Waiting lists and joining fees are coming back to golf clubs

Back in the day, when seeking to join a club, many golfers will be able to recall the experience of having been required to pay an initial fee in addition to the annual membership cost. 

These joining fees were controversial in some quarters, but the argument was that they served to provide evidence of a firm commitment to the club, with the revenue also contributing to essential works and improvements that a prospective member would ultimately benefit from when they had become part of their new home from home.

And depending on the popularity and exclusiveness of the venue that you hoped to become a part of, there's a chance that you have would have waited years to even get in the door.

When the golf market began to contract and participation numbers dropped across the board, the likes of joining fees and waiting lists became less of a feature, but something unexpected happened that changed the picture entirely.

Why Have Waiting Lists Made a Comeback at Golf Clubs?

You don't need us to remind you of the pandemic and how that impacted daily life, but for golf, it was a gift in that it brought so many people either back to the game or into the sport for the first time as we all sought for ways to be active outside, and golf courses became the perfect location for some distanced socialising.

Consequently, tee sheets filled nationwide, the demand for a golf club membership soared, and that soon ushered in the return of these extra hurdles.

Some may argue that joining fees are exploitative and exist simply to extort more money from potential members, but the counter-argument is that where the demand outstrips capacity at certain clubs, then this and waiting lists are necessary to control the numbers and to ensure that courses don't become busy to the extent where tee time access becomes an issue for established members.

Whatever the truth of the argument, the reality is that fees and lists have made a comeback just when they were looking like being a relic of the past.

More Golf Clubs Are Introducing Joining Fees

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

Surveying golfers in 2023, we discovered that a decline in joining fees and waiting lists had been reversed in the first years after the pandemic struck, and there is growing evidence that this trend has only continued since.

Hillier Hopkins, a leading chartered accountant firm, is known for its Golf Club Survey Report, and their latest edition published earlier this year presented data on the existence of joining fees and waiting lists.

Surveying 79 members' clubs across ten regions in the UK, with 28% of those being located in London and the South East of England, it was found that 74% of these clubs in 2025 charged an entrance fee, a small increase on the 72% that was recorded in 2024.

These fees ranged from £140 to £9,300, with an average fee of £2,350 being required, which represents a significant increase on the £1,830 of the previous year.

Further demonstrating the direction of traffic, an additional 6% of the surveyed clubs have plans to introduce a charge in the future.

Increasing Number of Golfers Are Now on Waiting Lists

There was a 53% increase recorded for the clubs who had a waiting list, with an average number of 122 people being on these lists. That's a notable increase on the average of 53 that was seen in 2024.

Naturally, joining fees and waiting lists aren't a thing everywhere, but they are once again becoming more common. It could be viewed as a positive sign that clubs have memberships at capacity and feel that numbers need to be controlled, but the fear would be that such measures can be prohibitive to potential new members who may ultimately be lost forever if they can't get into the venue.

Capturing that perfect balance is a challenge for these clubs to solve.

Whether it's about greed or simply looking for ways to control numbers to ensure that the experience is ideal for existing members, depending on where you live and the courses you have an eye on, there's a chance that becoming part of a golf club is going to be a little bit harder than it was just a few years ago.