How to Join the Right Golf Club

Good morning,

I dipped the pen on X to pose a simple answer to a perplexing question: what should young players look for when joining a golf club? I decided on the following four pillars:

Access – Can you actually play on evenings and weekends?
Location – Can you get there easily after work?
Membership – Are there other young guys who carry their bags, and are they people you respect and relate to?
Feel – Could you invite your parents for dinner and feel at ease?

These rules apply to a starter club, and I doubt you will find a decent one with all four (at a reasonable price point). Once you move up to a top-tier club, you can, and should, demand more from the course and amenities.

Here’s what I recommend: If you’re fresh out of school, aim for a smaller semi-private club that offers unlimited play at a fair price. At this stage, you just want to get as good as you possibly can while growing your network.

Prioritize a range with a quality grass tee, nice(ish) balls and open weekend tee times for junior members. Course pedigree matters less if you plan to “trade up” later. You are trying to maximize your playing time while exposing yourself to other people of your caliber.

Note: Don’t join a club that discourages cart usage but 90% of the members use push carts and wear white belts and black shoes. No club will be perfect, but you can at a minimum solve for the type of people you want to be around.

Now, about top-tier clubs: initiation fees are high, and waitlists are real. The cost screens out most applicants, and referrals keep the culture tight. Still, these clubs need young, talented golfers who are good people. If you were an elite college or junior player, keep your game sharp—your skills open doors. Many premier clubs will happily stage the initiation payments for the right member. This is your way in.

At first, choose the place that lets you play the most golf with people who push you to get better. Nail access, community, and comfort now; the perfect routing and old school locker room can wait. Get as good as you possibly can, dress and comport yourself in the right way, and the right invitations will find you.

Over 1,200 PGA Tour rounds, Calvin Peete hit only one ball out of bounds.

Read that again.

Next time you’re on a par 3, dig up and discard a few leftover tees on the tee box. I’ve noticed that the epidemic of laziness has pervaded even some of the elite clubs in the country, and the amount of tees that I see left in the ground is appalling.

Leaving a tee in the dirt shows blatant disrespect for the painstaking work of superintendents and their teams. It’s a simple act to show respect for the golf course and people who maintain it. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

6th Hole, Pebble Beach Golf Links. The best 5 in the world for my money.

Before it was a golf club, Sleepy Hollow was a Vanderbilt mansion. Built in the 1890s, the Woodlea estate sat high above the Hudson, with 140 rooms of Italian Renaissance marble, coffered ceilings, and opulence you can’t fake.

In 1911, Rockefeller and Vanderlip bought it and turned it into Sleepy Hollow Country Club. The Olmsted brothers landscaped the grounds. C.B. Macdonald routed the course, and A.W. Tillinghast came back to add more. A century later, Gil Hanse restored the whole thing to its original vision. To nobody’s surprise, he knocked it out of the park.

It’s one of the few clubs where the clubhouse is just as iconic as the course, and that’s saying something.

Great clubs don’t advertise. Neither do great newsletters.

Share your invite link below, 5 referrals gets you access to our exclusive Saturday column. 1000 referrals gets you a round with me on my t20 private course? Hmmmm.

Talk soon,

BTG