 18, The Dunes course, The Prairie Club in Valentine, Neb.

Available membership categories include two individual levels—regional, for South Dakota and Nebraska residents, and national for those from all other states. A corporate membership, covering four individual memberships with the option to add other designees, is also available.

As the club’s membership has been built up, The Prairie Club team has been surprised by the strength of interest that’s come from the regional segment. “We have 40 local members from the Valentine area, and I thought we’d get maybe five,” Schock says. Overall, about half of the members have come from Nebraska, Kier reports, and the regional category accounts for about 70% of the total member count. No doubt the club has also benefitted from good timing, with Canadian pipeline  development and the North Dakota oil fracking boom creating significant trickle-down effects to help the region’s economy.

Steve Skinner, Chief Executive Officer of KemperSports, thinks The Prairie Club’s experience in this regard may also indicate a rebound in the overall market, even for off-the-beaten path properties. “The second-home market seems to be coming back to life, and I think that can also be reflected in club membership sales,” Skinner says. “We’re seeing properties like Victory Ranch in Utah be successfully redeveloped under new ownership, and destinations like The Prairie Club are having good success selling memberships as well as sponsored play.”

Keeping the Door Open
The key to The Prairie Club model, Schock says, is to have members bring guests who can then become members themselves. It may very well be that The Prairie Club will eventually go entirely private. Despite the busy activity from the public side that was seen at the end of this season, Schock still considers the level of public play (about 30% of total rounds) “disappointing” over the first three years of the club’s operation, while acknowledging this may have been largely due to a still-poor economy during its first two years.

A bagpiper at The Prairie Club in Valentine, Neb.

As he looks down the road, however, Schock says he is reluctant to think that The Prairie Club would never be open to all who would like to enjoy the property. “We very much want this to be a member-oriented club,” he says. “But it’s difficult to think there might ever be a time when we’d cut out the public entirely and not have a place for someone who just wanted to come here and play.

“I’ve never liked it when I’ve seen clubs that are so extremely restrictive, yet there are so many days when no one’s there,” he adds. “I think there has to be some balance and some type of open-door policy; I think the game needs that type of philosophy, to be able to grow.”

Schock also envisions ways to stretch The Prairie Club’s appeal beyond the golf season. “There are certainly opportunities to expand the shoulder seasons and do more to develop recreational activities like hunting, fishing, horseback riding or canoe trips,” he says. “I can also see this becoming a destination around Christmas and New Year’s for family gatherings.

“My daughters don’t play golf, but they still love canoeing here, or just looking at the sunset or the stars,” he notes. “That’s what I first felt was the appeal of the place when I came here, and what guests always comment about—the silence of the setting. Tom Lehman told me every time he visits here, he leaves feeling he’s a better man for it.

“Our lives are noisy enough, and there’s something to be said for having a place where even doing nothing is doing something,” Schock says. “In that sense, I think there might be value in making sure what we’ve created here stays available to everyone, all the time.”

Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina

When Rory McIlroy took the 2012 PGA Championship by storm, it was just the latest example of how the South Carolina property has stayed up with the latest trends.

The ongoing marketing challenge for a destination resort is to get new guests to beat a path to an off-the-beaten-path location, and then to provide memorable experiences that will make them want to do it all over again year after year.

The ongoing operational challenge for a destination resort is to motivate management and staff (who often have significant travel hurdles of their own, just to get to work each day) to have the right attitudes and approaches to ensure those memorable experiences for each new or returning guest. Operators must also make sure workers don’t tire of the place, or job, so quickly that they’ll run to a new employment opportunity the first chance they get.

Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina Kiawah Island Golf Resort AT A GLANCE Location: Kiawah Island, S.C. (17 miles south of Charleston) Opened: 1976 Golf Courses (designer): Cougar Point (Gary Player); Turtle Point (Jack Nicklaus); Osprey Point (Tom Fazio); The Ocean Course (Pete Dye); Oak Point (Clyde Johnston) President: Roger Warren, PGA Director of Golf: Brian Gerard, PGA Director of Tennis: Roy Barth Director of Outdoor Programs: Elisabeth King Director, The Spa and Salon: Missy Hughes Director of F&B Operations, The Sanctuary: Vipin Menon Hotel Manager, The Sanctuary: Bill Lacey Director of Clubhouse F&B: Pietro Giardini Superintendent, The Ocean Course: Jeff Stone Chef de Cuisine, The Ocean Room at The Sanctuary: Andrew Venable Chef de Cuisine, The Atlantic Room and Ryder Cup Bar, The Ocean Course Clubhouse: Jonathan Banta

Throw in plans to bring a major golf tournament to the resort on top of these significant everyday challenges, and you can have a potential train wreck among neglected everyday guests, overworked employees, and tournament disasters that can permanently scar a property’s reputation.

But in the case of Kiawah Island Golf Resort, which hosted the 2012 PGA Championship on its Pete Dye-designed Ocean Course, bringing a major to the South Carolina property (its first since opening in 1976) was a winner for all concerned:

• Everyday guests took full advantage of the pre-tournament opportunity to play the Ocean Course; favorable weather and superb conditions created by Superintendent Jeff Stone and his staff combined to boost rounds on that course by nearly 10 percent this year, reports Director of Golf Brian Gerard.

• The PGA held an entertaining and competitive Championship on a uniquely challenging course that was eventually won by the brightest new face in golf, Rory McIlroy.

• And even for the resort’s management team, the addition of the Championship to their already-active yearly calendars proved to be anything but a burden or prescription for burnout. “I really didn’t want it to be over,” says Pietro Giardini, the Director of Clubhouse F&B who orchestrated the front-line maneuvers at the Ocean Course clubhouse’s Atlantic Room and Ryder Cup Bar. “Collectively as a resort, we saw this as our time in the spotlight, and welcomed the chance to rise to the occasion.”

Event-full Times
Roger Warren, who came to Kiawah Island as Director of Golf in 2003 and is now its President (he also served as PGA President from 2004-2006), wasn’t surprised by how his team met the challenge. “We run an event here every day,” Warren said after the tournament. “Our goal was to produce one of the finest major championships ever held, and on balance we succeeded. We were very pleased with the whole experience.”

Director of Outdoor Programs Elisabeth King has developed a wide range of opportunities for guests to enjoy the area’s native wonders as well as more traditional resort recreational activities.

Inevitable issues with parking, traffic and crowd management that did surface, especially during the Championship’s third day when a storm halted play, will now be carefully analyzed as part of preparations for new major tournaments the resort now seeks to land (“The next available PGA is 2019, and we’ve expressed our interest,” Warren says). But with no useful working model to follow, he adds, the resort team’s overall performance was remarkable.

“The whole landscape [of major golf tournaments] had changed dramatically from what we experienced with the 1991 Ryder Cup or other events we’ve had here,” Warren says. “And there were also the challenges of selling corporate hospitality in more difficult economic times, and in a location that’s not blessed with an abundance of large companies like New York or Chicago.”

Those factors prompted a bold decision to enhance the appeal of corporate sponsorships by setting up all available hospitality suites and tents with a view of at least one Ocean Course golf hole. This posed a whole new set of logistical challenges for servicing the venues—but here too, Warren says, the Kiawah Island team stepped up to find solutions.

“It all worked very efficiently and was actually easier than expected,” he reports. “We built a spine road through the back nine to handle the [on-course] service needs. We think we greatly enhanced the hospitality experience with the locations we provided, versus the villages that can often be some distance away and make it difficult for people to get out to see the players and the competition.”

Inspiring Environment  
In describing how his department strives on an everyday basis to provide resort guests with memorable experiences, Brian Gerard points to Kiawah’s setting as a steady source of motivation.

“When I first drove through the gates twenty-five years ago, I could tell it was someplace special, and I still get that feeling every day,” Gerard says. “We try to make sure, with everything we do, that every guest has that same feeling when they drive out, too. We want them to say, ‘Wow, what a place—that was the best golf experience I’ve ever had.’ ”

Rory McIlroy, of Ireland, celebrates his victory on the 18th green during the final round for the 94th PGA Championship.

Maintaining that standard, Gerard notes, has required that the Kiawah golf program “become more flexible in understanding what the consumer wants, by not having as many restrictions on how we make golf available to them.” To that end, Kiawah Island has been in front of the trend of offering more family-friendly, shorter-course and reduced time of play opportunities.

A Family Tee program, through which kids play free with their parents (who play for $45) after 5:00 p.m., was introduced in 2003 and has seen a doubling in annual rounds since then to 6,000 in 2011. The golf staff will now also accommodate those who just want to play nine holes anytime, Gerard says, and a popular program that offers the chance to play 18 holes in three hours [time is blocked out on one course for two hours in the afternoon] is now in its second year.

Gerard also highlights what Kiawah has to offer to the resort’s 1,500 employees through “Golf 101” seminars developed with the property’s training department. “As pros, we tend to forget that not everyone grew up playing golf,” he says. “It really helps customer service throughout the resort if we share what we know with everyone who’s going to be helping our guests. Plus, it can introduce some new people to the game who just happen to work here, too.”

Gerard points to the value of having a PGA professional like Warren set a management style that encourages all of Kiawah’s department heads to develop and run with initiatives they think will help meet everyone’s ultimate and mutual goal: creating memorable experiences for resort guests.

“Roger puts golf’s principles of honesty and calling penalties on yourself into management practice, and gives us the latitude to run our operations and make our own decisions,” Gerard says. “That’s led to some exciting things.”

It’s also engendered impressive stability among top management—nowhere more so than in tennis, where Roy Barth, officially the second-ever employee at Kiawah, presides over what a website now ranks as the world’s top tennis resort, based on consumer voting.
Barth, a former Top 50 player who once took Bjorn Borg to five sets in the U.S. Open, came to Kiawah in 1976 from his native San Diego, expecting to stay for two years to get the new program started. Now, he works out of the Roy Barth Center, directing a staff that specializes in customized, player-friendly instruction techniques captured in Barth’s popular “Tips for Better Tennis” book (now in its third edition).

Flags blowing in the wind on the leaderboard during the second round of the 94th PGA Championship at The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Resort

Similar experience and expertise runs through other Kiawah Island departments, all bolstered by five-star training instituted for all managers and employees after The Sanctuary hotel was built in 2004. It’s no wonder, then, that tossing the PGA Championship on top of all that goes on at the property every day didn’t send the workforce scurrying for the help-wanted ads. If anything, the experience seems to have made everyone eager to take on more.

“I think [the Championship] made us realize we could push the boundaries and raise our level of efficiency even further,” says Giardini. “It wasn’t easy, but I think we came through it nicely—and now we’re ready to capitalize on the exposure we gained and have even bigger things come our way.”

City Club of Washington, D.C.

What all clubs can learn from the best practices of leading-edge properties.

Awards and rankings abound in club and golf circles, with trade associations, management companies, consulting firms and industry publications all releasing a steady stream of “Best of” honors throughout the year. These lists cover overall property management and operations, as well as specific departments and activities.

Some of these awards are based on stricter criteria and more stringent judging processes than others. Some recognition programs, in fact, can start to resemble Little League baseball or youth soccer banquets, where it seems things have been set up so everyone goes home with some kind of ribbon or trophy, just for taking part in the game.

Silicon Valley Capital Club in San Jose, Calif. SUMMING IT UP Properties are earning recognition for taking quick and decisive action, rather than sitting on the sidelines or maintaining the status quo. Traditional approaches to club operations must be rethought and reinvented on a regular basis. Properly balancing the value/cost relationship is critical for creating interest from the next generation of club and resort participants.

But while it can be hard sometimes to see through the hype to determine which club or resort properties and departments really do merit recognition as “best practice” examples, studying these lists can still help reveal undeniable trends that lie behind how truly leading-edge properties are rising to the top. Here are some of the most notable and consistent themes—and some truly noteworthy club examples—that can be seen from an objective, overview look of  the many properties that have earned mention during the latest round of industry awards.

• Don’t hold back on making needed facility improvements.
Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in Tampa, Fla., earned Golf Inc.’s 2012 Renovation of the Year in the private club category with a comprehensive, fast-track course project that took place in 2011 and required only 5 1⁄2 months after closing to complete. Like many course renovations currently being undertaken, the goal was to return to “a traditional parkland aesthetic consistent with [Palma Ceia’s] 1925 vintage.”

The project also sought to alleviate crippling drainage issues by “flipping” fairways to a six-foot depth; the top foot of heavy organic material was broken up and buried, while five feet of sand was harvested and brought to the surface. The result was a well-drained column of clean sand, into which the new fairways were sodded. An existing outfall into the City of Tampa’s stormwater system was located and a new main-line drainpipe was connected to it. A comprehensive system of over 300 new surface inlets and sub-mains now drain the entire property.

The project also involved completely rebuilding the irrigation system, expanding and replanting greens, building new bunkers, removing trees, widening fairways and replacing rough with extensive pine-straw areas. The payoffs came back as fast as the work was done: total rounds played rose 19%, guest rounds and revenue rose 50%, F&B revenue rose 11% in casual dining areas and 26% in the Men’s Grill, and pro shop sales increased 17%. And, over 28 new members have joined the club, which now has a waiting list.

Braemar Country Club in Tarzana, Calif. Multimillion-dollar renovations also transformed Braemar Country Club in Tarzana, Calif., into a club with something for the whole family. Its newly redesigned 27-hole championship golf course offers an experience for every level of play as well a new state of the art practice facility and driving range. Other updates include: 10-acre driving range State-of-the-art practice center Junior Golf Academy Signature holes and course layout 4,600-sq. ft. fitness center with group exercise studio and best-in-class cardio and strength-training equipment Outdoor terrace with “fire bar” overlooking the golf course, where members and guests can dine or simply lounge while enjoying cocktails Expanded member bar and grill graced with stylish decor and a wall of windows offering even more beautiful views of the Santa Susana and San Gabriel Mountains Anytime Lounge and Multimedia Room with an 85-inch flat-screen TV – where Members can relax and watch their favorite sporting events and films Enhancements to our resort-style pool complex Welcoming clubhouse entryway with spectacular views of San Fernando Valley among live oaks and California native landscape Completely renovated clubhouse with a “California Contemporary” look that has dramatic lines which blend with the natural landscape and hillsides Refurbished upstairs dining and banquet rooms with floor-to-ceiling changes that are both elegant and modern

• Get the right staff working with the right people in the right way.
Sea Colony Resort emerged as the United States Tennis Association’s choice for 2012 Outstanding Facility of the Year in part because of how the Bethany Beach, Del., property has tapped into the junior demographic.

“We increased the junior program by starting an after-school program that has grown to 30 kids, and our junior program now runs all year,” says Thomas Johnston, the resort’s Tennis Director.

For all resort participants, Johnston says, “The general philosophy is that we’re selling fun. We want people to have a blast and to learn something at the same time. In our instruction, we try to catch people doing things right rather than finding the negative; we find the positives and build on those as we correct things.”

• Make full use of all that a property has to offer, inside and out.
ClubCorp properties have earned accolades through the management firm’s overall strategy to “reinvent private clubs by adding more style, technology and fun to appeal to families and improve business networking.” Implementing this strategy has led to significant investment within both the city/business club and country club segments of ClubCorp’s portfolio. In all cases, these improvements have focused on “enhancing clubs with contemporary, stylish looks and amenities, as well as more high-tech features.” Much of the change is geared to appealing to the next generation of members through more family-friendly activities and youth programming, and by providing more networking activities and membership opportunities for young executives and women.

“These reinventions are in step with the lives of members today—they are busy and multi-tasking throughout the day, but still want to spend time with family and friends,” says Jamie Walters, ClubCorp’s Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing. “Our goal is to make clubs more relevant and provide more value to members—and we’ve seen very positive results to date.”

Monroe Golf Club, Pittsford, N.Y.

Many clubs honor their connections to legendary golf course architects by naming rooms in their clubhouses for them. But these sometimes prove to be gestures made in name only, with little carried through from outside to inside to evoke the traditions and sustain the special qualities that the architect first helped to create for the property.

That certainly isn’t the case, though, at Monroe Golf Club in Pittsford, N.Y., just outside of Rochester. The club, founded in 1923, has a Donald Ross Dining Room that now showcases an elegant food-and-beverage program as a fitting complement to a jewel of a golf course, and an accomplished golf program, that have distinguished the club from its earliest days.

A Region Rich in Ross
The Rochester area has long stood out in the golf world among Northern cities because of its abundance of Ross-designed courses—five in all, including Oak Hill Country Club,  which will host the 2013 PGA Championship. Within this cluster, Monroe’s course has enjoyed a special distinction, thanks to especially sandy soil that provides optimal drainage and playability for a classic layout that prominently features Ross’ signature contouring and bunkering (110 traps).

Monroe GC’s expanded clubhouse evokes the property’s history as farmland. Monroe Golf Club AT A GLANCE Location: Pittsford, N.Y. Founded: 1923 Members: 507 (351 Golf) Clubhouse: 57,000 sq. ft. Golf Course Architect: Donald Ross (short course designed by Gil Hanse) Annual golf rounds: 25,000 Annual F&B revenues: $2.2M Chief Operating Officer: Colin Simpson, CCM, Sommelier Head Golf Professional: Jim Mrva, PGA Master Grounds Superintendent: Matt Delly Controller/Director of Human Resources: Pamela Werner Executive Chef: Frank Mirabile, CEC Assistant Manager: Javian Rafus Manager, Banquets & Catering: Kimberly Prowak Aquatics Director: Kendra Hogg Tennis Director: Linda Gohagan

“The way this course drains is a real blessing,” says Grounds Superintendent Matt Delly while conducting a tour as he eagerly plunges probes into the ground to bring up samples of the unusually granular earth that extends well beneath the 150 acres of former farmland Ross was paid $5,500 to reshape.

Delly is just the fifth superintendent in the club’s 90-year history, starting with Jim Connaughton, a former construction foreman for Ross who supervised the course for its first  35 years. Delly was thrust into the role at a critical time, after the tragic death in 2007 of his predecessor, Mark Hughes, and while a master-planned restoration of the course under the direction of Gil Hanse (now designing the course for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was well underway.

Delly was less than 10 years out of turf school at the time he took the position, with only two years of experience as a head superintendent (at The Country Club of Syracuse). But he had worked at Monroe (under Hughes’ predecessor, Patrick Gertner) for many summers while in high school, and then had returned in 2006 to be Hughes’ assistant. After Hughes drowned in a swimming accident, Monroe was able to keep its restoration on course thanks to the bench strength represented by Delly, a former All-American small-college quarterback.

“We’re lucky we had original blueprints for all 18 greens as well as the original Ross drawings to follow [for the restoration],” Delly says. “From those documents, it was clear that changes made over the years, primarily from tree plantings and mowing practices that had shrunk the greens, had led to a state of decline that threatened turf quality, created safety issues and removed architectural features that made the course special.

“[The restoration] dug back to the native soils, restored the original contours of the natural, rolling terrain, and gutted and rebuilt all of the bunkers to their original design,” Delly says. “And we’re continuing to selectively manage trees to help us put back even more of the original character.

“Last year, we took out an oak that had grown to 70 feet just 10 yards from a green. It was a beautiful tree, but in the wrong spot, and it had become exactly the type of project that justifies [tree removal], because it was dropping acorns in bunkers and robbing the grass of nutrients. After we took it out, we were able to grow the green back out to its original size and shape.

“With those kind of projects, we keep getting closer to putting this beautiful piece of property back to how Ross laid it out,” Delly says. “We can tell we’re doing the right thing not only by how we keep climbing up the lists [of top course ratings], but just as importantly, by how members are enjoying the course. We’ve actually taken out significant lengths of cart paths because so many more people are now walking the course—there can’t be too many clubs saying that right now.”

Monroe GC is looking forward to celebrating its 100th year in the next decade, and feels it is well-positioned for its second century.

The Monroe membership’s newfound zest for enjoying their lovingly restored course through unspoiled walks has actually created a new challenge for the club’s golf department—finding room to store a fleet of wheeled club caddies that has swelled to over 250. But that is a “problem” that Jim Mrva, PGA, Monroe’s Head Golf Professional since 1983, has been glad to see develop. More people walking the course fits well with what Mrva, a Master Professional and the 2010 PGA Golf Professional of the Year, describes as a prevailing theme of “moving forward by looking backward” that he has tried to emphasize since becoming Monroe’s fourth head pro in 1983 (the first was legendary Scottish pro Johnny Walker).

Further evidence of how Mrva has helped Monroe GC  gain distinction by embracing touches of the past can be found in the wrap-around porch with rocking chairs, and antique decorations, including vintage skis and a canoe, that he incorporated into the design of the 4,000-sq.-ft. pro shop that opened in 1992, but still looks fresh and inviting 20 years later.

Mrva has also worked with club members to direct the continued growth and success of  the Monroe Invitational Championship (MIC), one of the oldest amateur tournaments in the U.S. Dating to 1937 and held each year in early June, the MIC surged to new prominence in the late 1980s when the club made a concerted effort to attract top players by providing housing at members’ homes and adding other amenities to the already strong pull of the chance to play the Ross course. It worked: Over the last 25 years, the MIC has consistently drawn leading college and amateur players, with the list of past tournament champions including now-touring pros such as Dustin Johnson, Chris DiMarco and Jeff Sluman; the full participant roster has also included names like Jim Furyk, Lucas Glover, Ben Curtis and Tiger Woods.

Monroe Golf Club, Pittsford, N.Y.

Monroe GC has also been out in front of the trend to encourage more players to enjoy golf at a leisurely place through its innovative, Ross-inspired and Gil Hanse-designed four-hole, par-three short course. The course, which opened in 2003, features regulation-sized greens, bentgrass fairways and nine bunkers. It is open to all members from dusk to dawn, with no greens fees.

The short course has served as an excellent venue for practice and instruction, Mrva says. It has also encouraged some of the club’s social members to ease into the game, he adds, and made it possible for senior members who now find it challenging to get around the full course to be able to continue to enjoy the game. Delly, whose staff mows the short course daily and keeps the greens rolling at 10+ readings, says it’s not uncommon to see players, especially women, make two or three circuits around the four holes.

The Monroe golf staff is also making it easier for members to work playing the main Ross course into their schedules. A popular Thursday night nine-hole men’s league that runs from mid-May into September has attracted over 100 participants, Mrva reports. The pairings that are made up for the league, plus barbecues on the lawn held periodically during the season, have proved to be a good social mixer for bringing members together who might not otherwise meet, he says. Women also have a variety of options, including nine and 18-hole groups that play on weekday mornings, a twilight golf league on Wednesday evenings, and an interclub league.

Monroe GC’s restored Ross course enhances the club’s traditions and status.

“Moving forward by looking backward” also means helping junior players develop an appreciation for the game and its traditions—and here, too, the staff has made some impressive strides to try to go beyond what Mrva calls “living in the bubble” of typical golf circles. He is particularly excited about recent efforts to combine the SNAG (Starting New at Golf) beginners’ system with Monroe’s short course as a way to introduce youth from Rochester-area YMCAs and Boys Clubs to the game.

“It’s been an eye-opener,” Mrva says of the potential he’s seen from events held at the club for those groups, as well as programs coordinated with The First Tee of Rochester. “The families involved just with the Ys represent over 120,000 people. Bringing groups out here to be with our pros has definitely created a spark both with kids, and their parents, I think, and piqued their interest in finding ways to continue to play. Whether that ends up being at public or private facilities really doesn’t matter, if we can get new people into the game and broaden its reach.”

Responding to the Alarm
While it is still called a golf club, and while its golf course, programs and golf leadership remain the most prominent faces of Monroe GC, the club has taken significant steps in recent years to enhance its facilities and operations to create a more well-rounded profile and to better position itself for the future.

Thomas Cimino, the club’s Immediate Past President, says a consultant gave Monroe’s Board a wake-up call even before the recession created new urgencies, by presenting “facts of life” to show that only about half the number of private clubs in 2005 would still exist in 2015—and that making the cut would be a case of “survival of the fittest.”

Monroe GC’s core management team (from left: Master PGA Professional Jim Mrva; Chief Operating Officer Colin Simpson; Controller/Director of Human Resources Pamela Werner, and Course Superintendent Matt Delly) has reason to smile over a future that has been brightened by a shift to a younger membership profile.

The Monroe Board took this message to heart and decided that the club’s future would hinge on a multi-pronged strategy: 1) continue to enhance its golf course and golf programs to retain Top 100 status; 2) invest in other club amenities by making long-term commitments to annual capital improvement projects that rotate to touch the clubhouse, pool, tennis courts or other facilities, in addition to golf-related needs (most recently, the  fitness room and kitchen have been renovated); and 3) entrust the club’s operation to professional management.

Part three led to the arrival in 2006 of Colin Simpson, CCM, as Monroe’s Chief Operating Officer. Simpson addressed other key needs by bringing in Pamela Werner, formerly with the Century Golf management company, as Controller/Director of Human Resources, and Frank Mirabile, CEC, as Monroe’s new Executive Chef (see “Serious Players,” C&RB, February 2011).

Renewed emphasis on food-and-beverage was a key part of the long-term strategy, says Cimino. “Our banquet side was bringing in significant revenues, and we weren’t even paying that much attention to it,” he says. “With more professional management, we saw that we could tighten up our buying and inventory practices, generate wonderful margins and positive cash flow, and cover up a lot of sins.”

Monroe’s F&B operation got another huge boost when Mirabile submitted a winning entry to a kitchen equipment manufacturer’s “dream suite” competition (see “Cooking Up a Dream,” C&RB, March 2011). That led to the much-needed kitchen overhaul, which, in addition to new efficiencies, has also helped  the club enhance its menus. Mirabile’s department, which includes a pastry chef and in-house bakery, now makes innovative use of special equipment contained in the suite, such as drop-in sous vide wells and a flat plancha grill.

Executive Chef Frank Mirabile (fifth from left) and his culinary team.

Simpson’s status as a Sommelier has also helped to distinguish Monroe’s fine-dining program, and the F&B team has also steadily raised service standards through a training program, now bolstered by a comprehensive manual, designed to “lead to more focus and sense of purpose” for the entire culinary operation, Simpson says.

Monroe’s success in simultaneously identifying, and addressing, all of its strategic initiatives has helped the club emerge from the recession not only as a survivor, but with renewed confidence about its future direction. “We lost members who were historically here primarily for golf,” says Cimino, “but we were able to restore our [membership] numbers, and actually improve on them, within a year, and emerge from it all much less top-heavy in terms of age distribution. We’re still a very golf-oriented club, but we also know that appealing to families through many other amenities is the key to the future—and we think we’re well-positioned for that now.”

The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Fla., received a shot of life and an opportunity to renew itself.

As the weather began to cool last year and the leaves began to turn, they started to make their way to their club in southwest Florida from points throughout the North and other parts of the country and the world. After they’d arrived and greeted those who were already there, including some for whom Florida was already a year-round location, they immersed themselves in all that the club had to offer as it came to life for the winter—golf, tennis, swimming, fitness, dining and many other social activities centered around the warm weather and Gulf of Mexico beachfront.

But for this just-completed season, the migration to The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Fla. involved more than just the usual number of members from out-of-state who were heading south to enjoy their five months in the sun. It also included several accomplished managers from top clubs around the U.S. who had decided to join forces with others already in place on the Mediterra staff. Those redirecting their careers southward were drawn by the opportunity—and challenge—to be part of a new team being formed to write a new chapter in the history of a property that had already experienced incredible highs and lows in its first 10 years of existence.

The Club at Mediterra AT A GLANCE Location: Naples, Fla. Opened for play: 2001 No. of members: Golf, 450; Social,142; Sports, 101 Average member age: 56 Golf Holes/Designer: 36/Tom Fazio Annual rounds: 44,000, split evenly between courses Clubhouse at The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Fla. Chief Executive Officer/General Manager: Tom Wallace Director of Clubhouse Operations: Carmen Mauceri Director of Golf Operations: Rob Anderson Sports Club Director: Tim Bauer Director of Golf Course Operations: Scott Whorrall Membership Director: Max Passino Chief Financial Officer: Keith Hughes Support and Development: Rob McWilliams Executive Chef: Greg John Event Coordinator: Mary Ann Shea Facilities Manager: Rob Hirst Beach Club Manager: Mike Snyder F&B Service Manager: Zak Brzytwa Beach Club Assistant: Jordan Kovalcik

Catching the Coach’s Eye
As holder of The Club at Mediterra’s Member Card No. 1, and the current President of its Board, Carl Dill has had an especially good front-row view—even when he might have really wanted to cover his eyes—of its turbulent first decade. A Chicago native, he is glad he was right in envisioning what the community, and club, could become when he bought his home and became a member while the property was still “dirt and farmland” as it was being developed in 2001 by Bonita Bay Group. He still proudly recalls how Mediterra quickly emerged to become the flagship of Bonita Bay properties, and how the club drew national acclaim as it helped to “differentiate and distinguish” Southwest Florida as one of the most highly desirable areas to live and play.

As for the periods when the real-estate market cratered and Bonita Bay teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, potentially taking Mediterra with it, and then the subsequent scramble to save the club through the members’ purchase of it in 2009, Dill points to what has been laid out as Mediterra’s “roadmap for the future,” to show how the club has now moved beyond those stages.

The first stop on that map is member ownership and re-capitalization. As the 2011-2012 season approached, Dill explains, Mediterra had those things in place, and now needed to reach stops number two (governance, mission and vision) and three (new leadership team).

“We didn’t want to operate the club; we wanted to be member-owned, but not member-run,” Dill says. “And it’s typical to relieve the developer’s management staff from duty when a club becomes member-owned—so we also had to change our approach for who would direct the operations as we, the members, got less involved with them.”

Mediterra adopted the CEO model of governance, with its committees transitioning to advisory roles for the club’s professional managers. Formal language was also drawn up to restate the club’s mission (“Be the leader among Southwest Florida community lifestyle private clubs, providing a distinguished experience for our members and guests”) and vision (“community excellence,” as a shared goal with the community association).

Mediterra’s Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Tom Wallace encouraged club managers to “Understand, and demonstrate daily, all that it takes to be part of a winning team.”

But there was also a more immediate mission that, while not put on paper, could be expressed in simpler terms: Make some noise that will be heard well beyond Naples, to let everyone know that Mediterra is a player again.

As the club’s first member and its current Board President Carl Dill had a full perspective on where the club needed to go after it became member-owned.

Big-Bang Theory
As Dill saw it, the biggest bang that could be sounded for that purpose—and that would also help form the new leadership team needed for step three most immediately and effectively—would come from bringing in a highly qualified name to fill the new CEO position. That led to an announcement at the end of last summer that reverberated throughout club management circles: Tom Wallace, who had earned acclaim for guiding the storied Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club through major course and clubhouse renovations as well as many USGA Championships, would be Mediterra’s new CEO/GM.

“Getting Tom Wallace matched our hype,” says Dill. “He has an incredible reputation nationally. I do some work as an executive coach, and he’s one of the most naturally gifted leaders I’ve ever seen. Hiring him set the tone, not only for what we needed to do in club management, but also for attracting new memberships and getting real estate prospects to see us as the place to go in southwest Florida.”

The Club at Mediterra’s No. 2 hole.

For his part, Wallace was certainly torn about all that he would have to leave behind at Oakmont—but in the end, he simply couldn’t resist the new challenge that Mediterra presented. The timing of when he got to Naples, though—at the start of September and the official kickoff to the club’s season—gave those challenges levels of urgency that far surpassed anything he’d encountered previously in his career.

“I am not a turnaround king—I’m a team builder,” Wallace explains. “In my other positions, I had a two- to three-year window to build a team and establish a culture of excellence. But within 48 hours of arriving [at Mediterra], I had to solidify the staff for the coming season, while also planning for long-term goals. Plus, this was in a situation where members were understandably eager to see immediate results.

“We needed to assess the current team and then make changes that were needed,” he says. “I gave everyone a fair understanding of where we were going, how we were going to get there, and when we needed to get there. Everyone who was already here was given a chance to get on board—and many stepped up dramatically. But I also had to be prepared to make changes where it was clear our vision was not shared.”

The Sports Club at The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Fla.

As the assessment period unfolded, the migration pattern of management talent to southwest Florida began to fill up the map, with the routes from the Pittsburgh and Cleveland areas (where Wallace grew up and started his career, with The Country Club) showing especially heavy traffic.

In fairness to Wallace (and as a testament to his leadership abilities and reputation), many of those who followed him to Naples did so on their own, telling him as soon they heard he was making the switch that they wanted to be considered for any possible opportunities. “It was a chance to make history,” says Rob McWilliams, who came from Oakmont to manage Mediterra’s Support and Development function and lead much-needed IT upgrades, in a comment echoed by others.

Members play a round at the Club at Mediterra’s popular new bocce courts.

Several key new managers also came who did not have any prior connection to Wallace, such as Director of Golf Rob Anderson, formerly with Belfair Plantation in South Carolina. Being able to attract such new talent confirmed Dill’s expectations for one of the major benefits of attracting Wallace to the job. “It’s had a huge impact on positioning ourself to recruit great staff and attract management of top caliber,” Dill says.

Wallace and those who joined the Mediterra team for the new season also benefitted from the invaluable, experience-based insights provided by managers who had been at the club through previous seasons, including Membership Director Manon “Max” Passino (2008); Sports Club Director Tim Bauer (2009); Director of Golf Course Operations Scott Whorrall (a Mediterra “original” who supervised the grow-in of both courses), and many others.

Trying to meld such a varied mix of new and existing managers and staff so quickly only added to the challenges at hand. But with the results for the season now pretty much in, there’s plenty of evidence that the new Mediterra team came together quite well to help the club not only survive, but thrive.

After a full-out season, the new Mediterra team won’t take a knee for too long–excitement abounds over what can be accomplished after a full summer of planning and preparation.

“It’s been an amazing year,” Dill told the membership at March’s annual meeting. “We’ve had significant membership growth, with over 50 new golf members, and have reached our cap for golf memberships two to three years ahead of plan. Member participation is at record levels, with over 500 participants in our new bocce program, and our new ‘Megaterra’ all-community event selling out in six hours. Golf rounds have had record numbers, and real estate sales are also increasing.

“I don’t believe any of this happened by accident, just because we became member-owned,” he added. “The two keys were the value of the facility re-investments we have made in what have become very popular amenities [including the new “Tavern on 18”—see “Out We Go”], and creating a new leadership team.”

Mediterra’s Beach Club offers an appealing alternative venue to members, many of whom dine at the club almost every day in season.

Wait Until Next Year
Wallace is also proud of what’s already been accomplished, but he—and all of his managers—really can’t wait to see what they can do after a full summer of planning and preparation.

“We’ve made major strides in every operation, but the next building block is taking member and guest experiences to new levels based on training and discipline, and not just riding the high energy that came with the first wave of improvement,” he says. “We made a quantum leap towards our goal this year, and in the next few years we will be making smaller ones. Instead of taking a breather in the summer, we will continue to work hard so that by next season, standards are pre-established and the roadmap to success is fully drawn.”

When that’s done, it only stands to add more interesting chapters to what Dill already calls “a good story” again.

“From the brink of going under, we’ve risen from the ashes, and generated huge momentum,” he says. “Once again, we’re now the place to be.”

How North Carolina’s Heritage Club has found cost-effective paths to profitable growth.

Wake Forest University is named for where it was founded, in Wake Forest, N.C., 15 miles north of Raleigh. The university moved a couple of hours west in 1956 to its present location in Winston-Salem, creating confusion about what’s in the town of Wake Forest—and what’s not—that still exists today.

In recent years, though, the town has found new ways to make its own name for itself. Wake Forest offers great accessibility to not only Raleigh, but all of the “Research Triangle”  region that has had huge growth around the state capital and encompasses Durham, Chapel Hill and several other major universities (North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke). At the same time, the town has retained its own distinctive identity as a quiet and uncomplicated enclave that can seem to be 150 miles, not just 15, from the throb of so much governmental,  commercial and academic activity.

That unique combination has led to significant growth of its own for Wake Forest. And as its population has swelled from under 10,000 in 1990 to nearly 40,000 today, the town has frequently appeared on lists of America’s fastest-growing suburbs.

That classification, however, unfairly conjures up images of uncontrolled sprawl and impersonal, cookie-cutter development. To get the real picture of how Wake Forest differs from many of the other charmless and nondescript suburbs on those lists, a visit is needed to one of the town’s—and nation’s—most successful residential communities, and the club that has made important contributions to that success.

Instructive Approach

The directions page on the website of the Heritage Club includes this instruction to help visitors find their way to the club after arriving in Wake Forest: “Follow the signs to the Veterans Memorial—it is in our parking lot.”  Those instructions also speak to how the town, the club and the Heritage residential development are all connected in a unique, ungated way.

There is nothing gaudy about the  Memorial, which consists of granite panels, flanked by the U.S. and North Carolina flags, honoring the more than 300 Wake Forest veterans who gave their lives in five major wars. The setting is equally tasteful, with the Memorial positioned at a rounded end of the Heritage Club’s parking lot, in front of its understated clubhouse and overlooking one of the golf course’s serene lakes. The Memorial is illuminated at night, and bricks that include messages from family and supporters make up a Freedom Walk in front of the panels.

The Memorial was dedicated, with more than 700 in attendance, in November 2001—the same year the Heritage Club opened. On the first anniversary of 9-11 in 2002, it showed its value as an important new community focal point, with several hundred Wake Forest residents gathering there for a candlelight ceremony.  It is now the annual site of the town’s primary observance of each Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

The Heritage Club team is effectively lean, but definitely not mean. Back row (left to right): Facilities Director Lee Andrews and Executive Chef Jeff Dowdle. Front row (left to right): Membership & Marketing Director Tami Bright, Club Accountant Pat Watson, General Manager John Spiess and Head Golf Professional David Sykes.

But John Spiess, who came to the Heritage Club to be its General Manager in 2009, finds that everyday reminders of how the Memorial helps to connect the town to the club in an unusually open fashion can be even more striking.

“You’ll frequently see people drive into the lot and get out of their cars to take pictures or even use paper and a pencil to do a rubbing of the wall or of a brick,” Spiess says. “It’s often clear they’ve come a significant distance, to make a family connection that’s important to them. Then they’ll often just sit and enjoy the surroundings for a while, or maybe come into our clubhouse and our golf shop or restaurant. Whatever they want to do—or not do—is fine with us.”

Peaceful, Easy Feeling

Spiess came to Heritage after serving as General Manager/Director of Golf at Canyon Ridge Club on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., and at TPC Southwind in Memphis. As he takes a visitor through the streets of the Heritage community to see the club’s golf course and pool and tennis facilities, and his golf car mingles easily with people jogging, biking, walking dogs or just enjoying a quiet setting that’s noticeable for its lack of intrusive or speedy auto traffic, Spiess tries to describe the attraction of the property. “It’s an intangible feeling that’s hard to put your thumb on,” he says. “There’s just a quality of life here that’s just very comfortable.”

That feeling was something Heritage’s developer, Andy Ammons, took extra care to try to create from the moment he acquired a former dairy farm in Wake Forest. The first step was to plant over a million pine trees, to form what Ammons, who has also developed Nags Head Golf Links on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, calls a “50-foot golf easement” between residences and the Bob Moore-designed American links-style course that opened in 2001.

Executive Chef Jeff Dowdle has made the club’s 1250 Heritage bistro a destination favored equally by members and Raleigh-area residents, many of whom were loyal patrons of his popular Wake Forest restaurant.

“It’s not an ugly briar patch that’s impossible to find your golf ball in,” says Ammons. “It helps everybody enjoy whatever they’re doing more, even if they’re just looking at the scenery.”

As he planned the Heritage community and club, Ammons also made it a point to connect early, often and earnestly with Wake Forest residents and officials. “I gave people on the Chamber of Commerce and neighborhood committees disposable cameras, and asked them to take pictures of the things that were important to them in the area that they wouldn’t want to see changed,” he says. “We also had focus groups where we asked people to describe the kind of dog that best fit their community. Their answer was clear: It wasn’t a bulldog, or a French poodle; it was a Labrador retriever.”

Going With the Flow

With that kind of guidance, Ammons took pains to develop a property that he describes as “spread out to flow and blend in with what already existed here—a little bit everywhere, not one big cluster.”  That philosophy is seen in how the facilities of the semi-private Heritage Club are positioned throughout the development—and how they’re used by members and guests.

The club offers a Classic membership, with full privileges to the Heritage Golf Club and the Heritage Swim & Tennis Club; separate memberships to either club, as well as corporate classic and golf memberships, are also available. Reduced initiation fees are offered to Heritage community homeowners. Membership currently numbers around 100 in the Classic category, 300 in Golf and 400 for Swim/Tennis.

Members now account for about 60% of the 40,000 annual rounds played on Heritage’s course—a percentage that has been growing, Spiess says, but is still in line with how the club would like to balance access. “Members can make advance tee times, and on many Saturdays and Sundays now, the course has the feel of a private club,” he says. “But we also want to keep the course available to the public, as one of the prime selling points for the community.”

The Heritage Club has two pool facilities and a swim-team program with 200 kids, 60% of them 10 or younger.

Similarly, the Swim & Tennis side has grown to see active and dedicated use among members, with the club’s two pools now collectively attracting about 35,000 visits each season, estimates Facilities Director Lee Andrews. The Lake Pool complex features a figure-eight water slide, playground, full-service grill and 10-lane lap pool, and is home to the Heritage Betas Swim Team, a program with nearly 200 kids, 60% of whom are age 10 or younger. The View Pool features a lazy river, water dome, in-water seating area, zero slope entry, resort-like decking and a clubhouse available for private rental functions.

Like the golf course, the club’s pools have also proved to have real appeal when non-members gain access to them through swim meets or other events, or when they just hear about the fun to be had at Heritage’s cardboard boat regattas and other special attractions. Heritage has had especially good success creating community-wide buzz through its dive-in movie program, which it outsources to a firm that specializes in staging such events. The movies, which are held three times per season, are now offered free of charge to members, leading to crowds of as many as 250 for the cinema-while-you-soak extravaganzas. “It’s all about providing value and giving back to members,” says Spiess. “And as the word [about the movies] has spread, I know it’s helped us sell memberships.”

In blog entries he’s posted on C&RB’s website, Spiess has detailed the success of other “niche” activities he and his staff have instituted at the Heritage Club—everything from pumpkin-carving to pickleball. Some of these draw more member interest than others, but that’s not the main objective. Introducing pickleball on the club’s tennis courts, Spiess notes, has proved popular with a small but enthusiastic group of primarily senior members—often a challenging demographic to keep engaged—who now build their weekly schedules around upcoming matches.

Heritage finds many inventive ways to make the most of its two pools. Dive-in movies have proved to be a particularly effective event for creating buzz that attracts prospective new members.

Destination Dining

Perhaps the part of the Heritage Club where it’s become most evident how the community and membership happily co-exist is the clubhouse’s 1250 Heritage restaurant, which takes its name from the club’s street address.

Executive Chef Jeff Dowdle developed 1250 Heritage’s bistro concept when the 12,000-sq. ft. clubhouse was renovated in 2007. What had been a typical golf club grill was transformed and now features comfort food and lowcountry cuisine specialties that Dowdle first developed in Charleston, S.C. restaurants, and then as an Executive Chef on Kiawah Island. After relocating to Wake Forest to open a popular restaurant, Burkenstock’s, in the town’s historic downtown area,

Dowdle was recruited by Ammons (a frequent Burkenstock’s patron) to help upgrade Heritage’s culinary profile.

Five years later, it’s clear that Ammons wasn’t the only one who liked Dowdle’s cooking. Annual F&B sales at the club are $800,000, almost all a la carte—the clubhouse isn’t big enough to attract significant wedding or banquet business (in their never-ending search for more niches, however, the club’s staff has successfully marketed Heritage as a good place for rehearsal dinners and business-training sessions).  More impressively, 60% of the F&B business comes from the public—and membership accounts for the other 40% willingly, because the club does not have food minimums.

New Golf Course Superintendent Nick Bisanz will need to keep the course primed for year-round use by players of all ages.

“[1250 Heritage] is way more than a ‘19th Hole,’ ” Ammons says proudly—and indeed, with a popular Sunday brunch, $6.95 lunch specials, and an extended season of back-deck dinners with live music, the restaurant has become another round-the-clock-and-calendar reason for Research Triangle-area diners to find their way to Wake Forest. “It’s the best al fresco dining in the Raleigh area,” Spiess feels. “You’re not seated at the edge of a parking lot—everyone gets great views of the golf course, the lake, and a fountain we light up at night.”

The efforts to position Heritage’s club amenities to have real synergy with their surroundings, rather than exclude or overwhelm them, have paid off with impressive new home sales—224 in 2011 alone. The demographics of who’s moved in, to a community where options range from townhomes to million-dollar properties, are also favorable. “It’s really the best of all worlds, with people in their 20s and people in their 80s, and young families, empty-nesters and retirees,” says Spiess.

The club operation is also pulling its own weight by being profitable, Spiess says. That wasn’t always the case, he relates. “2009 was tough for us,” he says. “But 2010 was a turnaround year. We took a hard look at how we could become leaner, and eliminated assistant-level positions in every operating area. That helped us feel the recession less than most.

“[The reductions] did mean that those of us still on the staff [which now includes new Head Golf Course Superintendent Nick Bisanz, formerly Senior Assistant at TPC Scottsdale] have to put in more hours,” Spiess says. “But it’s not like we have to spend them in a 25th-floor office. It’s a pretty comfortable place for us, too”

View Recipes for:

Pimento Cheese with Green Chile Mayonnaise

Braised Pork Belly with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic Aioli

A club that rode the wave of the Phoenix-area development boom—and crash—is now out in front of the recovery effort.

When the housing boom of the 2000s raced through Arizona, spawning planned communities and golf courses so fast that they seemed destined to outnumber the cacti, the epicenter of growth was Peoria—a heretofore sleepy town northwest of Phoenix that saw its population soar 50% after 2000 began, to become the state’s ninth biggest city and larger than the Illinois city from which it took its name (Peoria is an Indian term for “prairie fire”).

In the far northern reaches of Peoria, within the gated community of Blackstone, the boom gave birth in 2006 to Blackstone Country Club, which was instantly established as the upscale leader of the west valley, on par with many of the exclusive clubs of Scottsdale to the east. Blackstone CC proudly featured the first, and still only, Arizona golf course designed by Jim Engh, perhaps the most acclaimed architect of the new millennium. The initiation fee for an equity golf membership at Blackstone CC started at $60,000, then rose to $75,000 when its stunning clubhouse, the Hacienda, opened in January 2007.

“When we started in 2006, real estate in Blackstone was selling on a lottery,” says Membership Director Melissa Barton, a bundle of energy who’s seen it all. “People who bought golf memberships had ‘dibs’ on custom lots. We had about a year and a half of that before the world changed. By fall 2007, things came to a screeching halt.”

Blackstone did not hit the wall alone, but it certainly left some of the most spectacular wreckage. The club wobbled through the depths of the recession with only 50 or so members. That led to a decision, in 2009, through which the “membership documents were revised,” as Melissa Barton puts it—meaning prices were reduced, drastically. Initiation for an equity golf membership fell to $15,000, and a new non-equity membership was introduced at $7,500.

As 2012 arrived in the west valley, however, Blackstone CC was showing many signs it had not only survived the crash, but was poised to reach new heights.

Membership has more than doubled, to 125. At the same time, the developers that own and operate the club—Sunbelt Holdings—agreed to extend the date for turnover to the membership to December 2025.

Bill Griffon, who took over as Blackstone’s General Manager in December 2011, says his most pleasant surprise so far has been “no unpleasant surprises.” In an August 2011 survey, 88% of the membership declared themselves “very or extremely satisfied” with the club and its services, and 89% said they’d recommend it to friends and family. The Blackstone staff, notes Griffon, has “been without a full-time general manager for some time. Despite that, they’ve continued to deliver service.”

A Cal Poly Pomona grad whose experience includes Hyatt Hotels, the Lodge at Sea Island, and the Yellowstone Club in Montana, Griffon is keeping his eyes and ears open and taking lots of notes as he surveys the scene. He says his main goal for his new club is to make Blackstone’s service even better. He plans to restore amenities that were trimmed during hard times—and then some. Here are a few examples from the lists that now fill up his iPad:

Blackstone CC’s “Hacienda” clubhouse has come alive again through appealing new amenities and an enhanced emphasis on service.

• Family-friendly upgrades, such as enhanced food and beverage service at the pools—Blackstone’s membership includes almost 100 children.
• A wine-dispensing system, so the restaurant can serve more wines by the glass.
• Stronger lighting in the now very dim parking area (the better to see serpentine friends that might be warming themselves on the pavement).
• Helping members arrange golf and dining trips to the Napa Valley and other destinations.
• Re-introducing amenities that had to be eliminated during the harder times, and bringing back a full-time shoe room attendant—Griffon’s pet project.

While initiation fees are down, dues at Blackstone have been raised only slightly,  to $690 a month. “So we’re trying to marry the cost on a monthly basis with a great experience and value,” Griffon says.

Attracting new members is the other side of the coin, he adds. “As people come into the community, we’ve got to create an environment where people say there’s not a choice—it’s such a value, it’s such a service level, they have to join,” he explains.

Just Getting Started

Blackstone’s 2012 budget is optimistic, projecting revenues of $2.45 million—a 20% across-the-board increase. Meeting that goal will require landing at least 50 new members this year. Membership Director Barton is confident for a couple of reasons: she has “a great product to sell” and, sitting in the club’s Cantina Bar, she hears the sweet sounds of construction from beyond the clubhouse walls. That’s music to her ears, because the vast majority of Blackstone’s members come from the surrounding community.

Director of Golf Todd Cernohous and Superintendent Roger Brashear help maximize members’ enjoyment of Arizona’s only course designed by Jim Engh.

“You hear hammers in the background—we haven’t heard that for years,” says Barton. “This is a club that’s going to be supported by real estate sales. We really think that’s going to increase this year. I think this club is going to take off, the more homes are sold in Blackstone.”

Blackstone’s food-and-beverage operation, led by F&B Manager Megan Huler and Executive Chef Randy Heltsley, will need to do $650,000 worth of regular dining and special events to hold up its end of the 2012 budget. Huler, who came to Blackstone five years ago from the airline catering business, says most of the 20% revenue increase they’re expected to produce will be member-driven.

“It’s going to have to be 80% member dining,” she explains, “because we only have certain days we can do outside events.” Blackstone offers only outdoor weddings—and in Arizona’s climate, those are only feasible on a limited number of days in spring and fall. A rise in per-person wedding prices from $140 in 2011 to $167 in 2012 will help, but the members are where the real money is.

The first salvo in the campaign to get members to spend more on dining is complete, single-price dinners every Wednesday. The first one, featuring prime rib at $25-30, depending on the size of the cut, drew over 60 diners —definitely “a little bit heavier than the usual Wednesday night,” says a pleased Executive Chef, Randy Heltsley.  That was followed the next Wednesday by a seafood dinner that was equally popular. The kitchen will also be happy to be busier on Tuesdays, for a new happy hour.

Heltsley, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, draws further confidence from the artistic freedom to write menus and plan monthly wine dinners that he’s found at Blackstone. Just as importantly, he adds, management “has been very understanding about how food costs can be a little higher than at a restaurant. Their main goal here is to keep people happy.”

Winning the “Engh” Game

The man who will be spending a lion’s share of the club’s 2012 budget—$1.2 million—is Golf Course Superintendent Roger Brashear, who arrived at Blackstone just as the first dirt was moved for the golf course in 2004. Being a superintendent of an Engh-designed course brings special challenges; Engh himself starts a project by telling superintendents that they aren’t going to like him.

The Blackstone course, which is the crown jewel of an Audubon-certified property, perfectly reflects Engh’s design philosophy. “Golf,” says Engh, “is a gathering game. I use extensive mounding, which may bring an errant shot back to the fairway, and the bowled greens gather your ball onto the green.

Blackstone’s future is made brighter by a membership with an average age of 50 and families that include 100 children.

“However,” Engh continues, “if you miss up the hill, you may have a challenging chip shot from a downhill lie to a green that runs away from you.”

Brashear confirms that these features, along with the big bunkers and dramatic elevation changes that have also become Engh’s calling cards, add difficulties to the maintenance side—but are worth dealing with, to enhance the unique features the course brings to the Arizona golf scene. Further challenges come from the fact that 85% of Blackstone’s members have primary residences in Arizona, so they expect the course to be in great shape year-round.

“Transitions are our hard time,” says Brashear, an Oklahoma State graduate who got his start at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa. In October, he says, the course is overseeded wall-to-wall with rye, and closed for 24 days—the price that must be paid to have green grass through the winter.

Then in April, it’s time to go back in the other direction. “We have this lush rye,” says Brashear, “and we have to go back to Bermuda. It’s had a nice plush carpet laying on top of it all winter, rotting it out, so that’s always a challenge.”

Irrigation, of course, is another constant concern in the desert. “Water is always going to be, I’d say, fifteen percent of your budget,” says Brashear. In Blackstone’s case, that would mean an annual water bill approaching $200,000. It’s mostly reclaimed water, and Brashear uses it very carefully. To promote better turf growth, waterings are “deep and infrequent,” and computerized controls help to make sure they hit their intended targets, and nothing else.

“Anything that you water in the desert will grow, and most of the time it’s weeds,” Brashear notes. “If I can’t water that edge perfectly, just for the grass, it’s costing me labor, water, and money.”

Brightened Outlook

Director of Golf Todd Cernohous

Todd Cernohous, Blackstone’s Director of Golf, has been sending players out to enjoy Brashear’s maintenance work since 2008. Named for the black volcanic rock that is indigenous to the Arizona desert, the course, with four sets of tees starting at 4,738 yards and topping out at 7,089, offers stunning mountain views, generous rolling fairways, and undulating, bowled greens that gather approach shots and send them skittering toward the promised land . . . sometimes. “When you finish your round, you have a smile on your face,” says Cernohous.

In 2011, 13,500 rounds were played at Blackstone; 16,000 are projected for this year. Cernohous keeps members interested with a variety of events and competitions. A Ryder Cup-format tournament brings out Blackstone’s international flavor—there are enough Canadian members to field a team.

Executive Chef Randy Heltsley

Thanks to the many families in the club—the average member age is 50, low by Phoenix standards—there is also a substantial junior golf program. Blackstone also welcomes reciprocal play from outside the Phoenix metro area, and Cernohous actively recruits outside events for Mondays, when the club is closed. These golf outings help the bottom line, and give potential members a chance to fall in love with the club (living in Blackstone is not a requirement to join, and the recent completion of a freeway exit a mile from the club has cut fifteen minutes off the drive from the population centers to the east).

In his first full year at Blackstone, Bill Griffon is optimistic that adding more golf memberships this year than last “is a very real possibility.”

“I’m hoping the service levels we have delivered can continue to be enhanced,” he says. “I’d like to see a true economic recovery where the housing market begins to take off again.”

The builders now hammering within Blackstone’s 560 acres must also think such a revival is possible—they are adding sales people. Any kind of renewed housing activity would make the club’s prospects even brighter, as it seeks to use the combination of value pricing, a can-do staff, a compelling golf course and supportive owners to reestablish its position as the premier club property of the Phoenix area’s west valley.

GM Bill Griffon believes strongly in the value of a staffed shoe room. “It’s like having a good neighborhood bartender,” he says. Sole Man “To me,” says Bill Griffon, General Manager of Blackstone CC, “a great shoe room guy, or girl, is worth his or her weight in gold. That’s one of those critical components. There’s nothing like walking in and seeing that face in the shoe room. It’s like having a good neighborhood bartender.” Griffon was determined to hire a new attendant for this year—the last one at Blackstone was a victim of the recession. Restoring the position was approved, and in February he was able to make a hire for the seasonal (May to November) position, to once again have someone he describes as having “their thumb on the pulse of everything you want to hear.” “It’s got to be someone who, that’s their kingdom; they own it every day,” adds Griffon. “You want to know what’s wrong, or what’s right [at the club]…go talk to the shoe room guy.” Now he—and Blackstone members—can do that again every day.

Hosting its fifth U.S. Open this June will add new prominence to how The Olympic Club stands as America’s oldest and most diverse athletic club.

As City Club Manager Jay Bedsworth leads a top-to-bottom-floor tour of The Olympic Club’s ten-story clubhouse in downtown San Francisco, he provides a running commentary of benchmark figures that speak to the scale and scope of activity in the building:

800 members use this rooftop fitness solarium every day…we get $900,000 a year in lodging revenues from our 18 guest rooms, and the occupancy rate is up to 81%…we have 1,400 non-resident members, and they account for 20% of the room nights…we take in $850,000 a year in sports team entry fees…for handball, we still have about 150 members who play…here’s our Sports Shop, it sells over $250,000 of logo’d items each year…

Occasionally even Bedsworth, whose family has been in club and hotel management for three generations, can’t help but acknowlege the enormity of some of the numbers, knowing how they compare to most operations. We take in $800,000 a year in locker room fees…we have 4,200 lockers in this building alone…lockers are such a big deal here, after we remodeled this clubhouse in 2006 and had to reallocate the locker assignments through a lottery, we had the Statistics Chair from Cal-Berkeley validate the fairness of the process…

Bedsworth is not being boastful with these facts and comments; they’re all needed to help describe the full range of what the city club involves. And after his tour is over and you realize that another one, at the Lakeside property out by the Pacific Ocean, is still to be taken and will involve equally impressive numbers, the proportions of all that’s involved with managing The Olympic Club start to approach the realm of staggering.

If the sheer size of it all weren’t enough, there’s also the responsibility that comes with being entrusted with not only the traditions of America’s oldest private-member athletic club, but also one of the country’s most storied golfing venues. Another chapter to that story will be added this June, when The Olympic Club hosts its fifth U.S. Open on its Lake Course. And while it might seem that loading a major tournament onto all that The Olympic Club team handles on a daily basis would just elicit shoulder shrugs and a chorus of “OK, add it to the list,” everyone is acutely aware of how much grander and more immense the Open has become compared to the last time it came to the Lake Course, in 1998.

Five—as in the club’s fifth U.S. Open, to be held this June—is just another nice number for The Olympic Club management team that directs year-round operations for two historic clubhouses, three golf courses, 21 sports and nearly 9,000 members. Left to right: Jay Bedsworth, City Club Manager; Greg DeRosa, General Manager/Chief Operating Officer; Chris Stein, Head Golf Professional; Pat Finlen, Director of Golf Course Maintenance Operations; and Michael Dewees, Lakeside Manager.

“The scope of the tournament has expanded dramatically [since 1998],” says Jay Friedrichs, the club’s President for 2012. “For the last two Opens that were here, our main parking lot was enough to accommodate the merchandise tent, but it will be too big to fit there now—we’ve had to move it to a fairway on our Ocean Course, and we will also have to use a big proportion of [the Ocean Course] for the loading and storage areas, generators, corporate hospitality, media, and other supporting equipment that’s now required.”

And While You’re At It…

The Ocean Course will also be the focus of another “little project” that will further occupy The Olympic Club team this year. The Lakeside property (which the club acquired in 1918, after the former Lakeside Golf Club fell on hard times) provides 45 holes of golf in total—18 on the Lake Course, 18 on the Ocean Course and 9 on a charming, par-3, 9-hole Cliffs Course that overlooks the Pacific and was created in 1994.

While all three courses enjoy spectacular settings with easy accessibility from San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, they are also located in a climate zone that presented the perfect storm of conditions (fog, wind, sun, little rain and temperatures rarely over 62º) for nematod-related damage to their poa annua greens. The Lake Course’s greens were converted to bentgrass in 2008, and rather than subject members to a second round of disruptions, The Olympic Club decided to renovate its Ocean Course greens this year, through a $2 million project that will keep the course closed after the Open until September.

But even with the extra challenges, and scrutiny, that 2012 will bring, Friedrichs knows The Olympic Club has a management team in place that’s more than up to the tasks. “This is a complicated operation, even without special events or renovation projects,” he says. “We have two campuses with substantial clubhouses and athletic facilities, including multiple golf courses. Our elite athletes and teams of all ages compete in over 21 sports, locally, nationally and internationally.

“To make that all work, you need superb management,” Friedrichs adds, “and we are very blessed to have veteran professionals who can take all that needs to be done and run with it. We survey our membership to help identify needed projects and policies, and then the Board looks at that information and tees up the ones we feel have the greatest priority. But let there be no doubt—[the management team] plays the bigger role, to make sure everything is executed properly.

The Hike and Dip, an event The Olympic Club has been holding since 1893 that culminates with a dash into the Pacific Ocean at the crack of dawn on New Year’s Day, continues to attract enthusiastic participants who help sustain it as the country’s longest continuous-running event of its type.

“And while my Presidency has only just begun,” Friedrichs says, “I already know I’m not going to have to worry about getting calls from club managers asking for my help so something can get done. Across the board, the staff’s attitude is ‘Can do, will do—we’ve got it covered.’ ”

Acronym Power

Even with those proven abilities and attitudes, the Olympic Club management team, along with 400 co-workers, have been working on new approaches to help them perform even better as all of the events, regular and special, unfold in 2012. These steps were not instituted expressly for the U.S. Open or Ocean Course greens renovation. Rather, they coincided with the arrival in 2010 of a new General Manager/Chief Operating Officer, Greg DeRosa, who was most recently with Cherry Hills Country Club in the Denver suburbs, but also has an extensive background in athletic and sports club management.

DeRosa says he’s “an acronym guy”—he thinks his affinity for a by-the-letters approach harkens back to an advertising campaign by BASF, the global chemical company, that made a strong impression on him. “Nobody knows what BASF stands for, but they kept using the tagline, ‘At BASF, we don’t make blank, we make blank better.’ That really stuck with me; the acronoym didn’t have to be especially catchy, but it did have to be associated with something you remembered. And I thought it was especially inspiring and fitting for being in the club business, where our jobs are all about making people’s lives better.”

New traditions continue to be forged as well, such as The Humphrey-Thomson Cup competition with New York Athletic Club teams that was held for the second time last year, involving seven sports (five men’s and two women’s); the games will continue to alternate between the two cities each year.

Now, there’s a new addition—“VASA”—to The Olympic Club management lexicon. The letters stand for “Vision, Alignment, Standards and Accountability”—and collectively they provide the direction, structure and drive that DeRosa wants to instill permanently within all areas of the club’s operation, to not only ensure continued excellence, but also keep The Olympic Club at the forefront of industry leadership and innovation.

“Everything starts with vision,” he says. “You have to have that, to keep pushing the boundaries beyond the norm. The Olympic Club has evolved tremendously in 152 years, and it’s been because people here have had an uncanny ability to see beyond ‘what is’ to imagine ‘what could be.’

“The alignment part is a no-brainer,” DeRosa continues. “You have to get everyone to commit to doing things together. In a perfect world, all constituencies—9,000 members and 400 co-workers–would be properly aligned.

“The standards are needed to make sure everyone knows what’s right—left undocumented, how would you know you’re doing something wrong?” he says. “If pineapple is supposed to be cut into quarter-inch cubes, we have to make it clear that’s the barometer by which performance will be measured.

“And accountability provides the checks-and-balance system to gauge how we’re functioning, and to put needed corrections or confirmations into motion, in the other three areas.”

The Olympic Club remains an athletic club at its core, but one with the unique appeal of “an amazing golf asset,” says General Manager/Chief Operating Officer Greg DeRosa.

Avoiding MEGO

While management-by-acronym can always run the risk of inflicting a terminal case of “MEGO” (My Eyes Glaze Over) throughout an organization, DeRosa’s management cohorts say they have found VASA to be a useful and refreshing technique that has helped to place a renewed focus on achieving top performance within their various areas of responsibility—a focus, they note, that will only need to get sharper this year.

“We have a lot of employees who have been here a long time—and that’s good,” notes Head Golf Professional Chris Stein. “But that can also mean you run the risk of letting the standards just be defined as ‘the way it’s always been.’ It’s been good to take a new look at how we do things, and in many cases record standards and procedures in a binder, for areas like customer service at our driving range, or how to properly prepare for an event like a member-guest, to make sure it’s a positive experience for everyone involved, including the staff.”

In a presentation last fall to some of the country’s top assistant superintendents at the Green Start Academy, Pat Finlen, The Olympic Club’s Director of Golf Course Maintenance Operations, told the group why VASA is the kind of technique that leads to better management and performance. “You should want to work in an environment where your GM is asking questions, and you’re having to provide the answers, versus one where everyone’s just allowed to do whatever they want,” Finlen said.

At that meeting, Finlen also provided further insight into how the “can do” approach has helped The Olympic Club excel for so long and on such a large scale, when he described that much of the labor pool at his club is unionized. “You can look at a union, and the work rules and cost structures that come with that arrangement, as an obstacle,” he told the group. “Or, you can embrace it all and learn to manage with it, just as you learn to manage what your GM or your Greens Committee or the weather might bring your way.”

The downtown property has two entrances on parallel streets and occupies a total of 250,000 sq. ft. The 150,000 sq. ft. of the club’s historic location, restored through a $90 million project in 2006 that included full renovation of its classic pool, is now seamlessly combined with 90,000 sq. ft. created after a parking garage was acquired and gutted. The expanded downtown space now includes a second pool, gym and rooftop exercise area.

Perhaps the strongest testimony for the value of VASA—and the renewed energy and sense of purpose it has helped to  infuse into The Olympic Club as it gears up for an especially memorable year—comes from Jay Bedsworth, who served as  the club’s interim General Manager while the search for a new GM/COO was conducted, and presented a strong candidacy for the position himself.
After his first meeting with Greg DeRosa and his “thousand-watt personality,” Bedsworth says, “it took me three minutes to know I could work with him, and 10 minutes to know I wanted to. The clear message was that we were going to shoot for constant innovation, and that anyone who had an idea for the ‘next great thing’ should bring it on.”

Brighter Lights

That increased wattage has spread out to shine new light on areas that will help The Olympic Club stay properly positioned for future generations. For the club’s waiting list, a closer look at the application process revealed o

bstacles that could be removed to make it easier to obtain needed sponsorships. More is also being done to make junior members (every membership within a family is individual) feel less restricted and give them more access (upon demonstrating ability and responsibility) to the golf courses and facilities, so they will be more inclined to actively keep the club in their lives during the critical ‘tween and teen years.

“We’re absolutely moving in a better direction,” DeRosa feels. “I think the vision bucket is full, and the alignment piece is pretty much in place—so now it’s all about proper execution according to established standards and responsibilities.

“The clock is spinning towards some unique opportunities that we’ll have this year,” he adds, “to show the world what a special place The Olympic Club is, and at the same time give our members an amazing experience. But it’s only going to spin faster [as the Open approaches]. This is our chance to elevate our game to the top. I know we’ll be ready.

How Addison Reserve CC is looking at its facilities—and future—in a whole new light.

Like all successful club managers, Michael McCarthy has developed quite an eye for detail during his career. And when McCarthy visited Addison Reserve Country Club in Delray Beach, Fla., to consider becoming its new Chief Executive Officer/General Manager in 2007, he was struck by one detail—or more precisely, the absence of many. “If this was supposed to be a clubhouse inspired by [famed Florida architect] Addison Mizner, I kept wondering where the Mizner influences had gone,” he says. “From the first day I came here, I started thinking about the need to bring them back.”

McCarthy accepted the new position at Addison Reserve and left BallenIsles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where his accomplishments had earned him Excellence in Club Management recognition. The move raised eyebrows within the industry (see “New Address, Same Delivery”), but McCarthy explained that it was all part of seeking new challenges.

Four years later, at the end of 2011, Addison Reserve members came to the clubhouse for a Gala Weekend to see, and celebrate, all that finding—and taking on—those challenges had involved. The clubhouse, originally built in 1996, had not only been fully “restored,” but significantly expanded (from 42,000 to 70,000 sq. ft.). The work was done not just to properly reflect the Mizner influence that gave the surrounding community its name (the club transitioned to member-owned in 2002), but also to introduce new concepts, most notably in dining, to distinguish Addison Reserve’s future. The $15.5 million project took eight months—and included a lot of detail.

“The original [Mizner-inspired] Mediterranean style had been lost, because of a lot of quasi-contemporary changes that were made after the clubhouse opened,” McCarthy said as he led a tour of the renovated building, continually pointing out the level of detail in the new solid-marble floors, multi-level ceilings, wainscoting, millwork, area rugs and wallpaper (and once stopping to ask a staff member to reposition a floral centerpiece that was sitting too high and impeding the interior sightlines in one of the new dining rooms).

“I must have taken over a thousand photos as I visited [Mizner-designed buildings at] the Everglades Club and The Breakers [both in Palm Beach] that could serve as benchmarks for what we wanted to do,” McCarthy says. “I also went to clubs known for their “retro looks” and attention to detail,  like Charlotte Country Club [“Remaking History"], Hamilton Farms Golf Club, Desert Highlands and Cherokee Town and Country Club.

“I wanted to take the best of everything I saw and implement it here,” he adds, “to return this club to the look, and style, that the entire community [of 717 single-family homes, organized in 19 villages on 653 acres] was built around.”

Five Restaurants in One

In the process of giving that look back to Addison Reserve CC, McCarthy and his team also took bold steps to position the club as an industry innovator, particularly in food-and-beverage concepts. “We wanted to transform the clubhouse into a place that would offer a variety of real and different restaurant choices, each with its own distinctive brand, look, cuisine and price points,” he notes. Dining options now available to Addison Reserve members include these venues:

After CEO/GM Michael McCarthy (front and center in left photo, in suit) joined Addison Reserve CC Board members and managers for a reopening ribbon-cutting, everyone quickly took to finding, and enjoying, favorite new spots in and around the renovated clubhouse.

• Trattoria—The club’s old grill room and bar has been converted into an upscale restaurant with a Mediterranean ambiance and a menu featuring authentic regional Italian selections like  strozzapreti and spaghetti chitarra. Price points for Trattoria range from $22-$42.

• Taste—This seafood/chophouse venue is being positioned as the club’s flagship restaurant “that truly celebrates the Addison lifestyle.” Located in the center of the clubhouse’s main dining room, Taste offers views, from every window, of the new waterfall feature that occupies a central position among the club’s three nine-hole golf courses. The room features booth and banquette seating, and a menu with dishes that represent “a complete and thorough thought process, to balance the flavors of the meat or fish with a seasonal vegetable preparation and complimentary sauce.” Price points range from $32-$56 (the high end is for lobster tails), with an average of $42.

• Styr—This new bar/lounge opens at 2 p.m. during the week, and at 1 p.m. on weekends. By day, it offers a sports-bar atmosphere and menu, and is being promoted as a place to get drinks and “fun snacks” (smoked-salmon flatbreads, mini-Waygu corn dogs, herb-grilled chicken wings, Reuben croissants) while watching one of 12 high-def TVs (10 inside, plus two on the patio; the club has subscribed to NFL Sunday Ticket, to be able to show every pro football game).

At night, Styr becomes a lounge where members can get complimentary hors d oeuvres before dining at Trattoria or Taste. For those who don’t plan to eat in either restaurant, a tapas and small-plate menu, as well as dessert offerings, are available. The room features live entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights throughout the season, and on Friday nights throughout the summer. Price points for Styr run from $5-$15.

The club now has five restaurant venues with distinctive brands and looks.

• Vault—This new gourmet wine room has been created in the new clubhouse’s private dining room section, so it can be made available to members who want to hold special events for groups of up to 18 people. It features an old Chicago-style vaulted ceiling (“placed one brick at a time,” McCarthy notes), mahogany built-in cases with hand-painted murals, and tall windows that provide secluded golf-course views. It was designed with special service access, to avoid interruptions once a party has assembled. “This is not a Board room,” McCarthy stresses.

“It’s for intimate and special dining experiences with family and close friends, to create lifetime memories.” He expects it to be used three to four nights a week, at price points starting at $100 per person for customized, multi-course dinners that include wine pairings.

• The Bistro—As part of its F&B rebranding, Addison Reserve is also repositioning an existing outlet in the Esplanade—the Mediterranean-styled complex that’s a short walk from the clubhouse, adjacent to the club’s 12-court tennis facility, that houses its fitness center, children’s fun center, spa and junior Olympic pool. The Bistro is now being recast as a lower-priced ($15-$20) restaurant with a more casual menu, featuring salads, sandwiches and pizza, that will be open five nights (Tuesday through Saturday) and touted as a lunch spot on weekends (but open to full capacity during holiday weeks).

Extinguishing the Sternos

Apart from the five distinctive brands, Addison Reserve also designed its renovated clubhouse to maximize the flexibility of its new dining rooms and completely rethink its approach to even the most basic club dining operations. “The renovation  also provided an opportunity to make a complete break from the usual way to serve a lot of people with cafeteria-style lunch buffets, chafing dishes and Sternos,” McCarthy says.

To that end, Addison Reserve is touting its new “display kitchen,” now set up to serve lunch each day, as one of “the best new features” to emerge from the renovation. The club spared no expense for state-of-the-art ovens, grills, countertops and holding equipment, with built-in burners and warmers, to prepare and present displays of a full variety of hot, cold and fresh choices, including an attended deli carving station, that are made available each day. For this service, the full main dining room area is transformed during the day into a grill-room atmosphere.

New Chef Zach Bell has been given a full range of new concepts, and state-of-the-art equipment in each, to enhance his celebrity and create new bragging rights for Addison Reserve members.

The same setup will be employed for the club’s popular series of Family Buffets on Sunday nights, where themes are rotated weekly that include Pan Asian, The Route 66 (Heartland favorites) and New England Fish Shack.

Even the most inspired concepts and exciting presentations won’t do it on their own, of course, if the food isn’t equally enticing. Addison Reserve certainly didn’t overlook this “detail,” either—earlier this year, it named Zachariah Bell, who has a rock star-level following gained from 13 years of working with renowned chef Daniel Boulud, as the club’s new head chef.

Bell prides himself on following “Le Guide de Le Repertoire de la Cuisine,” which mandates that ingredient preparations should not be repeated within the same menu. But he also recognizes the realities, and accepts the challenges, that come with serving a fixed customer base in a club environment.

“The club business is really the definition of being in the hospitality business, because you work in the members’ house,” he says. “I’m sure there will be issues here that never came up for me in restaurants—but I’ve already seen that if you fix them, the members will be much more forgiving.”

McCarthy is confident that all of these new ingredients—new restaurants, new presentations and a new celebrity chef at the helm—will create a recipe for a significant boost in Addison Reserve’s F&B business (of which 90% comes from a la carte service). Where the club was a $3 million dining operation prior to the start of construction, it has already reopened at a $4 million-plus annual pace—and long-term, McCarthy sees no reason why $5 million can’t be attained.

Value All Around

Other parts of the Addison Reserve operation, of course, weren’t just gathering dust while the clubhouse was being renovated. On the golf course, 18 of the club’s 27 Arthur Hills-designed holes received a $3 million renovation of their own this year, primarily for regrassing, but also to include the “detail work” of the new signature waterfall, as well as rock walls around several water features that have not only improved the appearance of the course but kept more balls in play, without compromising the challenge for top players.

Details weren’t spared when two of Addison Reserve’s three nine-hole, Arthur Hills-designed courses were fully renovated with new turf; as part of the $3 million project, distinctive features like rock walls and a spectacular new waterfall were constructed.

Golf Course Maintenance Director Mark Heater and his Superintendent, John Stofa, now plan to focus on readying the club’s practice area for a new “virtual game” concept that would allow members to practice all of the shots they take while playing a round, and from the surfaces and lies they would encounter on the course, without requiring much more time than’s needed to hit a few buckets of balls.

In the clubhouse’s remodeled pro shop, Retail Buyer Angie Young has rolled out in-store “e-shopping” kiosks from which members can special-order directly from  selected vendors (the items are shipped to the club, and billed to members’ accounts, with appropriate discounts applied). Young also does quite well with the shoppers who want to touch and see what they buy, too—including some who don’t blink at the price tags (up to $600) for some of the high-end men’s and women’s fashions that she successfully merchandises.

At The Esplanade complex, Fitness/Spa Director Grant Worthington continues to emphasize wellness-related programming, not only throughout the year but with a special Wellness Fair that’s held annually on the first Saturday of January. In addition to aerobics classes and spa treatments, the 2012 event, held for three hours in the morning, gave members access to a dietician, dermatologist, chiropractor and physical therapists, offer discounted teeth whitening, and had the latest fitness attire available for sale. Door prizes were offered for those attending the event, which has grown over five years to now attract nearly 300 participants.

These departments, and others on the management team, continually seek to develop initiatives like these, in response to McCarthy’s directive to not only be “industry changing, but industry amazing.” The objective behind that goal is not to earn accolades for how the club is managed, but to keep finding new ways to increase the value of the club for the property-holders within the Addison Reserve gates.

Demonstrating their confidence that the staff and Board can deliver on that promise, 83 percent of the club’s membership approved the $18 million for the clubhouse and golf course renovations projects, which assessed each membership $18,000. Now that it’s completed, one member told McCarthy he thinks the new clubhouse stands to increase his home’s value by 20%. Others have said that if and when it’s time to sell, they’ll now plan to once again show the clubhouse first, as an important detail about life at Addison Reserve.