North Shore Golf Fall 2018

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Kernwood CC’s rebirth a lesson
in perseverance, adaptability
Gary Larrabee
garylarrabee.com
ernwood Country Club, the most beautiful country
K
club in the region, was in serious trouble in 2014,
its centennial year. Through a series of
circumstances beyond the club leadership’s
control, membership had dwindled from an ideal maximum
census of 275 golfers to 199. That’s a lot of revenue lost.
There was talk among the membership that the club might
have to experience drastic change in order to survive.
But thanks to a five-year strategic plan, now in its fourth year
of implementation, a plan created under the guidance of thenpresident
Jack King and current president Bruce Bial, the North
Salem club is back at peak financial health. The club, one of the
North Shore’s handful of five-star clubs boasting exceptional
historic credentials and an outstanding championship course,
happily enjoys its first waiting list since 1997.
Kernwood could have joined one of several other private
country clubs in the United States that in recent years has either
been sold to a golf club management company like ClubCorp
or, worse, been sold to a private entity that wished to turn
Kernwood’s sensational scenic acreage into house lots.
“We had too much going for us to get anything but a
satisfactory resolution to our situation,” Bial, in his third
year as president, reflected. “Our golf, social, community and
philanthropic history ran too deep. But I admit we had too
narrow a focus for quite a while there as to where our members
should come from, primarily Swampscott and Marblehead. We
broadened that focus to include virtually all points of the
North Shore.”
The club, proud of its roots as the first Jewish club in Greater
Boston (founded 1914), to some observers had taken its
membership market for granted and become complacent with
its deservedly lofty standing in the country club hierarchy.
Occupying the most eye-catching piece of property, originally
the Colonel Francis Peabody estate, among the North Shore golf
course/country club family, Kernwood should never have had
trouble keeping its golf membership at max level, even as it, and
other clubs, began diversifying its membership at the turn of
the century.
Other prominent North Shore clubs were watching their
census during this same period, but none had the eventual issues
that Kernwood encountered.
“I joined in 2006,” said Jack King, a retired Mobil/Exxon
executive who became the club's first non-Jewish president in
2014. “The club had very few non-Jewish members. Today the
membership is 50 percent non-Jewish, if not more. The club in
2006 already had been diversifying the membership, but by
2008 it didn’t matter. Between the financial crisis, with banks
STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE
collapsing, and the Bernie Madoff scandal, we experienced more
than the normal attrition rates for several years.”
The membership census continued to drop to the point the club
leadership, in a radical attempt to attract new members, made a
stunning reduction of more than 60 percent in the initiation fee.
“We knew that changes had to be made,” Bial said, “so we hired
an outside consultant to help facilitate the discussion. Change at
first was difficult but it was necessary. Renovation of the grille
room and adding a 14-seat bar was a huge step in changing the
culture of Kernwood. There had been no area of the club that
could be a coed social area. We had no place to watch the Masters
or a Red Sox game together as a club. “The club also changed
philosophically and is now open year round. The demographic
changed. Much of the membership no longer heads to Florida
soon after Labor Day, as had been the custom. The club is now
filled with many young professionals who have families that are
entrenched in the community."
King added that the board developed a five-year plan “that
covered every aspect of the club’s operation. We prioritized the
plan, and Bruce and I formed a partnership committing ourselves
to follow through on the plan once he succeeded me as president,
and four years later we have recovered beautifully.”
Bial added, ”we have two of the top professionals anywhere
in Frank Dully, our head golf professional, and John Eggleston,
our course superintendent. They run their departments in
outstanding fashion.”
“The prime issue for our future success thus lay with letting
people know Kernwood existed; that Kernwood was available for
the entire region’s golfers to be a part of. The restrictions that
were the basis for the establishment of clubs like Kernwood,
Belmont and Pine Brook were now backfiring, Kernwood needed
to be a diverse and thriving club.”
Kernwood’s plight, with a happy ending, is a reminder to all
golf clubs of the care that must be applied in continually
assessing their financial standing and immediate future.
“We were hanging on for some time,” admitted former club
president and 27-year member Scott Sagan. “We got some calls
from potential suitors, but I knew we’d survive and eventually
thrive. We’ve had a great turnaround. The membership clearly
understood our plight and played an active role in rejuvenating
the club with new members. Many of our new members came
from other area clubs.”
I’m partial to our area golf courses, especially the country clubs,
for the obvious reasons. Less obvious might be the following: 1)
they protect open space; 2) they create lots of jobs; 3) they provide
unique venues for social, political and business gatherings; all
significant benefits to the community. >>> P. 9
4 >>> FALL 2018