Why Punch Lists Destroy Clubhouse Projects and How to Manage the Closeout Phase On a thirty-million-dollar clubhouse renovation, the punch list alone can run three hundred to five hundred items — and that’s not a sign of bad construction, it’s the nature of finishing a technically dense building at this level of quality. Yet the […]
Author: golfclubhousedesign
Three Drinks, Three Rooms, One Building
The Simplest Test for Whether Your Clubhouse Actually Works Most private clubs in America can deliver one of three essential drink experiences their membership needs. A handful deliver two. Almost none deliver all three — and the gap between one and three is the difference between a venue members visit for occasions and a building […]
The Award Submission Tells On You
Episode: The Award Submission Tells On You — What the Clubhouse of the Year Entry Actually Reveals About Your Project Golf Inc.’s Clubhouse of the Year competition has been running for thirty years, and the cumulative archive of winners represents one of the only longitudinal records of how clubhouse design has evolved in America. The […]
The Best Clubs have the Worst Coffee
Episode 135 What Clubs Prioritize, What They Ignore, and What It Reveals Some of the most beautiful clubhouses in America serve drip coffee from a banquet urn. The dining room is exquisite. The art is curated. The wine cellar is illuminated from below. And the most-consumed beverage in the entire building, touched by members every […]
The Cart Barn Nobody Sees — The Most Operationally Critical Building on the Property
Episode 136 A typical private club operates 60–120 golf carts representing $500K to over $1M in asset value, plus support equipment that rivals a small commercial trucking operation. And in most clubs, all of it is housed in a building designed like a glorified storage shed. This episode makes the case that the cart barn, […]
The Head Pro Was Never in the Room
Episode: The Head Pro Was Never in the Room — Why Operations Lose to Aesthetics in Clubhouse Design On most clubhouse projects, the head golf professional sees the bag drop design for the first time when the construction drawings arrive — and the F&B director discovers the kitchen layout when the equipment schedule lands in […]
The Bartender Saved the Afternoon — Why the Building Is Not Enough
Episode 134 Built around Antonia Hock’s essay “I Just Joined One of The World’s Most Exclusive Private Clubs. Here Is What Fell Apart.” Hock is the founder and president of The AHA Group, a global experience architecture firm serving ultra-luxury markets, and the former global head of the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center. Her essay documents the […]
The GM’s Impossible Position — The Gap Between What Your GM Knows and What the Board Hears
Episode 133 An honest look at one of the most misunderstood roles in the private club industry. This episode walks through the systematic gap between what general managers know about their clubs and what gets formally reported to boards — not because GMs are dishonest, but because the governance structure of private clubs systematically incentivizes […]
The Architect’s Fee Fight — Why the Cheap Bid Is Almost Always the Expensive One
Episode 132 An honest insider look at architectural fees in the club space: what they cover, how they’re structured, and why the lowest bid is almost always the most expensive choice your club will ever make. A walk through the real economics of an architecture firm, the line-by-line breakdown of where an 8% fee actually […]
What Your Initiation Fee Actually Pays For — The Economics Nobody Explains Before You Write the Check
Episode 131 You wrote a check for $50,000. Maybe $100,000. Maybe more. Do you know where that money went? This episode pulls back the curtain on the real economics of private club initiation fees — how they’re allocated, what they subsidize, and why the number on your check is as much a brand signal as […]