Clouds stay just to the east of the Peninsula State Park Golf Course on a spring evening. Photo by Craig Sterrett.
The only thing better for a golf lover than a course membership is two memberships.
Growing up in Iowa, I never needed to join a course. I didn’t love the game yet, and it wasn’t costing me much, either. I could practice pitching and chipping in the backyard.
At sunset on summer evenings, a neighbor and I could sneak onto the country club back nine and play three holes three times while keeping an eye out for grumpy greenskeeper Nick on his tractor. Likewise, our parents could drop us off at the municipal course on Tuesdays – $3 Kids Day, so we could golf for several hours until it was time for Senior League baseball. As we got older and had part-time jobs for spending money, low fees at the Muny kept golf affordable, too.
I never sprang for a golf membership until I was about 40, and after years of paying greens fees, I finally learned the value of belonging to a course.
It’s great for a golfer to travel and play many different courses to learn to play different shots, adjust to elevation changes, and to deal with narrow fairways, deep roughs and water hazards. It’s also great to play different courses to get out of a rut. Playing the same course day after day gets so redundant that golfers can start making the same mistakes day after day on the same holes.
Still, the benefits of course membership outweigh paying greens fees all summer long.
Let me count the ways.
At my former home course in downstate Illinois, I could take advantage of a members’ range. There, I could practice hitting 100- and 120-yard shots after rounds, hitting balls toward targets and then hitting them back to the tee while trying to avoid skulling a ball into my car parked near those tees.
Nonmembers didn’t have access to that warmup and practice area, rustic as it was.
Members can feel comfortable coming to the course after work just to practice chipping and putting. If nonmembers show up at a practice green day after day, the owner or pro will eventually question them about practicing without paying to play.
Course members and club members should not expect preferential treatment when they check in at the clubhouse. However, the folks at the front desk just might recognize and advise a member to start on the back nine to avoid slow groups on the first or second holes.
Course membership can make it affordable to be choosy. If you plan to play 18 holes on a certain day and have to pay a greens fee, you’re more than likely going to start and finish it. If you’re a member and the tee sheet looks crowded, and a five-hour round appears imminent, you might just choose to go home and play another day.
In some cases, members can show up late in the evening to play just a few holes, work out a few kinks and blow off steam. For many years in Illinois, working late at a regional newspaper, I’d play three balls, three holes just before sunset to get nine holes in. That won’t get marked down for handicap purposes, but it can help with confidence if you have a tee time with friends or rivals the next evening.
Membership often opens up the opportunity to enter course match play tournaments or, at some courses, leagues. Some memberships include reciprocal agreements with other nearby courses and clubs, allowing members to try the other club for the price of a cart fee only. Then there’s the camaraderie and the chance to make new friends.
Here in Door County, I’ve been a member of three different courses – not all at once – but I have played and enjoyed every course in the county. This year, thanks to a multiple-year twilight membership purchased a year ago at one course and a partial membership at a course near my workplace, I wound up with two memberships.
What’s great about that? If one course is closed for a golf outing, the other will likely be open.
When a tee time fell through with one golf-obsessed buddy at one course on a recent Thursday, I played an informal match at the other course with a friend that evening.
And if both are closed, that’s an incentive to go out and enjoy another course.
What a wonderful situation.
Outings for a Cause
• The Boys and Girls Clubs of the Bay and Lakes Region announced that the 16th annual Door County Celebrity Golf Outing – where you can share the course with Green Bay Packers greats and other northeast Wisconsin celebrities – will be Aug. 25 at Horseshoe Bay Golf Club. For more information on supporting the cause, or attending, playing in or sponsoring the event, visit bgcblr.org or contact the Boys and Girls Club in Sturgeon Bay at 920.818.1046. Last year’s outing brought in a record $200,000.
• The Tavern League of Door County annual outing for foursomes is coming up at 11 am Monday, June 19, at Idlewild in Nasewaupee. Find details from Tavern League members or at the clubhouse, or call 920.868.2483.
