“Joining a private club is not generally a financially sound decision.”
It’s not the sentence most general managers would use to describe the value of membership.
But for Ryan Lanzen, PGA, General Manager of Pinetop Country Club, it captures the responsibility clubs have to create something members can’t find elsewhere.
“It’s an investment in your life experience,” he says.
That perspective helps explain why many clubs continue investing in gathering spaces, family programming, and member experiences even as construction costs rise and labor remains challenging.
Members don’t join simply because they need a restaurant or a golf course. They join because they want a place where friendships form, traditions develop, and memories are created.
Lanzen sees that responsibility every day at Pinetop, a seasonal mountain club where many members spend summers escaping the Arizona heat.
Whether it’s a round of golf, dinner on the patio, or a club event, the goal isn’t simply providing an amenity. It’s creating experiences members will remember long after they’ve returned home.
“The club business is really about creating opportunities for members and families,” he says. “Whether they’re enjoying retirement or creating memories with their kids, we’re trying to provide the opportunities for those memories to exist.”
As clubs continue investing in new facilities and programming, it’s a reminder that members rarely reminisce about square footage or capital budgets.
They remember the experiences they had inside them.
