After nearly 40 years of memberships at Ridgemark Golf and Country Club, change is coming to the once-community-owned golf course.
For the first time in the club’s history, Ridgemark – a 36-hole facility – will be fully open to the public, allowing golfers to play both the Diablo and Gabilan courses on the same day, said Ridgemark’s Director of Golf Bruce Lewis. The change will be effective July 1.
“We continue to lose members,” Lewis said. “They are getting older and there hasn’t been another generation to come in because of the economy. People don’t want to make that financial commitment.”
In the past 10 years, the club’s membership has dwindled from a high of 450 to less than 175 today. Members’ perks included use of one of the two Ridgemark exclusively, away from the public. The designated public and private courses rotated daily. But with less members and more public interest, it was time to change the club’s business plan, club president Alex Kehriotis said in a letter to the members.
In the letter – dated May 31 – Kehriotis states that “the current level of Membership simply does not support having its own course each day.”
“I understand that this is a major change for Ridgemark, and will come as a shock to many of you,” Kehriotis writes. “But this is a change for necessity, and with change comes progress.”
Kehriotis, along with John Kehriotis, of JMK Golf LLC, purchased the property’s deed from Fremont Bank and the members in 2009, after the course’s board agreed to file for bankruptcy. The owners kept the membership program alive until it was no longer feasible.
“You can’t continue doing the same thing and not expect the same results,” Lewis said. “You have to be very proactive. And the number of rounds on the private side is so few, it doesn’t justify the cost of the golf course. We had public people that wanted to play.”
Instead of a membership program, the course will introduce an “Annual Card Program.” Under the new program, the monthly fee will drop to $199 per month – down from $340. The benefits include no initiation fees, half-priced range balls and three free guest passes per year.
The new program will be available to the public and past Ridgemark members.
Members, though, will not receive preferred treatment on tee times and will have to schedule in advance, Lewis said.
“It’s first come, first serve,” he said.
The change does not affect the Ridgemark Tennis Center.
Look for more soon.
