Beautiful scenic view at Prairie Landing's hole five.

Something for Everyone

Ever thought of maximizing your golf dollar by getting an annual membership at a public course? If so, you're not alone

There’s a trend that’s quietly sweeping the Chicago area: More and more public golf courses are offering players an opportunity to pay an annual fee for full golf privileges, green fees, the practice range, and other amenities.

Whereas many public facilities were once “daily fee courses,” they now have annual memberships. Typically these are the higher-quality venues, but even some park districts offer annual membership or annual fee opportunities.

Kirk Lundbeck, superintendent of golf operations at Sycamore Park District, says: “We’ve offered annual passes to in-city, in-district, and out-of-district [golfers] for many years. About a third of our revenue comes from annual passes, which also helps with daily fees, as our pass holders will bring out their friends who may not be pass holders.”

On the other hand, Terry O’Neil, head golf professional at Harborside, says: “We’re more of a municipal facility, and thus we do not offer memberships. We want our players to have the same ability to sign up for a tee time. We’ve looked at this over the past 16 years and made the decision that this works best for us and our players.”

Individual, husband/wife, family, and corporate memberships are available at a number of the area’s public golf courses. Daily use or annual cart fees are a separate charge at many courses, but some have packages that are all-inclusive.

Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States, so it’s no surprise that there are many golf courses from which to choose. By our count, there are 152 public 18-hole facilities in the Chicago metro area. Some of these have more than one course, so the number swells to 162 18-hole courses, or 2,934 holes. Add in the 61 par 3 or executive courses and you get 549 more golf holes.

But we’re not done yet. Chicago also sports 81 private courses (all in 60-000 zip codes) at 18 holes each (we know, a few like Medinah have more than one course), which adds 1,458 more holes. There are another 29 clubs and 576 holes that we found in northern Illinois, outside the major metro area.

We’re still not done. We identify 14 public courses in southern Wisconsin and another 14 in northwest Indiana that we consider to be in the Chicago area. That adds 657 more holes. The total, then, is 6,179 holes, which equals 343 18-hole venues.

A key number listed above is the 81 private courses. If each club has an average of 250 members, that’s more than 20,000 people who are willing to pay large initiation fees, monthly dues, and other obligations such as food minimums.

Nevertheless, in the past 15 years or so, perks such as corporate memberships to private clubs have mostly dried up. How many people are willing to fork over their own cash to join a private club? Our guess is that the number of private memberships has been steadily decreasing. This would help to explain why public courses are trying to lure would-be private members with amenities with only an annual commitment at much lower costs.

So, are public courses filling the void left by private clubs? John Schlaman, general manager at Prairie Landing, says: “Our annual memberships are trending up. We believe that many golfers are looking at a place to call home and the additional value that the annual membership affords.”

Overall, however, the number of golfers taking advantage of memberships or annual fees at public courses is still quite low, though there are exceptions. An example is Bowes Creek in Elgin, which just opened last year. This is a city-owned course whose business plan is to offer annual memberships and yet still allow the public to play on a daily-fee basis with built-in amenities (all day play, use of the range, etc.). In other words, you can become a member for the day.

“Our initial business plan to offer annual memberships has been very successful with over 85 sold for our 100 budgeted in 2010,” says Mike Lehman, head professional at Bowes Creek Country Club. “We plan to have about half the number a country club would have with our other play filled up with daily-fee players. Our members have a preferred time slot on weekend play, but that still allows daily members to book early morning weekend times.”

Does this daily-member group merely enhance or replace the permanent-tee-time golfers who—let’s face it—are essentially annual members who only commit to playing every Saturday or Sunday morning? Yes, you can expect that the player who pays an annual fee for unlimited golf will want to play every Saturday or Sunday (or both) if his or her membership allows it. But the fact is, permanent-tee-time numbers are down at almost every golf course.

“Even a few years ago, we had difficulty in scheduling our weekend tournaments before noon or 1 p.m. at most courses,” says John Bredecka, president of the Northern Illinois Men’s Amateur Golf Association. “Today we are able to schedule most of our weekend tournaments starting at 10 a.m. or 11a.m. at the latest.”

Obviously, annual memberships are only attractive to a golfer who wants to play 50 or more rounds a year and lives relatively close to his or her golf course of choice. The casual golfer who plays 10 to 20 rounds per year isn’t likely to pony up the annual dues amount.

But there is good news. The U.S. population as a whole is getting older. Many baby boomers are reaching the age where their kids are gone, they’re retired, and they have more time to play golf. An annual membership at a public course is a logical option for these boomers—it fits their budget and allows them to play a lot of golf.

Even if you’re not a baby boomer, an annual membership at a public course might be the way to go. There are a number of plans from which to choose, so finding one that suits your needs and is close to your home should be easy. CG