Having survived the most significant five-year stretch in the game’s history, golf communities are making monumental changes to stay relevant and successful
Everyone saw it, or felt it, or lived it. Now many are trying to figure out what it means going forward. While most people want to forget the lost years of the pandemic, the societal realignment it launched also created a boom for golf: Who can forget pool noodles in the cups and afternoon family golf rounds? The changes birthed back then continue to affect the way residents, and those looking to become residents of premier golf communities, assess their options.
Not only did the old “quiet, getaway, second home” model morph into something very different—as people fled cities and discovered the wonders of working from home—but also memberships, rounds, accessibility, and how residents of high-end communities view golf transformed in the post-covid era. Many of those changes appear to be here to stay.
To see how communities are dealing with this new golf environment, we spoke to more than two dozen developers and managers to find out what they have seen, what they expect, and, most importantly, what it all means for existing and future residents. For starters, each acknowledged a profound and positive impact, not just in activity, but in their club’s dynamics. For example, many homeowners who escaped to their second-home golf communities during lockdowns have chosen to stay, if not full time (although many have), certainly longer.

Dave Short, the vice president of marketing and strategic planning for Reynolds Lake Oconee in Georgia says, “We found that a lot of people who moved to the lake during covid realized that they could shift their lifestyles, maybe keep an apartment in the city and stay there one or two nights a week and live at (Reynolds) full time. We weren’t just a weekend getaway anymore. And that was much more than a physical decision of where you wanted to live; that was a psychological decision that redefined the community.”
Similar psychological shifts occurred throughout the country. For example, even when business picked up, flex work and commuting became attractive options for many.
“The home-office setups are incredible now,” says Chris Randolph, managing partner at South Street Partners, developers of high-end communities from Palmetto Bluff in the South Carolina Lowcountry to The Cliffs in the mountains of the western Carolinas. “We’re running broadband through all our communities where we can, and Starlink is popular in some of the more rural areas, so people are definitely back to work, but it’s not in the office five days a week. Because the work model has changed, we’re seeing families of school-aged children moving into a lot of our communities, because parents are able to work remotely or semi-remotely.”
Those changes in member lifestyles and attitudes have imbued a sense of optimism into those who develop and manage premier golf properties. While some clubs experienced a slowdown after the world went back to work, many have seen rounds remain steady or continue to grow. Even those who saw a leveling off or a dip in rounds said the marginal increases still exceeded expectations.
“In the years leading up to covid, we averaged 62.5 new members per year that had a desire to play golf,” says Fred Fung, general manager of Bonita Bay Club, the largest high-end private golf development in Florida with five golf courses and 2,000 members. “The first fiscal year after covid, that number was 191, triple the average. Now, it dipped after that, but the number of new members looking to play golf is still greater than our pre-2020 average.”
“We’ve seen a stabilization, but in a positive manner,” says Scott Julien, the general manager and chief operating officer of Moss Creek, a 50-year-old development with two courses and a deepwater marina near Hilton Head Island, S.C. “We’re not falling off (in rounds or memberships). It’s interesting, we spent decades trying to grow golf, and all we needed to get there was a virus.”
Mark Yarborough of Storied Development, who, with partner Mark Enderle, created The Talisker Club in Park City, Utah, Boot Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas, and Firefly and The Grove in Tennessee, made a crucial point about rounds and club engagement. “Capacity makes it hard to continue to grow at the same percentages,” Yarborough says. “You only have so many tee times. You reach a point where you can’t squeeze any more people into those prime slots. But we continue to see strong demand. At 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon, we still see a lot of families out playing golf.”
Golf courses are like airplanes: there are a limited number of seats. Once it’s full, squeezing in another passenger is not an option. So, growth rates always slow as capacity nears 100 percent. But members rebel long before courses hit the max. They never want to battle for tee times. Developers and managers work to strike a balance. You want activity to keep a club vibrant and attractive. But you can’t hit the tipping point where it becomes crowded and annoying. For example, Yarborough and Enderle no longer see a need for nonresident members, a category that made up as much as 20 percent of the market between 2008 and 2019. “For the last five years, I’ve been trying to buy back as many nonresident memberships as I can,” Yarborough says. “There is no capacity for nonresidents.”
Another category of membership that has exploded goes by different names but has seen a near universal rise.
“We call it a ‘generational membership,’” Short says of Reynolds Lake Oconee. “We offered our platinum members the opportunity to add parents or adult children. It was subtle, but it turned out to have a profound, even foundational impact. By offering that generational membership, we created a broad emotional footprint and completely changed the dynamic of the entire community. Now, when the question with a family comes up: ‘What are we going to do with mom and dad’s lake house?’ the answer is no longer, ‘We forgot mom and dad had a lake house.’ Now it’s: ‘Whatever we do, we’re not getting rid of the lake house.’
“That shift has changed the culture, and not just at Reynolds but within the entire industry,” Short says. “For example, we’ve had concerts with Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler, Barenaked Ladies, and Little Big Town. It’s not Marvin Hamlisch at 5:30 and lights out at 8:00 anymore. The shift in demographics has created a much more vibrant social environment and a lot more family usage. Because of that, we are as healthy as we have ever been.”

Another developer likened the post-covid demand for family-based memberships to what the world experienced after 9/11. “It’s a similar dynamic and mindset,” says David Southworth, who created Willowbend on Cape Cod, Creighton Farms in suburban Washington, D.C., The Abaco Club in The Bahamas, and is now on site at Balsam Mountain Preserve in North Carolina. “If you think about what happened after 9/11, people didn’t go anywhere for about three months. Then, when they did get out again, the focus was on security and being close together as family. That’s the same experience people had during and after covid, so the vertical memberships and the amenities that are family oriented became much more important to them.”
“The family is so important, including the extended family of grandkids and sons- and daughters-in-law,” agrees Enderle. “We build amenities that are more in tune with the kids and grandkids than they are with the primary member, because the primary member’s focus is to get those kids and grandkids to want to stay with them. If we can get the grandkids to say, ‘mom and dad, that (club) is where we want to go,’ we have it whipped, because we’ve created generational engagement and a core that will last for many years.”
That engagement requires expanded amenities and programming that keep multiple generations active and happy, which is not an easy task. Getting Doja Cat to play on your patio might keep the grandkids engaged, but you and their parents won’t be thrilled, just as a Willie Nelson concert might tune up the grandparents but drive the kids out of their minds. Finding the right mix requires intense and constant engagement.
“There are countless beautiful golf clubs out there struggling because there’s nothing for mom and the kids to do,” Yarborough says. “We’ve always focused on a variety of amenities to service different needs. Great golf has always been important and remains so, but that’s almost a given now. In the last 10 years, the quality of the spa and the family clubs and the programming are so important because your residents—primary home or second home—are looking to do things.”
The same is true for newer clubs like Panther National near Palm Beach, Fla., and Jack’s Bay in The Bahamas, where upward of 10 percent of the resident members are professional athletes.
“We keep the younger generation active by giving them plenty of activities, whether it’s hiking or fishing or going to a concert at the club,” says Jonas Mikals, the managing director of marketing for Panther National. “While great golf is expected, it’s not enough to make a difference with the family. Mom is not going to agree to buy in a golf community where dad is going to play five days a week if you don’t create an activity for everyone.”
Short notes, “The music is different, the food offerings are different, the clubs are different: You’re obligated to change as you see the social rhythms adjusting.”
There were other areas of unanimity among premier club operators. The first was the importance of a quality practice facility. Practice and game improvement are an experience now, one that requires tech and a sensitivity to changing demographics.
“We’ve added Trackman in all the indoor-outdoor instruction facilities as well as a lot of different tees,” South Street Partners’ Randolph says of the courses they own and operate in the Carolinas. “We’ve also found the short courses, like Crossroads at Palmetto Bluff that just opened, are in greater demand now than ever. If you have room, they’re a premium amenity.”
“We have three ranges that are all double-sided, which means we have six ranges,” Fung says of Bonita Bay Club. “The one at our Naples facility was redesigned by the person at Fazio Design that did Augusta National’s tournament range. So, we not only have target greens, but we also have target fairways with a big oak tree in the middle so that you can aim at the tree and curve it to the left fairway or the right fairway.”
Dan Collins, founding partner at Collins & Fine, which has developed marketing and sales strategies for some of the world’s most recognized golf communities including Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, and McLemore on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., says, “Emphasis on a great practice area is vital. From little things like running the range north and south and not east and west so you’re not hitting into the sun, to big things like having the latest indoor-outdoor game-improvement areas with all the tech, all that matters like never before.”
The other areas of agreement: fitness amenities are second only to golf in growing a vibrant and lasting club community. And, with 100 percent agreement, pickleball is here to stay.
“It’s the most significant amenity today compared to 10 years ago,” Fung says. “Ten years ago, we had two pickleball courts painted in a parking lot as trial courts to see how they would go. We now have 15 courts. It took tennis 35 years to reach the utilization that pickleball has reached in five.”
And the final point on which every high-end golf developer agreed was that improvement is a continuum. If your golf community isn’t constantly getting better, you are being left behind.
“Do the basics well,” Southworth says. “Whether that is excellent dining or a first-class spa, or simple things like insisting that all the staff wave to the members and guests—little things that people might not recognize as intentional, but that make them feel like something is different—the culture and expectations need to be set at the top.”
Mikals agrees with that assessment. “If you don’t have the member-to-member connection, you don’t have a club,” he says. “Amenities are expected, and you’re expected to make them bigger and better all the time. But to reach the next level, you have to facilitate connection. Bring people together. Form relationships. That’s the key to long-term success.”



