Skip links

The Strategic Role of Recreation in the Private Club: Desert Mountain Club

Desert Mountain Club exists in the higher elevations of the Sonoran Desert in Scottsdale, Arizona, just outside metro Phoenix.  Having been designated a Platinum Club of America consistently since 2000, the club occupies a place among the country’s most elite private clubs.

Situated on 8,000 acres, the club has just over 2,000 members and offers six Jack Nicklaus Signature golf courses, the most of any private club in the world. Paul Wutz, the club’s president, recognizes the scale, saying the community is, “in essence, a small city.” While Desert Mountain’s reputation for great golf will continue to attract those who love the game, the decline in avid golfers, the oversupply of private golf and country clubs, and a younger demographic that is more family-focused and health conscious are bringing important adjustments and strategic re-calibrations. The tagline one increasingly sees positioned alongside the Desert Mountain Club name is “Great Golf is Just the Beginning.”

 Desert Mountain Club has employed three key initiatives as it has sought to drive growth and maintain its strong financial footing. They include:

Broaden the parameters of membership: Developer clubs have featured high-end housing and top-notch golfing for several decades. Though it has been a winning formula in the past, it is now morphing into interesting versions of the original core concept.

Desert Mountain is a prime example, having been owned by three different commercial real estate firms over a span of 25 years. It was not until late 2010 that Desert Mountain became a member-owned club. The challenge: where to find new members.

Fortunately, the southwest in general and the greater Phoenix area in particular draw many new residents from throughout the U.S. and beyond. But with this influx of potential members comes a much greater diversity of family types and a wider set of preferences for recreational and lifestyle amenities. Golf will satisfy some, but what about the others?

Desert Mountain has enhanced its approach to membership accordingly. No longer does membership require property ownership. It now includes categories reflecting different preferences and circumstances: there is an Equity Golf Membership, but also an Equity Club Membership-Lifestyle as well as an Equity Junior category—each priced accordingly.

Diversify and expand beyond golf: As Desert Mountain has broadened its target market for membership, it has also implemented a range of initiatives and programs that bolster a more expansive and inclusive value proposition. The club’s need for renewal, membership growth and continued financial stability means that it must succeed in both attracting these new members and successfully retaining them over the long haul. Thus the moniker: “Great Golf is Just the Beginning.”

Appropriate for a full-service private club with a family-focus, Desert Mountain offers premium facilities to support tennis, fitness and swimming. The Desert Mountain Tennis Complex, which has been called “Wimbledon of the West” in tennis circles, has it all: hard, clay and grass playing surfaces complemented by keep-cool amenities like misters and chilled bottled water and architectural accents that include a pergola for each court. Programming also offers instruction, interclub competition and frequent junior clinics.

Indeed children and their recreational needs are especially well served with their own Youth Activity Center. Special family-oriented events stretch across the calendar year: springtime egg hunts, the Halloween carnival, the Thanksgiving Tiny Turkey Trot and the winter holiday party. The club’s weeklong youth camps are especially well conceived and timed to draw not just the children of members, but also grandchildren and other extended family and friends from beyond this desert community. Youth camps with appealing themes like spring break camp, winter sports camp and junior olympic summer sports camp add to Desert Mountain’s considerable drawing power and its image as a highly desirous lifestyle community.

The recreation offerings are well suited to the climate and geography of the area. An award-winning, 15-mile trail system gets people out hiking and biking. The Ranch, a new amenity at one of the community’s highest elevations that opens later this year, will offer horseback riding, luxury outback camping and other outdoor activities. The club’s environment encourages an active lifestyle and healthy living. Spa, fitness and resort-style pools combine to reduce stress and approach wellness from yet another direction. The accent on personal development also finds expression in this large community with an active club-within-a-club scene that focuses on all manner of topics and interests from art and culinary to photography and desert wildlife.

Champion golf in new ways: All this is not to suggest that golf has been shed as an important organizing principle for the community. The Desert Mountain brand is strengthened by its association with Jack Nicklaus. The club has hosted professional golf events in the past and currently is one of the sites for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on the Champions Tour.

The club also has a substantial commitment to golf instruction and training as expressed by the 2012 opening of a $1.6 million golf performance center, named after one of the game’s legendary teachers, Jim Flick, who was Desert Mountain’s PGA director of instruction from 1987-2005. The facility features the most advanced technology available in the industry today—all in one location. Director of Golf Mike Scully explains that the club “plans to expand the center’s services to integrate golf with fitness training in order to help members play better, enjoy the game and improve their physical conditioning.” The facility includes 3-D motion capture, Doppler radar and four-camera video motion analysis to help golfers of all skill levels improve and understand their game.

With its sizable investments in golf and its high profile as a golf mecca, Desert Mountain also recognizes its own self-interests align with a larger obligation to boost the popularity and accessibility of the game. Club COO Bob Jones clearly understands the need to engage the “less-intense” golf player, to cultivate and enhance the recreational dimension of the game, especially for the beginner and the occasional player, but also for youth, women and seniors. He has the full support of the Jack Nicklaus team in doing this. At a recent member event, Jack Nicklaus spoke effectively and persuasively of how golf can adapt in clever and innovative ways to make the game more fun. Special focus has been on reducing the time commitment golf has traditionally required, while also bolstering its social aspects. Some of these adaptations are also making their way into the course design with new forward tees across all six of its courses.

Find the need and fill it

Desert Mountain Club demonstrates that a large club can also be a nimble and adaptive one. Its past successes did not necessarily guarantee future success, so management and members became increasingly active and intentional in shaping that future. Demographic and economic changes influence the preferences and habits of people. As the trajectory of old behaviors gets altered and as new trends emerge, clubs must strike the right balance between preserving existing assets and finding both adaptive and innovative responses. It takes vision to see a new future that mirrors the changing landscape of opportunity. This change is often uncertain, but it is always inevitable.

Club Trends Summer 2014

X