Jun 24, 2026
The Architectural Reality Underneath the Trends
Built around Chris Lewis's article "Changing golf clubhouses to meet member expectations," which ran in the July/August 2026 issue of Golf Inc. and featured insights from Susan Castor of Castor Design Associates and Brian Doerr of Strategic Club Solutions. The article...
Jun 16, 2026
Why Every Strategic Plan Has a Calibration Window, and What Happens When You Miss It
Median initiation fees rose seventy-two percent between 2019 and 2022 in many markets, yet clubs across the country are still using pre-pandemic strategic plans to justify eight-figure capital projects. A strategic plan is not a...
Jun 14, 2026
Why the Four-to-Seven-Goal Framework Determines Whether Your Next GM Succeeds or Fails
The average private club GM tenure is three to four years — and in most cases, the departure has nothing to do with the candidate. Boards conduct six-month searches, sign contracts, hold receptions, and send press releases, then...
Jun 12, 2026
Walk into the boardroom of almost any private club in America and you'll find two framed documents that nobody at the club can quote — not the board president, not the GM, not the membership chair. Private clubs collectively spend forty to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars on strategic planning retreats that...
Jun 12, 2026
On an eighteen-to-thirty-month renovation, members are paying full dues, often plus a capital assessment, while losing access to spaces they use daily — and most clubs respond to that sustained pressure with a paragraph at the bottom of the monthly newsletter that says construction is progressing well. The...