With membership dropping to 125 in 2017, the Monticello, Ind., club is looking for ways beyond golf to generate revenue, and plans to offer foodservice and host community events. The clubhouse is also undergoing renovations and equipment updates, which should be done by early April.
To survive, the Tippecanoe Country Club (TCC) in Monticello, Ind., needs to rely on things other than golf for revenue and to make people feel welcome, the Monticello Herald Journal reported.
“Golf will not carry the ball for everything you want to do,” said Jeff Milligan, the club’s former Board of Directors member and Treasurer, to members of the Monticello Kiwanis Club on February 19. There aren’t enough golfers, he said.
The management group of local families fronted by local attorney Dow Dellinger, who are leasing the course, plan to have a limited foodservice restaurant but also will promote the clubhouse as a place for weddings, quinceaneras and other celebrations, the Herald Journal reported.
“I think they’ve got the right idea as they’re trying to establish another source of revenue,” said Milligan.
Golf can no longer be the prime source of revenue because the necessary number of golfers isn’t there. In 1984, TCC had about 300 members, but in 2017, there were 125. The club needs 250 to 300 members to remain financially viable, Milligan said.
Another reason the club has fewer members is the closure of local industries over recent years, Milligan said. Fewer managers in the area affected how many people could afford to become a member, the Herald Journal reported.
The TCC is now undergoing clubhouse renovations and equipment updates, which should be done in late March to early April, the Herald Journal reported.
The new group is also looking at making any membership a family membership. “I think we need more family involvement,” he said. “In the short term, this group is dedicated to making this a place where the community will gather. Everybody’s got to be involved, or nothing will happen.”
Milligan wasn’t sure if the club would be open to having teen dances at the clubhouse but seemed optimistic that’s a possibility, and he said he didn’t know what was being done to market to the millennial generation, the Herald Journal reported.
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