adherence to tradition, an outsized emphasis on the super- ficial. This attitude is also, hopefully, in decline. This collec- tion of stories, most from within the past 15 years, represents a side of golf the game has made efforts to shake, with at least some degree of success. Golf today is more modern, more inviting. Golf might still have its share of snobs, killjoys, and Judge Smails disciples, embracing priorities that range from archaic to laughably misguided, but at least the narrative has shifted. Once a statement, This is just a part of golf, it is now a question: This is still a part of golf? Short answer: not as much. Longer answer: maybe still a little. THERE IS AT LEAST ONE COUNTERINTUITIVE ELEMENT to the American dream, which is if you work hard and advance in your chosen profession, you might be lucky enough to join the sort of club where you will always feel on edge. This is not how it’s planned, of course, but it is an outcome nonetheless. The typical municipal course might have scruffier conditions and longer rounds, but at least you won’t be ostracised for using the wrong fork. Sometimes the more exclusive the address, the more precarious the footing. Once, a golfer joined a blue-blood Connecticut club and was excited to jump into his membership. He played both weekend days and showed up during the week to practice. This went on for a short time until one evening a member of the golf staff greeted him on the practice green. The conversation began with some innocuous small talk but then led to a message. “You’re showing up here too much,” the new member was informed. It was time to scale it back. Certain rules are not printed. At a desirable club in Cincinnati, a local businessman owned a lavish home along one of the fairways. He was a self-made man, an admirable quality to everyone except for perhaps the club’s membership committee. When the businessman made inquiries into joining, he was told that wouldn’t be possible, but his children would be a different story. The logic wasn’t immediately clear. Unlike their father, it was explained, they wouldn’t be of first-generation wealth. At some top-of-the-pyramid clubs, the membership process follows the logic of high school courtships, which says the best way to secure interest from the other party is to express as little interest as possible. Your microscopic chances of an Augusta National membership are contingent on you never confiding to anyone – not to your significant other, not to your clergyman, perhaps not even to yourself – that you would ever want to join. Even when in the door, though, you remain on guard. As the story goes, a member invited a guest for a dream weekend of golf and lodging in one of the club’s cabins. When a high-ranking green jacket approached during cocktail hour one evening, it was not to solicit feedback on the green speeds. “Please tell your guest we wear socks here for dinner,” the green jacket told the other green jacket, never once looking in the bare-ankled offender’s direction. BROADLY, GUEST EXPERIENCES AT CLUBS CAN BE divided into two categories – one in which they strive to make you feel at home, the other in which they work hard to
One story that best encapsulates country club point-missing has circulated for years. The setting is an old, eastern United States golf club, with one of the best courses in the state. The club is notorious for its men-only policy. Forget about women joining as members or playing the course. Only a few days a year are they even allowed on the property. One day a member having lunch at the club abruptly falls ill at the table. He grabs his chest, falls to his knees. A concerned scrum gathers around his table. Word reaches his wife, who arrives at the club gates within minutes. “He is inside,” she is told as she tries to pass through. “Unfortunately,” the attendant continues, “no women are allowed on property. Please wait here.” No way this is true. “I’m afraid it is true,” one longtime member of the club says. “I’ve heard it, too,” a frequent guest of the club confirmed. “It’s true.” A similar story comes from another elite club. You would know it if you heard it. Another lunch, another golfer topples over. (Is there something in the food at these clubs?) In this case the man regains consciousness. “Please contact my wife,” he says from the floor, and hands his friend his phone. The friend starts dialling, then stops. He is also a member and is now saddled with an inconvenient thought. “I can’t,” he says. “No cellphones in the grillroom.” YOU WILL NOT FIND A SET DEFINITION OF COUNTRY club stuffiness. As with pornography and a vanity handicap, you know it when you see it: rules for the sake of rules, a rigid
76 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
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