When Lederach Golf Club opened 17 years ago in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, its management team wasn’t ready for the challenges ahead.
James O’Malley serves on the recreation board of Lower Salford Township, which governs the course. He said enlisting a management company was the answer to their problems.
“I couldn’t imagine being a public golf course without the benefit of some kind of management professionals,” he said. “Thirty years ago, you sprung up a little course in your town, and you ran it, and that was easy. But nowadays, there’s a lot of challenges.”
In the beginning, municipal employees were charged with not only having the course and clubhouse built but also running it.
O’Malley said they felt overwhelmed and were “flying blind,” so they decided to connect with somebody who knew what they were doing.
Management companies come in many forms and provide a variety of resources to clubs and courses under their purview. Some provide a personal touch, while others offer comprehensive software packages to aid in day-to-day operations.
Regardless of the specific services it offers, a management company is ultimately only successful when it helps its clubs achieve their own success.
O’Malley and others share why they chose to work with a management company, what successes they’ve had and what advice they have for others.
Alignment of values
Thornberry Creek is a daily fee course in Green Bay, Wisconsin, owned by the Oneida Nation. Some travails with previous management had left the course in rough shape, so the leadership sought out KemperSports to help right the ship.
“They chose KemperSports primarily because of their pillars: creating relationships, integrity, loyalty, financial discipline, creativity and service,” said Justin Nishimoto, the economic strategy coordinator for the Oneida Business Committee. “That coincided with our Oneida way: having a strong heart, strong mind and good family.”
Thornberry Creek’s board of directors needed a company that could lend expertise in the golf industry, especially with regard to that “financial discipline” pillar.
“The relationship is very strong,” Nishimoto said. “They put us on the right path to get to that point [of achieving our goals]. Prior to that, there was no clear direction.”
He noted that one of the biggest benefits of working with KemperSports is how much the course can do with their reach.
“There’s a lot of resources,” Nishimoto said. “To be able to bring in those vendors that will give us a great rebate really helps a lot. There’s a lot of cost savings in there.”
It was also important to Thornberry Creek to maintain its brand identity.
“We got to keep our own branding,” Nishimoto said. “We didn’t have to do ‘Thornberry Creek at Oneida by KemperSports.’”
Nishimoto said that while it’s important to find a management company that aligns with your values, there are other considerations such as course needs, F&B, operations and growth.
The goal of any management arrangement is that the company takes care of all the minutiae, the busy work and the red tape, and lets the employees with boots on the ground focus on what’s important to their course, such as the people who come there to play golf.
“If we didn’t have the management company, I don’t think we’d be able to do [that],” Nishimoto said. “As the economic strategy coordinator for the tribe, I have 12 different projects on my plate, and if that’s something that can come off my plate, where I don’t have to go there and worry about the day-to-day operations and make sure people are happy, I can sit back and let them handle all of that.”
A collaborative experience
Lederach Golf Club initially partnered with a management company that was helpful, O’Malley said, but later decided to go with one that could provide a more personal touch. Enter Brown Golf, now GreatLIFE Golf.
Lederach entered the partnership in 2019 because of the company’s local knowledge and experience. In addition, GreatLIFE had a plan of action to help the club succeed and introduced a program that excelled during the pandemic. The program has since become a mainstay of the Lederach experience.
The course implemented a double tee system that allows it to maintain pace of play and keep golf carts sanitized and ready for the next group of golfers.
“It’s a hidden gem because we can fill our tee sheet twice a day and still do leagues in the evening,” O’Malley said. “It’s a great way to maximize revenue.”
Rather than consider Lederach to be just another golf course selling rounds, GreatLIFE looked at ways to get commitments from golfers to return to the club instead of being a one-time greens fee purchase. It suggested that Lederach explore ways to partner with the golfers and build relationships.
“That’s the great advantage of GreatLIFE, the personal nature and their desire to be part of our community. That’s the real appeal,” O’Malley said.
Another facet of that personal touch is the amount of communication between GreatLIFE and Lederach. O’Malley said it’s very collaborative, with Lederach staff bringing ideas to monthly meetings to get GreatLIFE’s take on things. Conversely, GreatLIFE shares ideas that other courses under its purview are implementing to see if those things would work at Lederach.
“It sounds like a cliche, but it really is true,” O’Malley said. “I’m a sales guy, and we say that stuff all the time about building relationships, but these guys are actually doing it.”
GreatLIFE showed Lederach that the key to success was to not give away tee times.
O’Malley said that almost immediately they stopped letting aggregators get ahold of those tee times.
“It didn’t take more than two meetings for [GreatLIFE CEO John Brown] to say, ‘Fellas, let’s look at the numbers. You’re giving away your most valuable asset and you’re discounting it when in fact your most valuable asset should be held by you and sold that way,’” he said. “Now we use dynamic pricing, and our average cost per round is probably up $20.”
O’Malley said the best thing about working with GreatLIFE is their willingness to share their experience and knowledge with everyone under their umbrella.
“It saves us a lot of time, and it gives us great credibility as well,” he said. “When you call another club and say you’re a part of this group, they get who they’re working with. They’re invested in our success. And if we’re not successful, they’re not successful.”
Membership satisfaction
Marin Country Club, a private club in Novato, California, has been managed by Troon for 14 years.
Club President Joel Jutovsky said the relationship with Troon is so good that it’s been renewed through 2027, with a possible extension to 2032.
Why? Tremendous membership satisfaction.
Prior to the Troon partnership, Marin Country Club was self-managed. Jutovsky said they had continual budget problems as well as a tendency to ignore member complaints.
Since working with Troon, they have been able to listen to and address member complaints via an annual survey and are seeing high membership satisfaction scores.
“The bottom line is: Troon brought in methodology and systems that reflected industry standards that have allowed us to create budgets and implement them effectively,” Jutovsky said.
He said their ability to address member complaints quickly and effectively is but the tip of the iceberg of everything that Troon allows them to do.
“They have helped us in innumerable ways,” Jutovsky said.
He said the club is working with Troon’s design team to renovate a large portion of the clubhouse to look like the restaurant and bar. They are also in the midst of a maintenance facility renovation, a building addition and improvements to the driving range, which includes a roof for year-round use and technology in each hitting bay.
Jutovsky said Troon takes a relatively hands-off approach to the day-to-day operations of Marin Country Club and only intervenes when needed.
“Every department head has a direct relationship with individuals at Troon who assist on an as-needed basis, and Troon has always performed and picked up the phone and made meetings as appropriate to solve problems,” he said. “Troon doesn’t run Marin Country Club but provides all the foundational material information and coordination with the people we hire to run our club at the site. It’s been that kind of working relationship for 14 years, and it’s been successful.”
Jutovsky said private clubs are a particular kind of beast and are different from other properties. They can sometimes be torn apart by divergent points of view among the members, which can’t always be resolved by the general manager. He recommends that any club that finds itself in such a situation should seek out a company like Troon for help.
“If you don’t resolve that fundamental issue, you always have dysfunction at a club,” Jutovsky said. “Clubs are not normal businesses. It’s helpful to have a group of professionals who’ve been doing this for decades, understand the process, and provide you with the direction you need when you want to use it.”
(This story originally ran in the July/August 2025 issue of Golf Inc.)
