Christian Eby | The Sentinel

Over the last year, Carlisle Country Club has seen its golfing membership grow from 160 to 240 members.

But with the sport’s popularity growing and the club surrounded by a competitive market, the club’s board wanted to reach new heights.

In January, the club took a major step in that process by partnering with Bobby Jones Links, an Atlanta, Georgia-based club management and advisory services company. The goal is to continue to grow club membership while also improving the club’s organizational structure, dining and beverage services and marketing strategies.

The partnership was announced in an April 6 news release. Bobby Jones Links began its work with the club Jan. 24.

“The board did extensive due diligence when vetting Bobby Jones Links for this partnership,” Rob Rahal, board president of Carlisle Country Club, said in the news release. “Ultimately, we decided they were the right choice to help streamline operations at Carlisle Country Club and take us to the next level, and we’re excited to begin seeing some positive changes and results with their assistance.”

“Carlisle Country Club is a terrific addition to the Bobby Jones Links family,” said Doug Hellman, president of business development for Bobby Jones Links. “We’re excited to be working with the board and on-site team to establish Carlisle Country Club as the ‘must join’ private club in the market.”

According to Rahal, the idea of partnering with a managerial company like Bobby Jones Links came to fruition in early 2021. The club received funding from its membership to strengthen its financial footing during that time, but the Carlisle Country Club board felt it lacked the expertise to manage a private country club.

Across a several-month span the board explored its options, including delving into larger club management companies than Bobby Jones Links. Ultimately, Bobby Jones Links’ positives outweighed any other considerations and the club obtained recommendations for the service through various connections.

Carlisle is the third addition to the Bobby Jones Links team this year and the first in Pennsylvania. Carlisle Country Club has been a mainstay in Cumberland County since 1924.

“They’re a much smaller organization,” Rahal told The Sentinel Thursday. “They’re almost like a boutique organization. They have 30 clubs that they manage versus 1,000. And we recognized and we felt we would get much more attention from say a Bobby Jones Links than we might from a much larger national competitor. And we were very attracted to the fact that it wasn’t one size fits all.”

Bobby Jones Links said it will gradually implement a plan that includes a focus on growing the club’s membership via different branches of business, including golf itself. Some of the plan has recently kicked into gear with Bobby Jones leasing new golf carts for the club, which officials said will save nearly $20,000 a year and $100,000 over a five-year period.

Additionally, Rahal said the club and Bobby Jones Links are set to take another step forward with the naming of the club’s incoming general manager as soon as May 1. Rahal said the club will also introduce a detailed business plan to the staff within the next week at its annual meeting. Employees who held a position prior to the transition have retained their jobs as well.

“The focus right now has been working with employees on training,” Rahal said, “making sure that your employees are giving the same level of customer service to the membership on a regular basis. We’ve gotten a lot of great long-time employees and it’s been very pleasing to a number of us to see them embrace the Bobby Jones Links brand.”

“They are very employee-centric and employee-focused in this market. And in this market, you need to be creative and find ways to make yourself, as they say, ‘The employer of choice.’”

Other focuses of the plan over time are to improve the club’s website and social media presence. The club prides itself in providing a “home away from home” atmosphere, and with Bobby Jones Links experience in the market, Rahal said the board feels the Atlanta-based company can reach a wider audience with that trademark.

In the next few months, the club also hopes to see an improvement in food and dining services, including the planning of banquets from its newly appointed membership and banquet coordinator. The club also aims to bolster its staffing for the larger events it plans to host, which includes banquets. The club’s swimming pool, which consists of six swimming lanes, will also remain in service.

They’re small entities toward the bigger picture, Rahal said. He expects to see positive results as soon as next year.

“I think you’ll see us grow from 240 full-golf memberships today, to 300 to 325 by sometime next spring,” Rahal said. “I envision a better food-beverage operation where I think they can help us really meet the needs of our membership … and I think the fact that we’re affiliated with Bobby Jones Links is going to enable us to attract employees as they see the momentum to the benefits from working with a group like Bobby Jones Links.”

Rahal said he’s eager to watch the growth of the club through the partnership.

“I’m most excited about seeing the club a year from now,” Rahal said, “being able to look back and see the growth of membership and see the employees embrace the change and seeing employees grow and the membership feel very good about what we’ve done in terms of bringing in Bobby Jones Links.”

To see the original article, visit cumberlink.com.