When Leaving Your Golf Club is The Right Decision

Regular readers of my missives will know that I am a big fan of golf-club membership. I enjoy making new friends, competing in weekly competitions, representing my club in team matches and sitting in the clubhouse afterwards and having a good belly laugh.

But I know that it is not for everybody, and I also know a lot of people who have decided to give up club membership.

So the question is: when is leaving a golf club the right decision for you?

Here are my nine Cs:

Club Closures

This is when you have no choice, no say in the decision. 

Club closures are still happening with an alarming frequency and I know all about it. It happened to me when I was a member of Waldringfield Golf Club, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. It had been family-owned and run for years and when it was sold we all thought that we were in for some serious investment. We could not have been more wrong. One evening most of the membership attended a meeting at which we were informed that there were plans to turn a fine 18-hole layout into a nine-hole course, with luxury housing and a shiny new sports centre. Needless to say, we were not impressed. Many people left almost immediately. And the rest of us had no choice when the plans were rejected and the owners announced that they were closing the course. Nothing is left other than overgrown fields.

Cost

The subject that exercises our minds more than any other is the cost of annual subscriptions. Almost without exception we see an annual increase, and usually without explanation. For everybody there is a breaking point, an amount of money that we are simply not prepared to pay. And when that happens it has to be the right time to leave.

Choice

It is a fact that many of us simply grow fed up of playing the same course week in, week out. And most of us do like to play other layouts for a change. Taking the decision to leave a club means that you can play wherever you like. There are tens of thousands of nomadic golfers out there - and they cannot possibly all be wrong, can they?

Course Condition

If you sit in a clubhouse after a round of golf you will know that the most common moan relates to course condition. It might be the greens - it usually is. It may be shabby tees, poor fairways or bunkers filled with builders’ sand. Or it might simply be poor maintenance. And the worst of it is that no matter how often concerns are raised, nothing ever seems to improve.

Course Weather Closures

If you find yourself spending weeks twiddling your fingers because the weather has closed your course yet again then it might be time to head off and find somewhere with proper drainage and no rivers. There is nothing worse than forking out an annual subscription and then finding that you end up spending much of the season unable to play your own course. It wouldn’t be so bad if clubs offered a refund, but they never do.

Change

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

Sometimes a change is as good as a rest (whatever the heck that actually means). If you have been loyal to a club for a number of years it might well be the right time to move somewhere else. And, of course, this gives you the opportunity to meet new friends and develop new social circles.

Cliques

Every golf club has them. And some are worse than others. I know many club golfers who have walked away from clubs after one year because they found it well nigh impossible to find anybody to play with - and when they did, they ended up feeling unwelcome. It remains one of club golf’s biggest issues

Challenge

There is a familiarity about playing the same course all the time. Holes that were once a challenge no longer are. The scenery that once took your breath away is something that you now take for granted. Leaving your club for a fresh challenge just might get your juices flowing again.

Clock-Watching

If you can only play at weekends, the chances are that your average playing time is going to be around five hours. Speaking from personal experience, I no longer play weekend golf for precisely that reason. It might well be that you will find a quicker pace of play somewhere else.

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