CCC Presents: The 6 Types of Private Golf Clubs

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Not all golf clubs are created equal.

There are clubs where fogging a mirror qualifies you for membership. There are clubs where merely asking about membership gets you banned for life. And then there’s everything in between – a vast, ridiculous spectrum of delusion, desperation and old money guarding the gates.

We’ve mapped it out: six types. From the muni regular who thinks his punch card makes him a member, to the billionaire who built his own course because Augusta wouldn’t let him cut the line.

You won’t see us use terms like “mid-tier” or “elite.” Labels are for equipment. We’re just doing what we do – playing the ball as it lies, no matter how ugly the lie is.

Let’s begin.

1. The Aspirational Muni

"Public course, private delusion."

This is the $68 green fee that feels like $680 to its regulars. The guys here call themselves "members" because they bought a $300 punch card that gets them preferred tee times and 10% off logo balls that say "Est. 1987" like it means something.

The grill room is a vending machine that's seen things. The locker room is a port-a-john with delusions of grandeur. The pro shop sells visors that say "MEMBER GUEST 2019" even though the Member-Guest is just four guys who show up every Saturday and drink Coors Light out of koozies shaped like golf bags.

Everyone here is waiting on "the call" from a real club. The call never comes. But they keep showing up, because this is the only place where they can pretend they're one good round away from Pine Valley.

CCC Line: The only thing private here is what happens in the parking lot.

2. The Semi-Private Mirage

"Members on weekends. Public by Tuesday."

Half-private, half-public, wholly confused. You paid $2,500 to join a club where the tee sheet on Saturday looks like a Costco sample line, and by Tuesday morning you're getting paired with a bachelor party from Phoenix wearing matching polos that say "GRIP IT AND SIP IT."

The pool has more toddlers than tiles. The clubhouse bar feels more like the “lounge” at a regional airport. "Country Club" is in the name, but so is "Golf & Racquet," which means the tennis courts haven't been resurfaced since the Clinton administration and there's a pickleball net zip-tied to the fence.

This is the club equivalent of a timeshare. You own nothing. You belong to nothing. But you get a member number and a shirt with an embroidered logo, and that's enough to make you feel like you're not playing muni golf anymore.

The guys at the Aspirational Muni think this is the dream. The guys here know better. They're just stuck.

CCC Line: You're not a member. You're just a regular with a logo on your shirt.

3. The Equity Trap

"You own the club. The club owns you."

This is the member-owned dream with a quiet trapdoor. You paid $50,000 because they called it “equity,” then the board - mostly retirees who wanted out during the last recession - rewrote the bylaws and turned equity into a transfer fee the club keeps. So yes, you technically own part of the club… you just don’t own any part that pays you back when you leave.

So when the $20,000 assessment letter goes out for new bunkers, it feels like getting a bill for a kitchen renovation in a house you rent. Power-hungry retirees treat the bylaws like the Constitution. Board meetings make the Spanish Inquisition look like a book club. There are factions. There are email chains with 47 people CC’d. Someone filed a formal complaint because the new logo font is “too modern.”

The course has to be pristine - it’s the only thing stopping the members from suing each other. The greens roll nicely and the staff knows your drink, but that’s just the golden handcuffs gleaming in the sun. You stay because leaving means writing off a luxury sedan’s worth of equity, so you smile, pay the assessment and complain in the parking lot.

CCC Line: You can check out anytime you like. You just can't get your money back.

4. The Developer's Exit Scam

"Built on wetlands, financed on hope."

This place was never supposed to be a golf club. It was a real estate play disguised as a country club. The fairways were just the backdrop for selling $2 million lots to guys who thought they were buying into the next Pebble Beach.

The clubhouse is faux-Tuscan. The initiation was $100,000 in 2007. By 2009, it dropped to $40,000. By 2012, it was "please, God, anyone with a pulse and a credit score above 600."

Every tee box doubles as a sales pitch. The cart paths are lined with "HOMESITES AVAILABLE" signs that have been sun-bleached into illegibility. The pro shop sells hats that say "FOUNDING MEMBER" because they needed to move inventory before the bankruptcy hearing.

The developer took his cut and disappeared. The members are left holding the bag. The course is maintained by a skeleton crew that also mows the medians on the highway outside the gate.

CCC Line: The fairways were Plan A. Bankruptcy was always Plan B.

5. The Legacy Fortress

"Where your grandfather's money still plays through."

This isn’t a club. This is an institution. It’s the kind of place your father mentioned in a whisper, and his father referred to only as “the club,” and his father applied to in 1948 and never emotionally recovered from the rejection. 

No one joins here. You are either born into it, baptized into it or quietly selected through a process that has never been written down. Your net worth is irrelevant here; your bloodline is the currency. The waitlist is a rumor. The rules are not. No denim. No phones. No photographs. No guests who aren’t already members somewhere with an initiation fee that makes accountants flinch.

The caddies know everything and say nothing. The locker room plaques are filled with names you’ve only ever seen on buildings and endowments. There are no tee times, only “arrangements.” You don’t call the pro shop. You call someone who calls someone who once carried a 1-iron for a senator.

And if you have to ask how any of this works, you’ve already answered your own question.

CCC Line: If you have to Google the dress code, you're already out.

6. The Billionaire's Backyard

"Twelve members, two helicopters, zero humility."

This is the final boss. The club you've never heard of because the twelve guys who belong to it would rather burn it to the ground than let you know it exists.

It was built by a guy who cornered the market on medical tubing gaskets and took it personally when another member asked him to play through at Cypress Point. So he bought 500 acres in Montana, hired Tom Doak, and built the most perfect 18 holes you'll never play.

There's no initiation because there's no application. There are no dues because the founder covers everything. There are no rules because the members make them up as they go. The caddies are ex-Tour players. The wine locker has vintages you've only read about.

You don't get in by asking. You get in by being invited. And you get invited by being the kind of person who doesn't need to ask.

The guys at the Aspirational Muni think they're one good connection away from here. The guys at the Legacy Fortress think they're one degree of separation from an invitation. The guys here aren't thinking about either of them. At all.

CCC Line: If you only own one private jet, you're not getting the call.

Poll Question

Last Week's Poll Result

Every club has a Tommy. What happened to yours?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Quietly rehired six months later

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Immortalized in a story the club swears isn’t about them

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Banned from the property (but still drinking in the parking lot)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Promoted to Director of Entertainment

Thank you to all of you who voted last week! We were glad to see Tommy get back on his feet, which partially inspired this week’s story. He was lucky to belong to an Aspirational Muni / Semi-Private Mirage - though he likely could have squatted at a Developer’s Exit Scam as well. We can’t wait to see how you vote this week!

Lastly, if you are a newer subscriber don’t forget to catch up on past stories at ccconfidential.vip - and while you’re at it, tell a friend!