Club Management - September/October 2007 - (Page 32) Cover Story Club Management: The Profession Evolves As It Adapts to Change By Gary Tufel A 32 • CLUB MANAGEMENT Ask veteran country club or golf club managers how their profession has changed, and you’ll get a laundry list. It’s probably easier to ask what hasn’t changed – managers’ passion, enthusiasm and their need to keep current with trends and meet members’ needs. But the changes have been revolutionary. Even older clubs have adapted. Take the 109-year-old Atlanta Athletic Club. Its name, according to General Manager A. Christopher Borders, CCM, belies what it is. The “athletic club” portion of the title implies that it’s downtown and like a city club, he said. It once was. The club, which owned East Lake Country Club, abandoned that in 1965 and moved to Duluth, but kept its name, although its focus is golf (it was Bobby Jones’ home club). The club includes 42,000 square feet of facilities including basketball, a small spa, a children’s activity center, a weight room and cardio facilities. Its two 18-hole golf courses have hosted the U.S. Open and PGA golf tournaments, and it has 2,000 members and 350 employees. Borders, who graduated in hotel management from Florida State University, has been at the club for 30 years and has only worked at two others. Changes? You bet. Borders said that in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the joke among Club Managers Association of America members was that golf pros were womanizers, supervisors were farmers, and club managers were glorified bartenders. That changed in the late 1970s as CMAA became more professional and began offering educational programs. Today, “You need a good knowledge of greens and wines, but you must be a good politician, be able to lead and persuade, have a vision, and capture the respect of members,” Borders said. “A club manager is like a church minister. The members must like, or at least tolerate, him.” But he noted that it’s hard to keep 2,000 members happy. The big issue is that some members want to economize and others want to spend. And it’s not always easy to please a board and staff members. “You have to talk out of both sides of your mouth and keep everybody happy,” Borders said. Many managers can’t, and some move to new clubs every year.
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