Santa Rosa country club joins national chain ClubCorp

The century-old, member-owned Santa Rosa Golf & Country Club, which has struggled with declining membership in recent years, has been sold to a Texas-based company, a leading owner-operator of private golf and country clubs.

The sale of Sonoma County’s oldest golf club to ClubCorp. of Dallas is seen by its members as a way to assure the continuing existence of the Santa Rosa golf and social institution for many years to come.

“We needed someone with much deeper pockets than we have,” Country Club president Mark Matthews said Tuesday.

“It’s not just us. Private country clubs all across the country have been fighting to maintain their membership,” he said, other than a few areas, such as Silicon Valley.

The Santa Rosa club has felt itself in a precarious position along with many other private clubs and other golf courses that have struggled to attract new and younger players. The shift has been blamed on the economy, changing recreational habits, and even the demise of the once-hot Tiger Woods, who helped stoke popularity of the game.

“You’ve seen far more golf courses close than you have seen open since 2005,” said Brent Stromgren, membership director at Santa Rosa Golf & Country Club.

In Sonoma County, there are four other private golf clubs: Sonoma, Mayacama, Petaluma and Fountaingrove, although the last two are now the only member-owned clubs remaining.

Matthews said as part of the deal, ClubCorp gets ownership of the 128-acre country club, but also will pay off the mortgage the club owed for the approximate $12 million construction of a new Spanish-style clubhouse in 2001.

He declined to specify the size of the mortgage, but said “on their books, it will look like a $5 (million) to $6 million transaction.”

He said more than 90 percent of the 286 equity-holding members of the club approved the terms of the sale.

Members of the Santa Rosa club heading out on the fairways Tuesday morning were generally positive about the sale to ClubCorp, which closed escrow last week.

“We are just happy,” said Lee Farris, a member for almost 40 years. “We love this place. It’s a beautiful golf course, and they’re getting ready to make it prettier.”

“We are very excited about the addition of Santa Rosa Golf & Country Club, a perfect complement to ClubCorp’s portfolio,” Mark Burnett, ClubCorp chief operating officer, said in a prepared statement. “Our many traveling members will now be able to take advantage of their golf, dining and tennis benefits while visiting San Francisco and California’s famed Wine Country.”

Dues will remain the same for at least a year, although ClubCorp is investing more than $2 million in improvements in the form of clubhouse renovations, golf course improvements and for a “resort style pool experience” and casual touches, like fire pits, intended to appeal to the millennial generation.

“As a member I see this as a real boon to the club,” said former president Mark Gladden, a Healdsburg attorney.

“It’s a shift in paradigm in how country clubs are being operated,” he said, away from member-owned and operated clubs.

Matthews said the member-owners considered three other different management companies, all national firms with big reputations to run the club, as well as another that specialized in buying private clubs, before choosing ClubCorp, which was established in 1957. The company owns and operates more than 200 golf and business clubs in 26 states and several foreign countries.

Santa Rosa club officials said ClubCorp can operate more efficiently with its economy of scale that includes centralized accounting and better buying power with everything from golf-related merchandise to food.

But most importantly, Matthews said, ClubCorp has never sold a country club after acquiring one.

Other than several executive positions, including a newly named general manager from ClubCorp, the company intends to keep the current 70-plus workforce at the Santa Rosa club, Matthews said.

Santa Rosa club members will also be able to take advantage of a program that provides complimentary green fees in ClubCorp’s network of more than 300 private clubs and discounts at more than 1,000 hotels and resorts.

Retired physician Rick Lederman, a member of the Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club who plays golf there about four times a week, said the majority of members “are really happy this will stay the way it’s been.”

He said without the sale, dues would have increased and most likely there would have been a new assessment to pay off the mortgage, which ran to 2021, but had a pre-payment penalty.

Matthews said the company that held the mortgage agreed to waive the pre-payment penalty knowing they would be assured of being paid the balance with ClubCorp paying off the mortgage.

“They saw a better future than us continuing with declining membership,” he said. “It was getting tough to continue making payments on time and in a responsible fashion.”

The golf and country club was conceived in 1916, according to Membership Director Stromgren, and was originally located off Los Alamos Road in southeast Santa Rosa, opening in 1920 and becoming the first permanent golf links in the county.

Three decades later, a decision was made to relocate to the current site, with the golf course opening for play in 1958.

Benefactors at the time include financiers Ralph Stone and Henry Trione. The club attracted other movers and shakers such as “Peanuts” comics creator Charles Schulz.

Numerous Pro Am tournaments were hosted there and PGA tours with the likes of pros such as Johnny Miller were also staged at the club from the 1960s into the 1980s, Stromgren said.

At its peak in 2003, he said initiation fees to join were $52,000, but more recently before the club sold, it had dropped to around $2,500, in addition to monthly dues of $635 per month for a full golf membership.

But there are also reduced initiation fees and monthly dues for members under 45 years old, or for others who aren’t interested in golf, but only want access to the clubhouse and its restaurants, swimming pool and athletic club.

The most basic, non-golfing membership now costs a $1,000 initiation fee and $137 in monthly dues.

About a decade ago, there were 425 proprietary members with full golf privileges, but that shrank to 288 before the vote was taken to sell to ClubCorp, according to Stromgren.

“Over the years we lost quite a few, mostly through the economic downturn,” he said.

Golfers say the 18-hole course at the Santa Rosa club is in top shape, manicured to perfection. Fairways have new grass and most of the greens have new turf. But ClubCorp has announced plans for bunker reconstruction, new greens on the front nine and new course and driving range amenities.

Club officials say ClubCorp will aggressively promote to attract new members, but still keep the club a familial atmosphere that public golf courses lack.

“We saw the need to reinvent the club so it has a great appeal to millennials, but it could remain a private country club, basically forever,” Matthews said. “You will see the Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club be the place where people are going to want to join.”

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to reflect that Petaluma Golf & Country Club is also member owned.