The Most Expensive Golf Club Memberships In The World

Some of the most private and elite clubs charge eye-watering sums of money to become a member...

Golf balls on bundles of money
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The most expensive golf memberships are charged at the most private and exclusive golf clubs. By definition, these elite private clubs like to keep their affairs private. This includes their membership fees.

These are not clubs you can rock up to the front desk and ask for a membership pack and the sheet with the membership fees for each category please. If, indeed, there is even a set fee.

I grew up in the Seventies and Eighties near Swinley Forest Golf Club, a club founded by the Earl of Derby. In those days, there was a membership list pinned up inside the front door. Headed by the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of York, it contained around 200 names.

The course is a superb Berkshire heathland one, with its famous Redan green 4th hole, and the food in the clubhouse was rightly famed as being equally superb. Her Majesty the Queen Mother would go to the club just to eat. “Oh don’t be silly, do sit down and get on with your meal,” she is reputed to have said when the diners stood up when she entered the room.

Swinley Forest clubhouse

Swinley Forest's clubhouse

(Image credit: Getty Images)

A neighbour of ours got to know a Swinley member on their daily train commute into London. Said neighbour was a keen golfer and a senior director of a multi-national company and, after about three months of 1st-class carriage sharing, he felt able to ask how much does it cost to be a member of Swinley.

“If you have to ask, you can’t afford it!” came the smiling reply.

Indeed, it was said locally that there was no set membership subscription. The club merely worked out what it cost them to run it and divided this among the members.

Swinley Forest's par-3 4th hole with its Redan green

Swinley Forest's par-3 4th hole with its Redan green

It was also rumoured that when the club needed an expensive new piece of machinery a raffle was held among the members, and the person whose name was drawn out paid the full cost of the machine.

But then many stories have attached themselves to Swinley, and some are undoubtedly not true.

Not many miles away from Swinley Forest is Queenwood, which is private to the point of secretiveness. The club does have a website, but you have to get permission from the club to access it.

A rumpus over how the club was being run resulted in a story appearing in the Sunday Times in April 2024 after members were informed of a subscription fee increase. The article stated that members had to pay £175,000 to buy a share in the club, and pay a one-off ‘playing privilege fee’ of £48,000. The annual subscription was £13,000, which the club was increasing by £2,160 that year.

Queenwood Golf Club

Queenwood Golf Club 

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The membership contains several celebrities, business tycoons and tour professionals. Ernie Els is a member, explaining that: “The practice facilities are so good they wouldn’t be out of place at a professional tour event and generally there are not many people around so I can concentrate fully on my game.”

The same Sunday Times article quoted the joining fee at Beaverbrook, another exclusive private club, which is on the former newspaper tycoon’s estate in Leatherhead in Surrey, as being £305,000, “which is believed to make it the UK’s most expensive course.”

Augusta National is probably, after the R&A, the most famous golf club in the world. Despite being so much in the public eye, through its hosting of The Masters, it has managed to remain secretive about club matters. No-one knows quite who all the Augusta members are, or how much it costs to be a member.

I have read it confidentially said that the joining fee is $40,000; also that it is $300,000... or some other figure. Fact is, no-one on the outside knows. That is exactly how the private, elite clubs like it to be.

Liberty National 2nd green

Liberty National 2nd green

(Image credit: Getty Images)

One club, said to be one of the most expensive in the world, where membership fees are published is Madison in La Quinta. It has a Tom Fazio-designed course which opened in 2007, which runs to 7,426 yards with a 143 slope rating. Part of a private residential golf community, the club has a membership cap at 225. The joining fee is $500,000 and the annual membership fee is $70,000.

Joining fees of around $500,00 are also said to be charged at some other US clubs, including Liberty National and Pine Valley in New Jersey.

However these hefty joining fees are still dwarfed by those rumoured to be charged at another club. At Shanqin Bay Golf Club in Hainan, China, the joining fee is said to be $1 million. There are also only said to be around 20 members – now that really is expensive and exclusive.

Roderick Easdale

Contributing Writer Roderick is the author of the critically acclaimed comic golf novel, Summer At Tangents. Golf courses and travel are Roderick’s particular interests. He writes travel articles and general features for the magazine, travel supplement and website. He also compiles the magazine's crossword. He is a member of Trevose Golf & Country Club and has played golf in around two dozen countries. Cricket is his other main sporting love. He is also the author of five non-fiction books, four of which are still in print: The Novel Life of PG Wodehouse; The Don: Beyond Boundaries; Wally Hammond: Gentleman & Player and England’s Greatest Post-War All Rounder.

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