In step with the rebirth of the city it has served for over 100 years, the club’s management is carrying out bold new strategies for renewed relevance.
It’s quite possible that The Topeka (Kan.) Country Club (TCC) may have had a little extra help in navigating its way through the challenges that have faced the club industry since the start of the millennium. The club’s Locker Room Manager of 28 years, the Rev. Richard Rounds, has also been an ordained minister for 46 years. So in addition to the contributions Rev. Rounds has made in providing dedicated service to the membership, he may have also put in a few extra good words with the club gods, or even higher authorities, to help TCC survive the rockiest times.
But there’s also plenty of solid evidence that the membership and staff has done much on their own to keep control of TCC’s destiny—and to ensure that what is now the only private club in Kansas’ capital city did more than just make it past its 100th birthday in 2005, but then also emerged from the recession to implement innovative strategies and improvement plans that have positioned it to remain relevant for some time to come.
PLENTY TO BUILD ON
Topeka CC is steeped in tradition, with its golf course boasting ties to a pair of revered architectural names, starting with Thomas Bendelow, who originally designed a nine-hole course when the club opened in 1905 on farm and estate land that had been acquired on the city’s south side from the family of a prominent Topeka banker. When the club wanted to expand to an 18-hole course 30 years later, Perry Maxwell was brought in to redesign Bendelow’s work while adding his own nine.
The club’s history also includes visits over the years by President William H. Taft, Bob Hope and professional golf luminaries including Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. The latter two were part of an exhibition match played in 1967 in front of 2,500 spectators that is commemorated by a plaque on the course; it was first time that Nicklaus, who was then a six-time major champion and had come to the club to conduct a clinic, ever met Watson, who was only 17 years old (and the Missouri Men’s Amateur Champion) at the time. Asked 40 years later what he would do if he could turn back the clock and replay one round of golf from his career, Nicklaus replied, “I’d go back to Topeka and play Tom again when he was 17.”
While TCC was able to mark its centennial in 2005 and then weather the recession, many of its long-time members readily admit that ten years into the new millennium, it still bore more resemblance to the club that Nicklaus remembered whimsically from his 1967 visit than one that was prepared to respond to the clear signals for needed change that were now being flashed to the club industry.
It may never be known if it was due to Rev. Rounds’ influence, but the club’s Board then had a collective epiphany. “It was clear that the traditional country-club concept was not going to work for us any longer,” one TCC member who was involved with the change recalls. “We decided to do away with our committee structure that was having too much influence on how the club was run, and instead go to a true Chief Operating Officer model, where the daily decisions would be made by professional management.”
Further, this member adds, the Board decided that its search for its top manager would go “outside the box” and not be limited to “a traditional country club manager.” Specifically, TCC wanted to bring in someone who could maintain the club’s strong golf profile but also recognize and respond to the need for attention to all of the other areas and amenities that would be important to attracting families and new, younger members—and to do so with a for-profit mindset, even within TCC’s 501 (c) (7) structure, that would seek to drive revenues while controlling costs.
Here again, whether or not divine intervention or Rev. Rounds’ prayers were in play, Topeka CC’s need to find a new President/COO timed up perfectly with the desire of Clay Meininger, PGA, to land a club management position that would bring him closer to his native Nebraska. With his PGA credentials and career experience that spanned working for developer-owned and resort properties as well as private clubs, Meininger checked all of the boxes that the TCC Board had identified in drawing up the profile for who could help lead the club to a new, more promising land.
PATIENCE PAYS OFF
After arriving at TCC at the start of 2012, Meininger systematically set things in motion to develop and implement a comprehensive club makeover plan. With the help of outside consultants—and none from any special committees, outside of the standing Board of Directors—a long-range facilities master plan was presented to the membership in 2016 that proposed $7.5 million in improvements, to be executed in two phases, that would ultimately produce a new Health & Wellness center center, expanded pro shop, new casual dining and bar area, new private dining room, and a new pool area to replace what had existed at the club, in a particularly prominent spot near the main entrance, since 1983.
With minimal disruptions involved in executing the plan (even when financing hurdles were encountered, members stepped up to provide support through bond purchases), a ribbon was cut at the beginning of this year for the grand reopening that revealed the last of the changes. (The pool area, as part of Phase One, had opened in time for Memorial Day weekend in 2018, as described in C+RB’s March 2019 issue.)
Three months later, strong evidence of how all of the careful planning was paying off could already be found. Head Golf Professional Levi Lambing, PGA, says the new pro shop, which was expanded by 500 sq. ft. and now features a sitting/lounge area with a TV, along with creative displays of merchandise using pool tables, wine boxes and old trunks and suitcases, has clearly succeded in meeting its goal of creating “a much more personal feel where people want to hang around and see what we have, vs. just ‘Hey, I’m here for my round.’ ”
Lambing, who came to TCC from Southern Hills Country club in Tulsa, Okla., at the end of last year, also reports strong response to a new incentive program that coincided with the shop’s reopening, through which club members can amass credits for what they buy throughout the year and then put them toward rebates for Christmas purchases. Members are also responding well to new merchandise that ties in logos of the Kansas state capital and the new flag of the city of Topeka, he notes.
Perhaps the biggest boost to sales of all for the new shop, though, have come from sales related to the concurrent opening of TCC’s new Health & Wellness Center, with Lambing reporting strong interest in obtaining workout shirts and other activewear from the shop, and an especially strong demand for bluetooth headphones that can be used on the club’s new exercise machines.
That’s not surprising, Meininger says, given that numbers for usage and training sessions in the new fitness facility have quickly ramped up well past projections since it was opened, with total revenue already more than double in the first two months what was budgeted for the entire first year.
That’s also proving to be the case in food and beverage and other areas. The new private dining room, 1905, which is reached through a door just inside the clubhouse that leads to a lower-level venue, is proving to be especially popular for its “speakeasy” concept, with reservations taken for selected Saturday nights to attend an exclusive dinner prepared by Executive Chef Gus Baker that features a fresh, seasonal six-course meal.
“There didn’t use to be a lot going on here on Saturday nights,” says one longtime club member. “Now we have a gourmet dining offer that sells out in hours, and the only complaint you hear is that you can’t get in. And the eclectic ‘speakeasy’ aspect, where you feel like you’re dropping into someone’s basement, is the kind of experience that can really appeal to millenials and others who might not otherwise want to use the club.”
POSITIVE VIBES
All told, says Meininger, he’s been glad to see, and admit, that “I was wrong” in being conservative about what to expect in terms of the reaction to, and acceptance of, all of the new amenities and facilities at Topeka CC. And he is certainly in good position to get an accurate gauge on activity levels, with an office that looks out on the pool and is as open—with not only an open door but also an open reception window—as any club manager’s. (He took over what had been the reception area just off the clubhouse entrance and lobby for his office, to ensure maximum visibility and accessibility.)
“There’s definitely a different mentality at play now about how people use the club,” Meininger says. “All of the signs have been nothing but positive, and it once again shows that while we still want to always recognize that golf is our number-one asset, it’s not the number-one thing that people want to do.”
The resurgence being seen in activity at Topeka CC is also coinciding, members and staff report, with a revival of Topeka itself that is being fueled by a new and more aggressive economic development effort by the city.
“Topeka’s a wonderful city, but it’s always had something of an inferiority complex because of being thought of as just a government town, or of not being Kansas City [60 miles east],” says one member. “Now that’s changing, and what’s happening here at the club is clearly part of it. For example, what’s being done here with dining, and the buzz that’s created, has clearly helped to promote having more restaurants come back into the city and especially downtown, which used to be a ghost town.”
(An early decision made by Meininger and the Board shortly after he arrived, to open the club to outside outings and banquets, has also served to bolster connections between the club and the capital city that shares its name.)
“We didn’t just do a renovation here,” says another Board member. “We changed the model of how the club should be thought of, both for existing members and people we want to have join, and the community as a whole.
“Making the changes we did showed how we refused to accept defeat,” he adds. “We’re the only country club in the state’s capital city—we had to find ways to keep making things work. And we’re not done yet.”
At a Glance
Locations: Topeka, Kan.
Founded: 1905
Members: 400
Clubhouse Size: 53,000 sq. ft.
Annual Golf Rounds: 13,000
Golf Course Design: Perry Maxwell
President & COO: Clay Meininger, PGA
Head Golf Professional: Levi Lambing, PGA
Golf Course Superintendent: Kent Morgison
Executive Chef: Gus Baker
Director of Tennis: Junior Brown, USPTA
Director of Health & Wellness: Brooke Volk, ACSM, TPI
Director of Membership & Marketing: Gina Patterson
Food & Beverage Manager: Brad Harmon
Director of Catering: Anna Cazier
Banquet Manager: Cody Moses
Locker Room Manager: Rev. Richard Rounds
C+RB
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