Insights · The Business
When a club should say no to another outing
Yes is how calendars fill. No is how the member-guest stays the week it is supposed to be.
The outing is easy to take. It pays something, it fills a Friday, someone on the board asked. The member-guest is the week you cannot move. When those two fight, the outing should lose.
Say no when
- The Saturday is already a member Saturday. If the named week is on the card — Centennial Member/Guest at Bel-Air Country Club, Duke’s Cup at Southern Highlands Golf Club, Men’s Gumbo Limbo Member-Guest at La Gorce Country Club — do not slide a 120-player outing onto the Friday practice day and call it complementary.
- The rate is below the member-guest guest fee. You just taught the market that the week is overpriced, or the outing is a gift. Neither is a strategy.
- F&B cannot staff two events. A dining room that already has a Saturday dinner should not also plate a Friday banquet for a company the membership does not know.
- The superintendent needs the week. Aerification, overseeding, a storm recovery. The course is the product. Protect it.
- The charity is not the club’s charity. A worthy cause is not a tee-sheet claim. Put it on the published charity day.
What to offer instead
A Tuesday or a shoulder Friday. A nine-hole. A rate that clears the member-guest guest fee. Or a polite no and a date next year that does not touch the week. Coordinators who cannot say no end up with a calendar that looks busy and a member-guest that feels like one more outing.
If the board wants a written rule, that is a services conversation. The calendar piece is the free version.
From the field
- Centennial Member/Guest Bel-Air Country Club
- Duke’s Cup Southern Highlands Golf Club
- Men’s Gumbo Limbo Member-Guest La Gorce Country Club
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