Batting cages, sand volleyball, full-court basketball—is this a member-owned club or a local rec center? Turns out it’s the best of both—and the timing for how it all came together at the Medford, Ore. property couldn’t have been better.   

IN 1963, A LANKY 16-YEAR-OLD NAMED Richard (Dick) Fosbury was struggling as a high jumper on the track team at Medford (Ore.) High School. Using the conventional “straddle” method of jumping, to try to clear the bar face down and then bring his legs over it, just wasn’t working for Fosbury. He experimented with new techniques and eventually came up with a revolutionary back-first, face-up approach that he used to become an NCAA champion at Oregon State University and a record-setting Olympic gold medalist in 1968’s Mexico City games. Today, the “Fosbury Flop,” which was originally ridiculed, is now the accepted and preferred form of high jumping.

Decades later, the leadership of Rogue Valley Country Club (RVCC) in Medford recognized that some Fosbury-style rethinking was needed in its approach to the club business. The club had been a fixture in the southern Oregon city since 1924, with a solid reputation for golf built around its Chandler Egan-designed course. But with its 100th anniversary around the corner, stagnation had set in for RVCC’s membership numbers and operating and capital revenues, leading to more deferred facility maintenance, at the same time that some formidable new golf options had emerged in step with the region’s growing popularity. (Medford is just over 25 miles from California’s northern border, and its scenic surroundings, favorable climate and moderate size have made it a popular relocation destination for those looking to escape California’s crowded cities; the city experienced a 35% growth in population from 2000 to 2020, to a still-very manageable 85,000.) 

RAISING THE BAR

In 2018, after having tried to operate the club without a General Manager for two years, the RVCC Board sent its initial signal that it was time to set the bar higher, when it engaged an executive-search firm for the first time. The next sign that a new approach was in the works then came with the announcement of who would be coming to Medford to be the club’s new GM. 

Thor Damerval, CCM, was 30 years old at the time and had never been a General Manager. But he had set his sights on having a successful career in the club industry from his early days of caddying at clubs in his native Midwest at age 14, then earned a degree in Golf Enterprise Management at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, and progressed through internships and positions at an impressive list of well-respected clubs throughout the country, spending the last three-and-a-half years as Assistant General Manager at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio.

Some wondered why Damerval might want to veer from a path that seemed destined to continue to lead him to career growth among the types of Platinum clubs he’d become accustomed to being a part of. But he didn’t see coming to Medford as a detour, and instead as a “golden opportunity” to take on the challenge of helping the club realize the full potential that came with its impressive footprint and strong golfing tradition. (That tradition has included being the sole host for over 90 years of the Southern Oregon Golf Tournament, the largest amateur match-play event held at one course in the U.S., drawing over 400 players and thousands of spectators at the end of each summer.)

Beyond golf, however, Damerval saw, as he became more familiar with the RVCC property and footprint, that it was sorely lacking in other amenities he had seen take hold at the other clubs he’d worked at, especially as they had responded in recent years to the need to become more family oriented. RVCC had no fitness facility and its social and recreational offerings lacked excitement. “It was clear we had to change what we were taking to the market and make the member experience more valuable,” Damerval says. “And offering more on the social side was the most glaring need, if we were going to turn the tide.”

As he took one of his contemplative strolls around the property, Damerval had an “epiphany” about how to show, quickly and dramatically, that RVCC was about to take a giant leap forward—and in the process, bring some Fosbury-like innovation to club operations. 

“Around our pool, not that far from our clubhouse, was some space that was going largely unused,” Damerval says. “It included two outdoor tennis courts that we didn’t need, because members have always preferred using our indoor facility’s four courts, and a locker room where less than 50 of the 350 lockers were being used.”  

As Damerval brainstormed with Golf Course Superintendent Craig Hilty and others, plans for how the area could be used to provide new and unique recreational amenities quickly came together. The tennis courts were converted into a full-size basketball court with a total of six hoops. Room was also found for a sand volleyball court, batting cages, and a 10-hole mini-golf course, which Hilty and his staff designed and built (“one of the most fun and unique things I’ve ever done,” Hilty says). Further resourcefulness was exercised by bartering golfing privileges (“divots for dollars,” as Damerval describes it) to outside contractors and tradesmen. 

That all helped RVCC transform what Damerval says had really been a “wasteland” on the property into a full-fledged Sports Center, merging the new amenities with the club’s existing tennis and pool operations, all for a cash outlay of $400,000 and without member assessments.  

While the Sports Center’s prominent place on the property could provide immediate visibility for the changes afoot at RVCC, Damerval also wanted to find ways to send a similar message through the clubhouse, which really hadn’t been touched much in over 20 years. Here, too, there was plenty of opportunity to find underutilized space that could be repurposed into much more appealing amenities. The 40,000-sq. ft. building’s “West Wing” was targeted for where three new features could be introduced: a fitness center, to fill that obvious void; a family game room, and a sports bar.

WELL-TIMED TRANSFORMATION

As these and other changes were taking shape at RVCC, the club began to benefit from golf’s pandemic-inspired surge and saw rounds on its 27 holes jump from 37,000 in 2018 to 54,000 in 2021. That, along with the implementation of a strong member-referral incentive program, gave existing members more chances to see, experience and promote all that the new-look, new-feel Rogue Valley had to offer. 

Further momentum was gained through the efforts of new members of the management team who came on board to complement the stability on the club’s golf side (Hilty and Head Golf Professional Tracy Snyder have both been at RVCC for over 20 years). Hannah Dawson, who had worked with Damerval at Scioto CC, arrived as Clubhouse Manager to upgrade service and work with new Executive Chef Sean Sims to enhance menu quality and variety, with an emphasis on featuring local products from the agriculturally rich region. (Unlike many club chefs, Sims doesn’t even have a problem keeping Dover sole on the menu—he actually chooses to feature it, crusted with almonds or local hazelnuts, pan-seared and topped with Meyer lemon beurre blanc.) 

Membership & Marketing Director Erika Reyes joined the team in 2021, bringing valuable inside knowledge of the area, and the club, from her marketing and sales experience with a local television station, as well as from being an RVCC member since 2015. ““The club has been here since 1924, but while we’re known, we’re not known,” says Reyes, who has focused on ramping up recognition through social media and search-engine optimization. “It’s all about getting the word out now that we’re not the same old club.”      

Additional fiscal discipline was brought to the club’s operation amid all its changes and growth by Controller Darren Olson, who arrived in 2018 for his first position in the club industry, bringing previous experience with major corporations including Levi Strauss and Medford-based Harry & David (the food and gift retailer that is now owned by 1-800-Flowers). 

All of these efforts combined to add equally impressive results for other key performance benchmarks to what was being seen with golf activity at RVCC:
• Membership growth from 850 in 2018 to 1,230 as 2022 began, with the average age dropping from the upper 60s to the mid- to low 50s.
• Gross revenues improving from $6 million to $10 million, and operating revenues from $5.5 million to $9.1 million, over the same period. (RVCC is not a 501 (c) (7) organization, which allows it to benefit from additional revenue streams that include Oregon Lottery machines in its game room, and paid advertising in its Club Life magazine.)
• Capital revenues increasing from $150,000 to $750,000.
• Member dues increasing from $2 million to $4 million.
• Club F+B increasing from $2 million to $3 million, despite the significant dent put in banquet revenues by the pandemic.

Perhaps the most significant number of all, however, Damerval feels, is that RVCC now has 20 distinct amenities to offer, when it previously had 11. And it will become increasingly important to leverage the value of all that has been added, he feels, as the club enters a new phase where it will seek to emphasize “quality over quantity” as it confronts “tough decisions” about seeking further growth while properly serving and satisfying the existing membership.

To that end, Damerval wants to move into a new phase of strategic assessment, to look at how the club and its facilities should continue to evolve over both the short and long term. The first round of “West Wing” changes, he says, really represented something of an experiment, to determine which of the three new offerings (fitness, sports bar and game room) would prove to have the strongest appeal and might eventually merit an enhanced presence. And concepts for those eventualities have already been prepared, so they can be ready to present to the membership if and when the time and conditions are right. 

Drawing again on his experience working at other distinguished clubs, Damerval sees no reason why RVCC couldn’t also eventually have a barber shop, a spa as part of a full wellness center, or transform its pool area into an aquatics park. 

“We’re still the only private club in southern Oregon,” he says. “And Medford, while it’s grown, still only has so much to offer. It’s a lifestyle market, and we’re in the best position to have people want to spend much of their day here, taking a journey through the property to experience all that we can have it offer. We’ve already seen members tell us they’ve dropped their outside gym memberships because we added fitness.”  

AN ENDURING LEGACY

None of what has been accomplished to date or is still to come, Damerval emphasizes, could have been, or will be, achieved without the new direction that was set for the club by the leadership on its Board a few years back, when it became apparent that continuing to float rudderless might not let RVCC make it to its 100th year. In particular, Damerval credits Dave Filomeo,  a former Human Resources executive for Lockheed Martin who served as the club’s President from 2018-2021, for helping to elevate the Board’s progressive business mindset, as well as being a valuable personal mentor.   

Rogue Valley CC was saddened by Filomeo’s death as 2022 began, but the staff and membership has drawn solace from knowing that he saw the club have unparalleled growth and success under his leadership before his passing. 

Just as Dick Fosbury experienced when he first revealed his new idea for how to jump higher, there was certainly some initial skepticism and even scorn about how the changes planned for RVCC would go over. 

“There was some comment and concern that we might be turning the club into a carnival,” laughs Rich Shorkey, the Board’s Treasurer.  “But I think it’s pretty clear now that all we’ve done is make the changes that will help make sure we remain a club that’s right for the times, for many years to come.” 

At a Glance:

Rogue Valley Country Club
Medford, Ore.
Founded: 1924
Ownership: Member-owned
Membership: 1,230 (580 Golf, 650 Social)
Gross Revenue: $10M
Golf Course Design: Chandler Egan
Annual Rounds of Golf: 54,000 (27 holes)
Main Clubhouse: 40,000 sq. ft.
Tennis, Golf, Pool Buildings: 40,000 sq. ft.
General Manager: Thor L. Damerval, CCM
Clubhouse Manager: Hannah Dawson
Golf Course Superintendent: Craig Hilty
Head Golf Professional: Tracy Snyder
Executive Chef: Sean Sims
Membership & Marketing Director: Erika Reyes
Controller: Darren Olson

C+RB