The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(December 2020) |
A country club is a privately-owned club, [1] often with a membership quota and admittance by invitation or sponsorship, that generally offers both a variety of recreational sports and facilities for dining and entertaining. Typical athletic offerings are golf, tennis, and swimming. Where golf is the principal or sole sporting activity, and especially outside of the United States and Canada, it is common for a country club to be referred to simply as a golf club. Many country clubs offer other new activities such as pickleball, and platform tennis.
Country clubs are most commonly located in city outskirts or suburbs, [2] due to the requirement of having substantial grounds for outdoor activities, which distinguishes them from an urban athletic club.
Country clubs originated in Scotland [3] and first appeared in the US in the early 1880s. [4] Country clubs had a profound effect on expanding suburbanization [5] and are considered to be the precursor to gated community development. [4]
Country clubs can be exclusive organizations. In small towns, membership in the country club is often not as exclusive or expensive as in larger cities where there is competition for a limited number of memberships. In addition to the fees, some clubs have additional requirements to join. [6] For example, membership can be limited to those who reside in a particular housing community. Early clubs focused primarily on equestrian-related sports: coaching, racing, jumping, polo, and foxhunting. In the 1980s, the nationwide interest shifted more towards golf. [1]
Country clubs were founded by upper-class elites between 1880 and 1930. [7] [8] The Brookline Country Club was founded in 1882 and is esteemed to be the nation’s first by the Encyclopaedia of American Urban History. [1] By 1907, country clubs were claimed to be “the very essence of American upper-class.” [5] The number of country clubs increased greatly with industrialization, the rise in incomes, and suburbanization in the 1920s. [5] During the 1920s, country clubs acted as community social centers. [5] When people lost most of their income and net worth during the Great Depression, the number of country clubs decreased drastically for lack of membership funding. [5]
Historically, many country clubs were "restricted" and refused to admit members of specific racial, ethnic or religious groups such as Jews, African Americans and Catholics. [9] Beginning in the 1960s civil rights lawsuits forced clubs to drop exclusionary policies. [10] [11] In a 1990 landmark ruling at Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club, the PGA refused to hold tournaments at private clubs that practiced racial discrimination. [12] This new regulation led to the admittance of black people at private clubs. The incident at Shoal Creek is comparable to the 1966 NCAA basketball tournament, which led to the end of racial discrimination in college basketball.
The Philadelphia Cricket Club is the oldest organized country club in the United States devoted to playing games, [13] while The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts is the oldest club devoted to golf. [14]
In the United Kingdom, many country clubs are smaller than those in the USA though examples similar in size and scope to the American country club also exist. Gentlemen’s clubs in Britain—many of which admit women while remaining socially exclusive—fill many roles of the United States' country clubs.[ citation needed ]
Similar to the United States, Spain has had a tradition of country clubs as a pillar of social life. [15] [16] This began during the reign of Alfonso XII and was consolidated during the reign of his son and successor Alfonso XIII, who granted royal status to a handful of country clubs. Most country clubs in Spain are typically associated with the upper classes, and were conceived around a central sport such as golf, polo or tennis, although some of them did eventually offer other sports. [17] Examples include Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro, Club de Campo Villa de Madrid, Real Club de Polo de Barcelona, Real Sociedad de Golf de Neguri, Real Club Pineda etc. Many of them are also located in those cities or towns that hosted the summer vacations of the royal family. Such is the case of Real Sociedad de Tenis de la Magdalena, Real Golf de Pedreña or Real Golf Club de Zarauz for example. [18] The most notable difference between Spanish and American country clubs is that the former are not normally located in the countryside but either within a city or town itself or in the outskirts at most.[ citation needed ]
Many of the gentlemen's clubs established during the British Raj are still active in major cities, for example the Bangalore Club, Lahore Gymkhana, Karachi Gymkhana, Nizam Club, and Bengal Club.
Gymkhanas are sporting or social clubs across the subcontinent.[ citation needed ]
Country clubs exist in multiple forms, including athletic-based clubs and golf clubs. Examples are the Breakfast Point Country Club, Cumberland Grove Country Club and Terrey Hills Golf & Country Club in Sydney, [19] the Castle Hill Country Club, [20] the Gold Coast Polo & Country Club, The Heritage Golf and Country Club, Elanora Country Club, [21] and the Sanctuary Cove Golf & Country Club. [22]
In Japan, almost all golf clubs are called "Country Clubs" by their owners.[ citation needed ]
Alfonso XIII, also known as El Africano or the African due to his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He became a monarch at birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.
A club is an association of people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities. There are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.
Pepperdine University is a private Christian research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, California. Founded by entrepreneur George Pepperdine in South Los Angeles in 1937, the school expanded to Malibu in 1972. Courses are now taught at a main Malibu campus, three graduate campuses in Southern California, a center in Washington, D.C., and international campuses in Buenos Aires, Argentina; London, United Kingdom; Heidelberg, Germany; Florence, Italy; and Blonay – Saint-Légier, Switzerland.
A gentlemen's club is a private social club of a type originally set up by men from Britain's upper classes in the 18th and succeeding centuries.
The Madras Gymkhana Club (MGC) is an elite social club in Chennai, India, which was founded in 1884 to promote sports and social and cultural activities. It owns and operates one of Chennai's two 18-hole golf courses, one of Asia's oldest courses. Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala published The Glory Years, a coffee-table book commemorating the club's 125th anniversary, in 2009.
A social club may be a group of people or the place where they meet, generally formed around a common interest, occupation or activity. Examples include book discussion clubs, chess clubs, country clubs, final clubs, fishing clubs, gaming clubs, women's clubs, gentlemen's clubs, hunting clubs, military officers' clubs, political clubs, religious clubs, science clubs and university clubs. The term can also refer to a criminal headquarters, such as the Ravenite Social Club or the Cage.
Pilar is a city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina with a population of 299,077 as per the 2010 census [INDEC]. It is part of the Greater Buenos Aires urban conurbation and is the seat of the administrative division of Pilar Partido. Since the early 1990s, Pilar has gained an increasingly upscale profile due to the development of numerous gated communities, country clubs and polo fields.
A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports.
The Pepperdine Waves are the athletics teams of Pepperdine University, located outside the city of Malibu, California. They compete at the Division I level of the NCAA. The school is a member of the West Coast Conference for the majority of its programs. Pepperdine University was recently ranked by the Sears Cup as having the most successful athletic program for non-football Division I schools. Pepperdine University sponsors seventeen NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics teams. There are also several intercollegiate sports clubs such as men's soccer, men's and women's lacrosse, surf team, Ultimate Frisbee and men's rugby.
Digital inheritance is the passing down of digital assets to designated beneficiaries after a person’s death as part of the estate of the deceased. The process includes understanding what digital assets exist and navigating the rights for heirs to access and use those digital assets after a person has died.
The Real Sociedad de Tenis de la Magdalena, commonly known as El Tenis de Santander and familiarly as El Tenis, is a private country club in Santander, Spain. Founded by king Alfonso XIII and a group of noblemen in April 1906, it is one of the oldest country clubs in Spain.
The Royal Spanish Tennis Federation, officially known as Real Federación Española de Tenis (RFET) in Spanish is the national governing body of tennis in Spain. Established in 1907, the federation oversees the development, regulation, and promotion of tennis at both the amateur and professional levels throughout the country. The Royal Spanish Tennis Federation is a member of the regional association Tennis Europe and is recognized by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Spanish government as the authoritative body for tennis in Spain. The organization is also responsible for the Spanish Davis Cup team and the Spanish Fed Cup team. The federation headquarters lies in Barcelona.
Roehampton Club is a private members’ sports club in southwest London, England. It is set in 100 acres (400,000 m2) of parkland, close to Richmond Park. Originally established in 1901 as an officers’ polo club, Roehampton Club has sporting and leisure facilities including an 18-hole golf course, 28 tennis courts, two padel tennis courts, six squash courts, four croquet lawns, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a gym, a fitness studio, a health and beauty clinic and a bridge room.
Membership discrimination in California social clubs has been based on sex, race, religion, political views and social standing. In the late 1980s, a successful effort was made in many of the clubs to open up membership first to racial or religious minorities and then to women. Strictly private clubs that are not open to the public, and for which tax exemptions are not claimed, maintain their right to discriminate on the basis of sex or race, and all clubs can discriminate on the basis of social standing.
The Royal Bangkok Sports Club is an exclusive sports club in Bangkok, Thailand, best known to the public for its horse racing venue. Founded in 1901, it was the first racecourse in the country and one of the oldest golf courses. Originally serving Western expatriates and Thai aristocrats, the club was at the centre of development in the introduction of modern sport to the country during the early 20th century. The club has since maintained its exclusivity, and has a reputation as a domain of high society.
Jewish country clubs are country clubs whose members are predominantly Jewish, having been excluded from other elite social clubs during periods of rising anti-Semitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a result, many major cities across the United States have at least one Jewish country club and, in cities with larger Jewish populations, often more than one, founded by wealthy Jews in that era.
Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro, commonly known as Puerta de Hierro, is a private country club based in Madrid, Spain. It owes its name to the nearby iron memorial arch. Notorious for being associated with the royal families of Europe and the long-established elite, American President Gerald Ford called it "the club of kings and the king of clubs".
The San Sebastián Recreation Club was the name of the football section of the Real Club de Tenis de San Sebastián club based in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain. It was the first football club in the city and in 1905, they participated in the Copa del Rey.
Alfonso Macaya Sanmartí (1878–1950) was a Spanish football executive and businessman. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the amateur beginnings of football in Catalonia since he was the fundamental head behind the foundation of Hispania AC in 1900, and then serving the club as its honorary president, a position from which he played a pivotal role in the promotion and creation of the Copa Macaya, the first football championship played on the Iberian Peninsula, and the forerunner for the Catalan championship which began in 1903. He also chaired the Catalan Tennis Federation (1906–09) and even held the presidency of the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona from 1929 to 1935.
Patsone v. Pennsylvania, 232 U.S. 138 (1914) was a U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Pennsylvania’s Act of May 8, 1909, deeming it unlawful for "unnaturalized foreign born residents" to kill wild animals, except for when defending their property or person and only by means of a pistol; the Pennsylvania statue barred unnaturalized foreign born residents from possession of shotguns or rifles for any reason. Although the case was directly addressing Second Amendment rights of noncitizens in the context of wild game, it also brought forward discussions of Fourteenth Amendment rights for noncitizens, State’s rights to wildlife, and symmetry of justice.