Country club membership: how much does it cost?

Update 5/8/22: So a number of people have come across this blog by searching for country club membership prices. I don’t want to waste anybody’s time: this is not meant to be a serious exploration of country club costs or whether you should join a country club or not. If you want to know the membership prices for your country club, contact them and ask.

This article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, because we all know that country clubs are expensive. And if the “Frugal” in “A Frugal Doctor” wasn’t enough of a hint, I think investing your money is far superior to paying for a country club membership. But until recently, I had no idea how much these things actually cost.

First, let me say that I don’t play golf. If I were an avid golfer, I might look at the associated fees more kindly. After all, many sports and other hobbies are not cheap, and the more seriously you pursue them, the more expensive they tend to get. Second, some of my friends who do play golf informed me that it’s very possible to play golf cheaply. A country club membership is not required. In fact, many cities have public golf courses, something I was completely unaware of. These courses do not require any membership and charge only a modest entry fee, in the same ballpark as what you might pay to go to the zoo or an amusement park.

Many cities have public golf courses, but the best courses are private.

Nonetheless, there are several private golf courses in my city, and there’s no question that the best courses in the world are private. One of these courses is home to a sprawling, high-end hotel/resort and an associated country club. The amenities are tantalizing! Five star accommodations, multiple high-end restaurants, full-service spa, an award-winning 18-hole, par-70 championship golf course, full fitness center, multiple indoor and outdoor pools, 12 tennis courts, and the list goes on and on.

Many country clubs offer far more than just golf, such as resort-style amenities.

My interest piqued, I tried to look online for the price of membership. The official website of the country club itself does not list any prices. But I thought that maybe I could find that information discussed second-hand in various forums, blog posts, or other online communities. You can find almost any information online these days. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, I found nothing. Somebody had asked a similar question a few years ago in a public forum, and got a somewhat generic reply. But I wanted to know how much this country club cost. I could not find a specific dollar amount anywhere!

As it turns out, this is not uncommon when it comes to ultra high-end products, services, and memberships. Prices are never made public. For example, my friend and I walked into an Audemars Piguet boutique recently, and they only had 4 watches on display from the AP Code collection. Of course, there were no prices displayed anywhere, although a casual Google search shows that the pieces start from around $25,000. Is it somehow tacky to put a price tag exceeding 5 digits on an item in a store display case? Instead of price stickers, these ultra high-end items often show some variation of “available upon request”. Can you imagine if groceries at Walmart were all labeled this way? Do high-end establishments do this out of discretion, or embarrassment? Or perhaps a subtle way of pre-selecting their clientele - if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it. (By the way, I have an article looking at the fascinating phenomenon of luxury watch prices).

With no intention of actually joining the club, but now filled with a burning desire to find out how much it costs, I bit the bullet and made an inquiry. As it turns out, they were pleasant and courteous without any hint of pretentiousness. There was also no sales pitch or hard sell. Apparently, that sort of thing is rarely seen with high-end products and services. They are so exclusive that they sell themselves. On the last page of their beautiful, glossy brochure, I finally got the numbers:

Good to know that the initiation fee can be paid on installment!

Of course, there are much cheaper country clubs out there. But there are also much more expensive ones. This particular country club is not even the most expensive or most exclusive in my city (Dallas)! That “award” certainly goes to the Dallas Country Club, which is so exclusive that it did not admit its first black member until 2014.

So I think that overall, this particular country club falls in the middle in terms of pricing. But once I got past the initial sticker shock, it got me thinking: this kind of money resides in the same ballpark as other luxury expenses. A luxury watch from one of the “Big Three” Swiss haute horlogerie manufacturers, or a luxury German automobile, for example, can cost about the same amount. There are plenty of Mercedes and Porsches driving on the roads, and nobody bats an eye when they walk past a cool $80,000 sitting in a parking lot. What if someone’s life goal was to join an exclusive country club? It’s not cheap, but for many people, it’s not unobtainable either. Surely, some of my physician friends might be tempted, if they thought that this is what it takes to “keep up with the Joneses”. Isn’t a country club membership a fitting trophy for a good doctor’s mantle or bucket list?

If this frugal doctor suddenly lost his mind and decided to join the country club, let’s see how much it would actually cost. Since I fall in the age 30-39 category, my initiation fee would be $75,000 and my monthly fee would be $727. Since the initiation fee is so steep, I’d be in it for the long haul. Hypothetically, let’s say that I remain a member for 30 years. Let’s also assume that the monthly fee never increases and members are never hit with mandatory assessments (unlikely). We’re looking at a lifetime cost of $75,000 + 30 years of monthly fees, or $261,720, for a total of $336,720. That’s a lot of money.

But wait! What about opportunity cost? The stock market, as measured by a broad market index such as the S&P 500, averages about 10% annualized returns. What if we just invested the initiation fee and monthly dues instead? The total amount, after 30 years, is $2,743,751!

In fact, the longer we remain a member, the worse it gets!

As always, the true cost of something must reflect the opportunity cost of not investing. And needless to say, the opportunity costs of the country club membership are astronomical. In fact, all expenses are more “expensive” if we look at their opportunity cost versus simply their nominal cost. This applies not just to big ticket items such as cars and luxury goods, but also seemingly trivial expenses such as buying coffee at Starbucks everyday instead of brewing your own. It all adds up over time.

I’ll conclude with the usual caveat that past market performance doesn’t guarantee future returns, so maybe you won’t get 10% annualized over the next 40 years by investing. And maybe your country club membership lets you into those rarified social circles, where you can make some amazing business deal that otherwise would never have happened. Who knows! But this frugal doctor won’t be going for the country club membership anytime soon. As always, thanks for reading, and happy investing!