Playing into the wind: private clubs are making a comeback but must appeal to a rootless generation.

• Author: DuBay, Keith

It used to be, if you wanted to play a great golf course with smooth, manicured greens and velvet fair-ways, you had to join a country club. The golf boom of the 1990s ended all that, as suburbs built golf courses that rivaled the best private courses.

As a result, no private golf courses were built on the Front Range between 1985 and 2002, framed by the openings of Glenmoor and Bear Creek (1985) and Cherry Creek Country Club (2002), and not including Dave Liniger's Sanctuary course (1997), used mostly for charity and RE/MAX events.

Blame a more mobile technology-based society, the breakdown of working for one company all your life, the static avid-golfing populace and overall competition for the golfing dollar, but private golf club membership has struggled. In Colorado's mountain towns, high-dollar, exclusive private clubs pop up about every two years and appear to survive. But that's an entirely different market aimed at millionaires from other states who want a nice second or third home in an "exotic" locale.

On the Front Range, private clubs still compete hard for the domestic golfing dollar. While Castle Pines GC, Cherry Hills and Denver Country Club are always reputed to be full, clubs such as Meridian, the Country Club at Castle Pines and Inverness aren't turning away new members. The initial success of Cherry Creek Country Club, a remake of the old Los Verdes Golf Club that was redesigned by Jack Nicklaus and quickly sold out, proved there was a demand for private golf course memberships in the Denver area. Developers and investors took notice, and six private courses on the Front Range from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs have been built.

Still, the history of private golf courses in general is littered with casualties; many end up being public and/or are resold many times. Therefore, the jury is still deliberating the collective success of Pradera, Blackstone, Harmony and Flying Horse on the lower-expense end and Colorado GC and Ravenna on the pricey side. Another new course, Cougar Canyon in Trinidad, is planned to be private for residents and resort guests, but right now is taking public play.

"Whether they have staying power or not remains to be seen," said Ed Mate, executive director of the Colorado Golf Association. "It's very difficult to compete. The next generation of golfers isn't made up of country club people. Maybe they're finding a way to appeal to that generation."

Glenn Jacks, developer of the ultra high-end $500...