After seeing membership fall to less than 100 three years ago, the Rehoboth, Mass. club is back to a full membership of 300. “The only way you can turn it around is to be here all the time, stop the bleeding and not have assessments,” said new owner Joe Moniz.
The turnaround of Crestwood Country Club in Rehoboth, Mass. was highlighted in a July 1 feature in The Providence (R.I.) Journal. Less than three years ago, the Journal reported, membership at 53-year-old Crestwood fell to less than 100, and the club had to take out loans and assess members to keep from becoming insolvent.
But thanks to a member, Joe Moniz, who is now Crestwood’s owner, the club not only has survived, but turned around and become a showcase for how good business practices can make it possible for a golf course to thrive.
“The only way you can turn [a troubled club] around is to be here all the time, stop the bleeding and not have assessments,” Moniz told the Journal.
“Our full membership here is 300,” Moniz added. “That’s what we had when I joined [17 years ago]. We have 304 now and I actually have people that want to come in. I don’t have a [waiting] list, so to speak, but I have people I’m kind of holding off. I hate to not take them. But I hate to have too many, to where members can’t play [golf] when they want to play.”
Moniz had been among a group of members who had loaned the club money several years ago to keep it running, the Journal reported. That was not enough, however. So when Crestwood members told Moniz, who had founded and sold several successful business and is still a part owner of a vineyard in Napa, Calif., that the club was perilously close to closing, they asked him if he wanted to buy it. He did, for about $3 million.
“It was almost a defensive thing because of the money I had put in,” he told the Journal.
Since then, Steve Sampson, a long-time Crestwood member, told the Journal, Moniz has been at the club “eight days a week.”
“I’m a hands-on guy. I’m 55. I’ve been working since high school,” Moniz explained. “I’m here a minimum 70 hours a Moniz’s turnaround game plan started by identifying the biggest problem: There was no income coming in.
“The expenses were there. The golf course was supporting itself,” he told the Journal. “So, like all the other courses around here were doing, they started assessing members, and that was driving away members. They signed up for one price, and all of a sudden there was another price.”
Several years ago, the Journal reported, membership at Crestwood was just over $5,000. But members received assessments for another $4,300.
“I think what a lot of clubs are trying to do is save money. What you have to do is bring money in,” Moniz said. “If you cut things in any business, then you cut things again, that’s not good. All I’m doing is bringing in more. I’m not cutting anything. You’ve got to think of ways to bring people in.”
At Crestwood, the Journal reported, that involved redoing many areas of the clubhouse for the first time since the 1980s, to make them modern and more attractive for weddings.
“We were losing money in the dining area, not on the golf course,” Moniz said. “The year before I took over, they did two weddings. We did 32 last year, and this year we’ll do about 45.”
Moniz has also had the club become involved in the catering business to bring in more money. And through more aggressive marketing for outside tournaments, Crestwood had 41 tournaments last year, compared to 17 in 2011.
“I’ve actually kept it to 28 this year,” Moniz told the Journal. “We don’t want to have too many so members can’t play when they want to.”
All of the changes behind Crestwood’s turnaround have been done using one basic premise, Moniz told the Journal.
“You’ve got to run it as a business,” he said. “It wasn’t being run as a business. It was being run as a country club.”
His latest project will be to build an outdoor kitchen adjacent to the swimming pool and pond that is located behind the clubhouse.
“The pool gets very busy in the summer. When waitresses take orders, they have to go all the way around the back of the clubhouse to go to the bar,” he explained. “It was hard on them. So what I’ve decided to do is put an outdoor kitchen right here. It’s going to have two big pizza ovens, two grillers, everything you can think of.”
The area is being constructed at the gate of the pool area, and a sitting area will be built, to allow everyone to relax and overlook the pond as well as the first tee.
“We think it’s going to make it nicer for everyone and easier for our waitresses,” Moniz said. “We have a great staff here. We’re doing all kinds of things. That’s what I think you have to do.”
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