Should a country club offer non-resident memberships?

A country club should offer non-resident memberships only when its peak tee sheet has spare capacity and its local waitlist is short or empty, and then as a capped, fenced tier. Dunes West Golf and River Club’s January 2026 rate sheet prices non-resident golf at $124 a month against $325 for its local golf membership, with a 32-round yearly limit.

Rules of thumb (each one is sourced or arithmetic from the worked example below):

• At Dunes West’s published 2026 rates, one local golf member’s dues ($3,900 a year) equal about 2.6 non-resident members ($1,488 a year each).
• On a 400-member roll with a 10% cap, the tier earns $59,520 a year, and about 15 local members downgrading by address into capped places would erase it.
• Fence the tier three ways: a distance or county rule, a yearly rounds limit (Knollwood Club uses 10 rounds per person, Dunes West 32), and no vote.
• Nearly two thirds of US golf facilities told the National Golf Foundation they are at or near capacity, so check your own tee sheet before assuming you have room.
• Write the route back to full membership into the rules before the first non-resident joins.

Should a country club offer non-resident memberships? The Non-Resident Capacity Test

The decision turns on two things a club already measures: how full the peak tee sheet is and whether local people are waiting to join. A non-resident member pays less than a local member, so the tier only adds money when it fills slots no local would have bought. Run the test on weekend mornings in your busiest season, where non-residents and locals compete.

The utilization bands, waitlist bands and caps above are LeadsNow’s assumption bands, not an industry benchmark: no public survey we could find publishes a tee-sheet or waitlist threshold for opening a non-resident category. Replace them with your board’s own numbers. The direction is supported by club practice: a PGA professional writing for Golf Life Navigators notes that many Southwest Florida clubs opened their gates to outsiders in 2009-2010 and that most of them are now beginning to limit non-resident memberships as they fill.

Frequently asked questions about non-resident country club memberships

Should a country club with a waitlist offer non-resident memberships?

Often no. If local applicants are already waiting, every non-resident slot is a slot a full-dues local could have filled. Club Benchmarking found 44% of 250 private golf clubs had a waitlist in May 2021, as reported by Golf Life Navigators. Keep a transfer-only route for existing members who move away instead.

How far away should a non-resident member live?

Published rules range from an adjacent county at Dornick Hills Country Club to 100 miles at Knollwood Club and 150 miles for CordeValle’s Charter National membership. Pick the distance at which a member could not realistically play weekly, and test it against your own member addresses.

How much should non-resident dues be?

Dunes West Golf and River Club’s January 2026 rate sheet lists $124 a month single for non-resident golf against $325 for its Charleston golf membership, about 38%, with a 32-round yearly cap. No industry survey of non-resident dues ratios was found, so price against your own rounds limit.

Do non-resident members get to vote?

At many clubs they do not. Knollwood Club’s 2020 by-laws say a non-resident member has no equity ownership, may not propose new members, hold office or vote. Your own by-laws decide this, so check them, and take legal advice before changing member rights.

What happens if a non-resident member moves back to the area?

Write the route back into the rules before you sell the tier. Knollwood Club’s 2020 by-laws let a member who transferred to non-resident status re-apply for their old category by paying the lesser of the admission-fee difference or the cumulative dues difference, and put them at the top of the waiting list if no slot is open.

How do clubs define who counts as a non-resident?

Clubs draw the line with a county boundary or a mileage radius, and the published rules vary widely. The table shows four real designs, each from the club’s own page or document.

A county rule is easy to verify from a driver’s license or tax record; a mileage rule tracks real travel time better but invites disputes about whose map is right. Knollwood’s design is the tightest: it is a transfer status for people who already belonged, not a door for new outsiders.

What should non-resident dues be compared with full membership?

At Dunes West, non-resident golf dues of $124 a month are about 38% of the $325 single Charleston golf membership and about 35% of the $357 Premier resident rate, according to the club’s rate sheet (rev. 1-2026). That discount is paired with the 32-round cap: a non-resident who plays every round they are allowed pays about $47 a round in dues ($1,488 / 32 = $46.50), before cart fees.

No industry survey of non-resident dues ratios turned up in our research, so treat Dunes West as one published example, not a norm. Set your ratio from your own data: divide a typical local member’s yearly dues by the rounds they play, then price the non-resident tier so its dues per allowed round are not far below that figure. Initiation is a separate decision, covered in our guide to country club initiation fees.

Worked example: what a capped non-resident tier earns, and what can wipe it out

A capped tier earns modest money, and the main risk is local members gaming the address rule to pay less. Take an illustrative club with 400 local golf members at Dunes West’s Charleston single rate and a non-resident tier at its non-resident rate. The roll size, cap and rounds per local member are assumptions; the two dues figures are published.

• Local golf dues: $325 x 12 = $3,900 a year. Non-resident dues: $124 x 12 = $1,488 a year.
• Replacement ratio: $3,900 / $1,488 = 2.6 non-residents to match one local member’s dues.
• Cap at 10% of the roll: 40 non-residents x $1,488 = $59,520 a year.
• Each local member who downgrades by moving an address on paper pays $3,900 – $1,488 = $2,412 a year less, and by taking one of the 40 capped places also shuts out a genuine non-resident, so the club loses the full $3,900. About 15 such downgrades ($59,520 / $3,900 = 15.3) erase the tier’s whole income.
• Tee-sheet load: 40 x 32 rounds = 1,280 rounds a year at most. If locals average an assumed 60 rounds each (24,000 rounds), the tier adds up to 5.3% to play, concentrated wherever non-residents can book.

The arithmetic is why the fences matter more than the price. Cannibalization works the same way it does for social categories, which our page on whether golf clubs should offer social memberships tests in detail; the non-resident version adds the address loophole.

How to stop local members gaming the non-resident rule

Most of the protection comes from writing the eligibility test so it can be checked once a year, not argued case by case. Practical fences, drawn from the published club rules above:

• Primary residence, evidenced. Rockport Country Club’s by-laws (Texas) decide resident or non-resident status by the member’s Homestead Exemption designation. A tax record or driver’s license address can be checked; “spends most of the year elsewhere” cannot.
• A rounds limit with an upgrade trigger. Dunes West offers the upgrade when a member reaches 32 rounds, which turns heavy use into a sales conversation instead of a dispute.
• Annual dues in advance. Knollwood bills non-resident dues in January, which makes a mid-year switch to cheaper status less attractive.
• No transfer on the way in for current locals. Require a minimum period of real non-residence before a current member can transfer.
• Reduced governance rights. No vote and no office, as at Knollwood, so the category cannot reshape the club it pays less into.

Changes to member classes are governed by your by-laws; this is general information, so take the club’s own legal advice before amending them.

The reactivation step: members and prospects who moved away

The cheapest non-resident members to recruit are people who already know the club: members who relocated and resigned, and waitlist or tour prospects who moved before a slot opened. Before advertising the tier, pull three lists and contact them in order:

1. Resignations citing a move in the last three to five years. Offer non-resident status with the written route back.
2. Current members with a known move date. Offer a transfer instead of resignation, as Knollwood’s by-laws do.
3. Prospects who toured or joined the waitlist and later gave an out-of-area address.

Spell out the return path. Knollwood lets a transferred member re-apply for their old category by paying the lesser of the admission-fee difference or the cumulative dues difference, and puts them at the top of the waiting list if no regular slot is open. The outreach itself is the same work as winning back lapsed members, described step by step in how to reactivate lapsed club members.

What running a non-resident tier yourself takes

A membership director can run the tier in-house with a spreadsheet, the tee-sheet report and a few hours of calling each month. The work is an annual eligibility check, a quarterly look at non-resident rounds against the cap, and steady outreach to the reactivation lists.

The part that often slips is follow-up: former members and distant prospects rarely reply to one email, and a director balancing local tours lets them go cold. If your club is at the waitlist end of the capacity test, you need none of this, and our membership waitlist strategy guide is the better read. If you have open capacity and want more local full members first, start with how to sell country club memberships, or compare outside help in our list of lead generation agencies for country clubs, where LeadsNow books calls using AI calling, SMS and DM follow-up and is paid through a revenue share, a fee per appointment, or a mix of both.

Sources

1. Dunes West Golf and River Club, Non-Resident Club Membership Information (rate sheet, rev. 1-2026)
2. Knollwood Club By-Laws, revised 2020
3. Dornick Hills Country Club, Club Membership
4. CordeValle, Golf Membership
5. Rockport Country Club Members’ Association By-Laws, effective March 2018
6. National Golf Foundation, Is Private Golf Driving Record Rounds?
7. Golf Life Navigators, Residential vs Non-Residential Golf Memberships
8. Golf Life Navigators, Private Club Waitlists: Will Prospects Join or Move On?