Requiem for a Country Club

Berkleigh Country Club died last week. It ended by auction -- pin flags, tee markers, club championship boards, hole-in-one plaques and kitchen equipment. As collectibles go, we’re not talking the ’86 Masters, but for those of us who loved the modest Pennsylvania course, it was a sad occasion.
 
Berkleigh was 81 years old. People die at 81, not lush golf courses with rich history. At 81 they get curvier and prettier. So many clubs, though, struggle now, desperate for members and families. Who has time, what with kids and jobs and the Internet and TIVO and 300 channels? Who goes to dinner dances anymore? Dressing up these days means Lucky Brand jeans with a Banana Republic t-shirt.
 

My generation had kids later in life. And either because we really wanted to be better dads or were driven through societal pressure, we went to Little League baseball games and soccer matches on Saturday mornings, joining the fitness craze and the $70-a-month gyms instead of country clubs.
 
Today, I travel more than 20 weeks a year and because of my job get more than enough invites to quality clubs to keep me satisfied. Most guys I know play a couple of times a month, maybe at a high-end daily fee or as a guest at a nice club. Many of us know at least a few of the generous and fortunate who belong to great places, those with gilded reputations that put them beyond the reach of economic downturns.
 
Berkleigh suffered because it was situated midway between two declining, mid-sized Northeastern cities, Allentown and Reading. Immigrant Jews, having attained hard-won success in the 1920s but excluded from joining already established clubs, built The Berkleigh. Most of their children went to college and then into the family business.
 
After the Second World War, the Morts and Shirleys were eager to enjoy what appeared to be an uncomplicated life -- a good and steady job, a nice house, and some leisure time. It was that way with the Ozzies and Harrietts at predominantly Protestant clubs, the Nicks and Marias at predominantly Italian clubs, and the Franks and Kathleens at predominantly Irish clubs. Prejudice was more pronounced than it is today, and people sought status and comfort with their own kind. Country clubs flourished along with industries like steel and automobiles.
 
But the next generation after the greatest generation, with the flames of the ‘60s lapping at their backs, embarked on something of a Diaspora. Four Lerner boys live in four places -- New Jersey, Kentucky, Florida and the Philippines. By the ‘90s the handwriting at The Berkleigh was on the walls, the fairways and the greens. My father’s cronies had moved south or passed on. The doors that had been opened for some years to all faiths were slowly coming unhinged. The price of initiation had dropped considerably. Nothing worked. Deeply in debt and with a dwindling membership, the club was sold to a cement company earlier this year.
 
As with any passing, attempts to determine exactly what happened wrestle with reflection.
 
At 15, I hit my first really flush, wow-I-might-actually-be-able-to-play-this-game kind of drive at Berkleigh and I remember the moment vividly. Scant sunlight remained, but is there ever enough when you’re 15 and falling in love with golf? I was on the practice tee bangin’ balls with Tank and Halpo and Gilly and my brother, Theo. No one went by their real names; they still don’t, except in business. Thirty years later we’re all still pals.
 
The head pro, Jeff Steinberg, encouraged us while sitting on his golf cart. With a slight twang, he’d say, “Half the swang is physics.” We listened to his theories because he’d won a Pennsylvania State Open and because we liked the idea that we were students of the game even if we didn’t know a swing plane from an airplane.
 
I was fortunate to have received know-how from other men of character and wisdom, too. Once, in the darkness, Izzy Heicklin gave me a lesson on spot putting by shining the lights of his Oldsmobile on the practice green.