The Country Club of Mobile at a Glance
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Every club or resort wants to make a name for itself. But not many had founders like those of The Country Club of Mobile, who took the steps needed to establish a name—and image—that would always be theirs, and theirs alone.
In 1899, when the original group of 75 members opened a nine-hole golf course around a modest frame clubhouse at the club's original location (just a few pitching wedges from Alabama's Mobile Bay), they included "The" as part of the official name established in the club's charter agreement and articles of incorporation.
And by doing so, they established a strong and lasting form of turn-of-the-century "right protection" that is still retained, and valued highly, more than 100 years later.
"Using the word 'The' had significance, according to laws in force at the time," reports Don Vance, the club's current General Manager and Chief Operating Officer. "By using it, [the founders] legally established us as the first country club in Mobile. Because of that, no one can come in and use 'Mobile' in their club name, should a new club open here in the future."
That Vance would even feel compelled to add those last words conveys some modern-day significance of its own. It would be hard to find any club in any city that has put down deeper roots, or gained a firmer foothold in its community (even with the many hurricanes it's had to withstand over the years) than The Country Club of Mobile. Over 65% of its current 1,300 members represent at least the second generation of their families to belong to the club; more than a few can draw direct lines through four or five generations to link with a name from that original group of 75.
Given this solid base—which also extends to the management side, with an unusually longtenured and experienced staff—it might at first seem borderline preposterous to imagine a new youngblood trying to give such an entrenched club a run for its money. But under the direction of Vance, who came to the club six years ago after working for major "new-breed" organizations such as Marriott and Arnold Palmer Golf, no one at The Country Club of Mobile takes anything for granted—not even their good name or longstanding station at the center of the city's life.
Never Standing Still
"In my 35 years in hospitality management before coming here, I certainly learned enough to know and appreciate just what kind of a club this is," Vance says. "It embodies all of the qualities— family, stability, history—that every club wants to have and to build on.
"So there wasn't any need or urgency for our Board to give me 'marching orders' when I was hired," he continues. "It was simply made clear that I should come in and do whatever I felt was needed to be done so we could keep, and improve upon, what we already had.
"To me, that meant getting and keeping the team focused on enhancing services, refining the member experience, and achieving consistency in all areas. Our guiding principles now are that we're only as good as our next performance, and that we will never settle for the status quo—which is something I despise with a passion, don't accept, and see as the real enemy in this business.
"We can always find things that are good about our club and try to make them great," Vance adds. "And in those areas where we might think we are already great, we can always strive to be greater. The moment you think you've arrived at greatness is the moment you only fool yourself."
A big plus for Vance, as he's directed his team in pursuit of these objectives, has been the lack of any need for a drastic overhaul of the existing management group. "Ninety-five percent of our staff is the same as when I came here six years ago," he notes. In addition to providing valuable stability and experience, that's also helped to sharpen the team's focus. Beyond the major transformation of The CC of Mobile's fitness facility (see box below), here's how some of the other departments have been trying to make their good things great, and great things greater:
• Course maintenance—Ask quiz-show contestants which U.S. city gets the most rain, and 99 of 100 would answer "Seattle." But it's a littleknown fact—unless you live in south Alabama— that Mobile runs neck-and-neck each year with Seattle for the dubious honor of who gets wetter.
"We average from 70 to 90 inches a year, and on any given day can get from six to 10 inches," says Director of Agronomy Ron Wright. "For the thunderstorm period from June to October, it's not unheard-of to have four inches dumped on us in an hour's time. Sometimes, when tropical systems like Danny have locked in on top of Mobile Bay, we've had as much as 24 inches in three days.
"I can think of few places in the country, and maybe the world, except for perhaps Guam or the Philippines, where it rains so much and so hard and so consistently," Wright concludes.
And oh, by the way—all these comments came before the discussion even turned to what hurricanes have done to The CC of Mobile's course and property over the years. (The short answer is that while the club only took glancing blows from Katrina and the other storms receiving the most attention in recent years, over its history it's al
so taken plenty of powerful and direct hits, most notably from Hurricane Frederick in 1979.)
But as the affable Wright ticks off the facts about the climactic extremes that he must contend with in his job, on both a "regular" and emergency basis, there's not a hint of whine in his voice. He's not looking for sympathy, and knows he wouldn't get any if he were. "Members don't want to hear about it," he says. "You just have to accept it as a big challenge that you're going to need to meet, day in and day out, if you're going to maintain a world-class facility."
After arriving in Mobile and ruining enough shoes and pants cuffs while walking the course with Wright to see what the maintenance staff must deal with, though, Vance has at least been able to steer more capital and operating funds into the department. "We spent $2.1 million on a course restoration in 2001, and we've also grown the annual course maintenance budget by $370,000, to $1 million a year," he reports.
This year, $500,000 will be set aside for bunker rebuilding and—on the theory that if any course can put new drainage techniques to the test, it's his—Wright, a 24-year industry veteran, is going to try a new filler system that he calls "as elaborate a bunker construction technique as I've ever seen." When the CC of Mobile course gets big "rain events," he notes, bunkers can be washed out so completely that "we have rock issues."
• Information systems—When Don Vance arrived at The CC of Mobile in 2000, the club was still using DOS-based systems that Donna Turner, who was struggling to perform backoffice accounting functions with them in her role as the club's CPA and Controller, recalls as "very archaic." Recognizing Turner's aptitude for club information technology, Vance wasted little time promoting her to Chief Financial Officer four years ago, a role through which she's directed a series of systems installations and upgrades.
When the club implemented its POS system for F&B service, it took the interesting approach of creating a dedicated cashier position in the dining room. "Darla Reeves does practically all of the POS ring-ups," Turner says. "With all of the hectic kitchen activity, having one person so wellversed in the menu items and operation of the software is far more efficient than trying to train everyone.Our tenured servers are able to serve as backups, should the need arise."
• Food and beverage—Staying "well-versed" in menu items is not easy at The CC of Mobile, where Clubhouse Manager Chris Ball, Executive Chef Ron Andrews, and Food and Beverage Manager Ty Braddy now change half the dining room menu every two weeks. That means servers at the club need to be especially quick studies— and to find out if they are, Ball won't even let them work on the floor alone until they've gone through a rigorous training program that includes 40 hours of classroom work (culminating with a nine-page written exam), and then a week or two of on-the-job training with experienced staff.
"It's really made a difference," says Ball of the intensive training regimen, which he's created and refined over the past two to three years. "And we use it to cover more than service techniques and food and beverage knowledge [The CC of Mobile also has an extensive wine program, with constantly changing lists of 200 wine varieties and 25 by-the-glass offerings]. We also go into aspects of the club business and our specific club history, because we think that's all very important for our servers to know, to fully enhance members' dining experience."
On the banquet and weddings side, Director of Catering Yvonne Kelly directs an especially spirited and variety-filled schedule of events (another fact not often known about Mobile by outsiders, for example, is that it has a lively Mardi Gras celebration all its own). That keeps Kelly busy between the holidays and April, the month that she says "kicks off the patio season."
The CC of Mobile can host especially large gatherings both inside and out, after a $6.5 million clubhouse renovation in 1992 upgraded a ballroom that can now host a 300-person sitdown dinner. To accommodate wedding receptions with as many as 700 people, says Kelly, she can open up the dining room and let people also use one of the property's large expanses of outdoor patios (all of which offer ample covered areas, including a gazebo on one, to let more than just the fastest few scurry to safety in the event of one of those "gentle" Mobile rains). The main patio also has a covered stage where the club holds jazz festivals and other live music events throughout Mobile's extended summer season.
And as you might expect at a club where family roots run so deep, even "normal" events like birthday parties can require plenty of room. "We just had a member's 97th birthday celebration with probably close to 300 people," Kelly says.
• Tennis and aquatics—With many newer clubs looking to expand, or even create, pool and tennis programs to try to broaden their appeal to families, The CC of Mobile not only has an advantage, but a lead that's many laps long. The club has rich traditions in both activities, and continues to invest in its pool and tennis facilities and programs.
Ten years ago, reports Director of Tennis Jeff Gray, the club installed an underground watering system for
its 13 clay courts, and Gray now says he would "put our courts up against anybody's—they're the prettiest clay courts you've ever seen." Even better, says Gray, they require less maintenance—always a headache with clay courts—and use one-third the amount of water that the courts were consuming before the system was installed.
"More play and less water is a win-win," Gray says—and he's seeing the payoff reflected in growing usage (for all courts) that's now at a level of 3,300 players a month (up from 2,000 a month when Gray started keeping figures 15 years ago).
• Golf—Even in a continuous improvement management environment, you have to be smart enough to recognize when some things just can't be tinkered with. A case in point is the "system" that's used at the CC of Mobile to "schedule" foursomes and "assign" start times.
"We don't have a starter, and you don't have to call to get a start time," explains Woody Woodall, the keeper of the "system" for his 31 years as the club's Director of Golf (Woodall is just one of four men to hold the position over the club's 100- plus-year history). "We just have specific times during the day—11:30, 12:00, 12:30—where anybody's welcome to show up, and we'll organize foursomes to go off during those half-hour periods from among whoever's here at that time.
"I guess it's best described as a 'fireside chat' atmosphere," Woodall says. "It's a little highmaintenance for us, but always how we've done it. For members, it's very low-key, and there's no red tape. Just don't call at 11:15 to ask me about 1:30, or on Thursday to ask about Saturday morning."
The biggest benefit of this approach,Woodall adds, is that it keeps him and his staff in especially close touch with the club's golfers. "Our whole day is built around being out on the putting green, directing play," he notes. "That gives us the opportunity to talk with everyone about green speeds, the driving range, or the member/guest that's coming up.We hear and learn a lot more through this kind of informal setting than we would behind a pro shop counter all day."
This kind of personal touch has also helped The CC of Mobile hold declining rounds to a minimum—and actually show an increase in the last quarter of 2005—despite the residual impact of some very active recent hurricane seasons.
"People don't realize, when there's a flood or hurricane that damages people's homes or properties, those insurance deductibles they pay come right out of their golf money," Woodall notes. "Plus, seeing insurance adjusters and processing claims cuts into their time to play. We saw that this past October, which could haven't been more gorgeous, with the course in great shape—but there was still a decline in play because of the ripple effect of the hurricanes; people were just too busy tarping their roofs or fixing their wharfs."
But if hurricanes impact play and the course too much,Woodall can always draw on his experience from Frederick in '79—one that demonstrates the resourceful and don't-sit-still spirit embodied by The CC of Mobile staff.
"We had 3,500 trees come down from that storm,"Woodall recalls. "When we were picking up all the debris—which we then stacked six to eight feet high in the rough, on both sides of every hole—we separated all the pulpwood and found some [paper mills] in Mississippi and Arkansas we could sell it to. So we made a little money back that way." C&RB
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Working Out Members' Demands
Nobody likes to feel they can never get away from their work. But it's especially troubling if you get that feeling when you're out of the office on your own time—and run into customers spending time and money elsewhere. That's the sick feeling that David Crumpton, Director of Fitness at The Country Club of Mobile, kept getting when he went to other health clubs in his area. "I try to do some of my own personal workouts at other clubs, because it doesn't tie up our own space or equipment, and helps me check out what other places are doing," he explains. "But as I was doing these [off-site] workouts," he adds, "I started to see more of our own members at those places as well. I'd ask them what the deal was, and why they weren't working out at our own club. They wouldn't hesitate to tell me—it had just become too hard for them to have a satisfactory experience in our facility." Crumpton, who came to The CC of Mobile eight years ago after working at a newer facility in a city club in Orlando, could certainly relate to what the members were telling him (and truth be told, he now admits that the shortcomings of his own club's facilities were right up there atop his own list of reasons for going elsewhere). "We just wore out our [existing center] a long time ago," he says. "We were busting at the seams. There was clearly strong and growing interest among members to use the club to work out, but trying to move around there, much less do exercises, was like being at a cocktail party—you bumped into someone everywhere you turned." Shortly after Don Vance arrived in 2000 to become The CC of Mobile's new GM/COO, Crumpton says, upgrading the fitness center was identified as a major priority, and an extensive member survey was conducted that showed just how strong interest in improving fitness amenities had become. "We got a 50 percent return, which was unheard of," says Crumpton. "And beyond the volume of response, the results showed that interest was far more wide-ranging than we realized, both in terms of who wanted to use the club to work out, and all of the things they wanted to have." As at many private club A new proposal was prepared with a much sharper focus on the most pressing needs—expanding and upgrading the club's fitness facilities and locker rooms. The price tag of the project was still substantial—$2.1 million—but with such clear demand from the membership in evidence, this time it earned Board approval. And so now a Memorial Day opening is planned for what Don Vance calls a "state-of-the-art facility that can compete with the finest anywhere." It will be in the same place on the property—the Fitness and Tennis Center, a separate building several yards from the main clubhouse. But not much else will be the same. The two-story building is being expanded to 25,000 sq. ft.. Top-quality locker rooms and lounges for both men and women will be on the first floor, along with two steam rooms, a sauna and a whirlpool. The second floor will house exercise rooms with a full array of equipment and "double the workout space we had previously," Crumpton says. An elevator with wheelchair lift will provide handicapped access to the upper floor (the member survey showed particular interest in being able to use the club fitness center for injury rehabilitation and therapy). At one end of the second floor, members will be able to get massages in one of two rooms, from one of three onstaff masseurs. At the other end, the "cocktail party" atmosphere that existed in the old center will be recreated— but this time, instead of everyone bumping into each other on the workout floor, they can do so from a spacious new deck that will be built out beyond the exercise room to overlook the golf course. "About one new fitness center per year has been opening in Mobile for the past five years," says Vance, who expects his club's new facility to quickly see use by 150 members per day. "Each time a new one opens, we've had to hear our members ask, 'Why can't ours be as nice?' Now we'll finally have an answer: Ours is—actually, it's nicer." |
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