The Joy Of Belonging

By Bob Carney
Illustrations By Seymour Chwast October 2008

At the first private club I ever met, caddies played on Mondays from in front of the tees, the fear being we would gouge the pristine bent grass and destroy the entire character of the course. So it was a thrill to play public golf, where our money got us a place on top of the tees. My brother, two other caddie buddies and I would pull out a Rand McNally map of "greater" Detroit, search for a golf-flag icon, and drive the '66 Mercury to Livonia, River Rouge, Canton and Inkster to "hit the links." The suggestion that we'd one day belong to private clubs would have left the four of us howling. We were no cake-eaters.

I love public golf, and I completely get it if you think private clubs are stuffy, governed by idiots, slaves to petty restrictions or too expensive. My friend Allan recently announced that he'd quit his club because his annual dues translated to, in his words, "a round at Pebble Beach every time I tee it up." Allan spends his free time driving 13-year-old twins to track and cello competitions. When he can spring himself, paying for the occasional "country club for a day" works fine. He'll play good golf courses that way; some better than private ones.

Fifteen years ago, though, I went the other way and joined a club not far from my house. It's a 100-year-old, sensible A.W. Tillinghast course alongside tennis courts and near a big swimming pool, which I could locate if pressed. The clubhouse is large, white, creaky and full of artifacts that mark the club's history. Wandering around, you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself.

So here's the kicker: I'd recommend you do the same; join a private club, especially now when bargains abound.

Reason No. 1 is not how good it will be for your business. I don't know what your business is, and maybe you'd be better off in the office, or at your kids' track meet like Allan. For me, business is not what makes it worthwhile, though it's nice to show a client a golf course you love, or to meet members and their guests who know a whole lot about something you have no clue about -- internal medicine, for example. It's nice to know the right person to go to.

It's also not the fact that I still get excited to think that they let me in. You know the old joke about clubs. The first guy says, "Do you belong here?" and the second replies, "No, but I'm a member." Don't believe it. Belonging is a big deal, especially for an old front-of-the-tee caddie. Each time I walk into the shop and Brad the pro says, "Hi, Mr. Carney, playing today?" it tickles the hell out of me. I love the idea that someone caddies for me (and I might be able to help him out the way those Michigan members helped me). I love the idea that no matter what my son, a beginner, does to the perfect teeing ground, as long as I pour some seed in there, we're OK. I love the fact that we mostly play fast and the membership cares for the course and we can all sit and settle our bets under a champions board that dates to before my dad was born. And of course that the bar under it serves Guinness.

Bernard Darwin wrote that if the pleasure of belonging to a club is made up partly of vanity, "it is rather a humble vanity that is pleased at being elected to any body of our fellows."

Being accepted is part of it, but it's the people you're accepted with who make it worthwhile.

A guy like Red, for example. Red's my mortgage broker. Father of four boys. One of the first guys I met at the club. Big, tall guy with thinning red hair, broad smile. Plays every day he can, 7 a.m. on weekends, often with one of his boys. The world is Red's client. One- or 2-handicap. Little League coach. Always a smile, except maybe the year they disqualified him from the club championship for playing the course after the qualifying round with his wife.

Red was a good guy long before being a good guy helped him build a business. He's a guy you want your kids to meet, a guy who loves to talk golf and reads everything about it, a mainstay on the golf committee. The odd thing is, Red's from another town, and our families rarely spend time together at home. We don't have to. We've got the club.