THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CLOQUET COUNTRY CLUB

CLOQUET COUNTRY CLUB

Minnesota's Worst Private Golf Course!

GOAL OF THIS WEBSITE

How bad was my Cloquet Country Club membership experience? It was so bad that I was willing to pay almost $1,000 to never play another hole on that dismal golf course.

Several idiots say that I made up all of my stories about the Cloquet Country Club and that I do not know what I am talking about when I discuss the serious problems with the Club's new back nine and the lack of proper maintenance on the entire course. Let me quote the Cloquet Country Club's Board president from his July newsletter statement in order to back up my claims. He was talking about repairs to damage on the back nine when he said, "It was disappointing to see what was actually under the sod that was taken off in order to do the repairs. In some areas, there was hard clay and in others the sod had been laid directly over class five gravel. Hopefully, this is not an indication of the entire back nine and the difficulties that our grounds crew has had in getting the grass to grow adequately. Bringing the back nine to a high quality level is going to take extra effort and resources and will require a number of years of work."

The course superintendent states in the same newsletter that the current season, "Has been a less than ideal season for our golf course."

I continue to believe that all of my statements about this dismal golf course are true and accurate.

I am not making anything up when I say that many people are leaving this dismal golf course. When I joined, the Club pro told me there were about 325 members. At my second annual meeting, the Club president said the breakeven point, based on operating as an eighteen hole golf course, was 325 paid memberships. Subsequent newsletters and the actual budget presented at the annual meeting referred to a breakeven point of 273 paid memberships. At the end of my first season, there were 290 paid memberships and 24 lifetime members who do not pay.

At the end of my second season, there were only 250 paid memberships and 23 non-paying lifetime members.

In February of my last season, the Club's membership committee reported in the newsletter that, "We are currently down thirty-four members from the end of last golf season," The math tells you that the Club had only 216 paid memberships in February of my last season, well below the breakeven points of 325 and 273 reported by the Board president.

CLEARLY, MANY MEMBERS ARE LEAVING THIS DISMAL GOLF COURSE.

The goal of this website is to inform Duluth area golfers about the Cloquet Country Club so they can avoid the negative experience I had after I joined this dismal club. If you want to enjoy golf, then the Cloquet Country Club is not for you.

After a couple of seasons of complaining to Cloquet staff and Board members about Cloquet management's inability and/or refusal to maintain the golf course and spend the money necessary to create good playing conditions, I resigned my membership. The Cloquet Country Club did not live up to its responsibility to provide a private country club golf experience. When I left, the Club owed me a paltry $125.00 for unused guest tickets I had purchased and they would not return my money even though I was forced to leave because they failed to honor their committments to me and their membership. Since then, they say that I owe them for the rest of a season I did not play ($965.32), even though I left because they failed to live up to their obligations. The dismal Club sued me and published my name on a list of their numerous deadbeats even though the gruesome deadbeats actually owed me.

DISCLAIMER INFORMATION:

This website is not operated by or affiliated with any golf course or organization. The views expressed on this website are the personal opinions of the volunteer webhost and are presented for entertainment purposes only.

DO NOT JOIN THE CLOQUET COUNTRY CLUB UNTIL YOU CONTACT ME TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS DISMAL GOLF COURSE

DULUTHIANS BEWARE

My recent letter to the Cloquet Pine Journal caused quite a stir with some of the Club's members. They were upset that someone from Duluth challenged the way they ran the Club and they did not want any Duluthians telling them what to do. Did I ever feel welcome there? NO! Maybe you will, but I sure did not feel like I was wanted. The Club was happy to get my money, but they never listened or responded in good faith to my concerns.

READ MY LETTER TO THE CLOQUET PINE JOURNAL BELOW:

STOP THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF THE CLOQUET COUNTRY CLUB

As another golf season comes to an end, I feel compelled to write about the rapid decline of Cloquet's former jewel -- The Cloquet Country Club. In July 2002, I joined the Club because of its beautiful front nine and my hopes that the new back nine would soon develop into a pristine Joel Goldstrand treasure. I was also impressed by the extremely friendly and courteous pro shop staff led by golf pro Steve Anderson and his family. After Mr. Anderson was forced to leave at the end of the 2002 season, the Club has been in a downward spiral created by its short-sighted management team. The Club changed dramatically at the beginning of the 2003 season. Most of the pro shop staff were rude and seemed bothered every time I called to schedule a tee time or came to golf at the Club. The Clubhouse's restaurant menu was no longer worthy of a convenience store deli. On one Friday at 5:00 p.m. in early 2004, the Clubhouse staff did not even know if their kitchen was open. How can you serve your membership and the public with this type of service?

The previous maintenance superintendent, Jud Crist, did a great job for many years developing the superb front nine fairways and greens I enjoyed in 2002. After Mr. Crist left, the course has not been maintained properly and playing conditions on both nines are not up to par with other local courses. The grass does not grow on the back nine's fairways and never will unless major changes are made in the Club's maintenance plan. The Club hired a construction company to build its new nine, but the company did not construct a soil and drainage base capable of supporting healthy golf course conditions. The Club attempted to save money during construction by purchasing sod that is so badly contaminated with thatch that water can not get through the thatch to nourish the roots. Instead of attempting to solve the back nine's problems with aggressive treatment efforts, the Club's management decided to dramatically reduce the budget for seed, fertilizer, chemical applications, and staff that could have created better fairways. Each year that I was a member, the Club lost between thirty and fifty members, a startling loss for a Club with a membership between 250 and 325 members. Some people left after the 2002 season because they did not like the way Mr. Anderson's situation was resolved by the Board. Others, including me, have left because of the course's rapidly deteriorating playing conditions and extremely slow play caused by management's refusal to stop people from playing in groups of five and six. It frequently takes three hours to play the front nine behind some of these people. Most people who work do not have the time to play golf at a six hour per round pace. In 2003 and 2004, the Club's management also reduced the hours of open playing time for members which forced even more people onto the course during open hours. I also encountered a lot of members who did not understand golf etiquette. I expected that private club members would behave better than municipal players, but I was wrong. I complained to the Club's management during the entire 2003 season and in 2004 until I resigned my membership on June 9. Nothing was ever done. I believe my concerns were never seriously considered by the Club's management because a small group of long time members controls the Board of Directors and they run the Club for themselves. They recruit new members because they want our money to help pay their bills, not because they want us to be real members. If you are a member, or a Cloquet resident who is proud of your community, and you want to help the Club end its downward spiral, please attend the Wednesday, October 27, 2004 Annual Meeting at the Clubhouse at 7:00 p.m. Call your friends and support a new slate of Board members you can trust to represent your interests instead of the interests of a few. At my first Annual Meeting in 2002. a small insurgency almost defeated the Board's hand-picked candidate for president. Organize quickly and you can protect the Club from its current management team.

I THINK MY LETTER WAS A POSITIVE STATEMENT ABOUT ALL THE CLUB COULD BE, NOT AN ATTACK TO DESTROY THE CLUB AS SOME IGNORANT PEOPLE BELIEVE. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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