This week, we’re replaying a ST&TV “classic” (are we allowed to call it that???) At any rate, if not a classic, maybe it’s fair to call it an oldie but a goodie! We’re headed back to season 2 of ST&TV, to an “Extra Sugar” where we spilled the tea on country clubs. Throughout the segment, we learn about the history and breakdown some of the “-ism” claims Julia makes against Beaumont.
If you want to learn more, here were some of our sources:
More on the first U.S.-based country club, the Country Club of Brookline.
This article offers what can only be described as the most exhaustive history of the American country club.
This article from Boston Magazine includes some behind-the-scenes hot takes from right inside some of the most exclusive Massachusetts country clubs.
This article about a 2012 incident at Atlanta’s Piedmont Driving Club - which may have been the inspiration for Beaumont, in this episode of “Designing Women” - includes some proof of the mystique around exclusive club membership
This Golf Digest article talks about the Shoal Creek Golf Club controversy of 1990 and how it changed the face of racism in the golf club/country club world and professional golf.
Interested in country club life? If you’re interested in the most exclusive clubs, maybe check out this list with initiation fees and annual dues to decide if you can afford it. If you can, e-mail sweetteatvpod@gmail.com and we’ll give you our Venmo to float a little moola our way. J/K…ish.
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Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Nikki: Welcome to this week's edition of Extra Suga.
Nikki: Like I just mentioned, I'm calling today's segment the incredibly elite bonafide country club.
Nikki: Factory or fiction?
Nikki: In this segment, we're going to talk a little bit about the history of the country club.
Nikki: And then, more specifically, I wanted to dig into some of Julia's criticisms of the country club's proclivity toward the isms.
Nikki: So I'm specifically focusing on elitism, sexism, and racism.
Nikki: I want to preface all of this with saying there were about a million directions.
Nikki: I felt myself being pulled in on this particular extra sugar.
Nikki: There's just so many ways to take this, but I thought maybe focusing in on her allegations against the country club and trying to give some proof or disproof to those, maybe that feels more close to the.
Nikki: The meat of the episode.
Nikki: So that's the direction we're going.
Salina: Love it.
Nikki: First up, an important caveat.
Nikki: Selena, are you now or have you ever been a member of a country club?
Salina: No, I've been in a country club.
Nikki: Oh.
Nikki: Oh, my.
Salina: Oh.
Nikki: As a guest.
Salina: I mean, like, a few times.
Salina: As a guest.
Nikki: Oh, okay.
Salina: We've also, like.
Salina: I mean, I would.
Salina: I didn't go to this prom, but, like, our school had one.
Salina: Like, there was a country club that was right next to our school.
Nikki: Oh.
Salina: So, yeah, well, ho.
Salina: I'm like, well, I was living somewhere else.
Salina: I didn't live in that neighborhood, but my best friend Taylor did.
Salina: And we spent a lot of time over there, and we spent a lot of time.
Salina: I used to like to go roll down the hills at the golf course.
Nikki: Oh, my God.
Nikki: Oh, my girl.
Salina: You know, I'm classy.
Nikki: So that went about the direction I thought it was gonna go.
Nikki: I was 15.
Nikki: Go on.
Nikki: Incidentally, I'm sure it'll shock people to hear this.
Nikki: I also have never been a member of a country club, and I am not currently, so I know not of what I speak.
Nikki: I only know what I was able to glean from Wikipedia and news media.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: But I've tried to be really conscientious about the specific examples I've pulled out and sourcing my references because I do not want to accuse someone of something they didn't do.
Nikki: So I have references for all these things.
Nikki: So, with that in mind, how about we start with a history lesson?
Nikki: Love history, which I think is more interesting than it sounds like it will be.
Nikki: So, according to Wikipedia, a country club is a privately owned club, 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.
Nikki: Typical athletic offerings are golf, tennis, and swimming, where golf is the principal or sole sporting activity.
Nikki: And especially outside the United States, it's common for a country club to be referred to simply as a golf club.
Nikki: So throughout this segment, I'm going to kind of use those terms interchangeably.
Nikki: And that's why country clubs are most commonly located in city outskirts or suburbs, mostly because you need a lot of land to do the things they're doing.
Nikki: And that also distinguishes them from urban athletic clubs.
Nikki: So Wikipedia says the first country clubs first appeared in Scotland.
Nikki: And an American Heritage article I found said that country clubs then came about in the US because most rich in America in the post civil war era were british descended, and they wanted to mirror british aristocracy in the US, but they lacked the country house.
Nikki: The idea of british upper class spending the summer season on their vast family estates, because these were, you know, we didn't have an aristocracy in the US.
Nikki: They didn't have vast family estates, except for the Biltmore.
Nikki: Yeah, there you go.
Nikki: But like generations of estates.
Nikki: So they needed a place to unwind and also to show people how rich they were.
Nikki: So they soon found a way to do both.
Nikki: They call it the country club.
Nikki: So, the conscience.
Nikki: The country club of Brookline outside Boston, Massachusetts.
Nikki: A lot of country clubs claim to be.
Nikki: The first Brookline I saw in a few places was given that honor by a few different people.
Nikki: So I'm going with that one.
Nikki: And they themselves claim to be the first us based country club established in January 1882.
Nikki: An article I found said the club was founded by a group of socially elite men in Boston, 4 miles from Boston center.
Nikki: So once upon a time, 4 miles was considered the burbs.
Salina: Oh, well, when you're traveling by horse, I guess that makes sense.
Salina: And buggy.
Nikki: That's correct.
Salina: I have to get.
Salina: Just to comment.
Salina: That is later than I would have anticipated.
Nikki: Oh, really?
Salina: No reason.
Nikki: Just.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: I thought they had been around longer than that.
Nikki: Interesting.
Nikki: So it was originally.
Nikki: So Brookline was originally a summer attraction for those from the city, but it officially became suburban residences for many.
Nikki: Later, Brookline offered shooting, horseback riding, and even later, golf, which was experiencing a bit of a renaissance in the US at the time, having disappeared in the early colonial days.
Nikki: So one fun fact I'm going to drop in here is that in Brookline's early days, golf was prohibited by law on Sundays.
Nikki: One Sunday, more than 30 members were arrested for playing on a Sunday.
Nikki: So the club's influential members came together and persuaded the legislature to lift the ban.
Nikki: So who says money can't buy you happiness?
Salina: Oh, well, not me.
Nikki: So unlike downtown city clubs, Brookline and other country clubs also allowed women and children to participate.
Nikki: But membership was limited to men and by invitation only.
Nikki: In the early days at Brookline, dues were about $1,000 a year.
Nikki: The article I read about Brookline said by the turn of the century.
Nikki: So that would have been by the early 19 hundreds, there were over 1000 country clubs in the US, with at least one in every state and territory.
Nikki: So in those early days, the clubs were overwhelmingly derived of socially elite from major cities.
Nikki: And there was maybe unsurprisingly, a lack of diversity.
Nikki: Most members were white, anglo saxon Protestants, and that wasn't really an accident.
Nikki: And that's sort of where you get into some of Julia's claims about membership.
Nikki: Most of what I read said, money can't necessarily buy you membership into any country club.
Nikki: The American Heritage article talked pretty in depth about antisemitism in country clubs.
Nikki: According to the article, a prestigious country club in New York, the Union League club, had several jewish founding members.
Nikki: But after the civil war, anti Semitism rose as jewish immigration from Eastern Europe rose.
Nikki: And that's when there became a divide between Jews and Gentiles.
Nikki: They gave the example of a wealthy banker and member of the union League club who put his son up for membership.
Nikki: But the club didn't accept it.
Nikki: They said they didn't want any more jewish members.
Nikki: So, of course, that guy.
Nikki: They said they didn't want any more jewish members, but they were happy to keep the ones they had.
Nikki: That's wild, right?
Salina: Kind.
Nikki: So that dude, of course, was like, that's messed up.
Nikki: I'm resigning.
Nikki: I'm not gonna be part of this country club anymore.
Nikki: They kept him on their roles, though, for the rest of his life, even though he never went back.
Nikki: Oh, that's weird, right?
Salina: That's definitely weird.
Nikki: So as the Waspy country clubs were declining diverse membership, various groups started creating their own country clubs.
Nikki: The article said Springfield, Massachusetts, has four major country clubs.
Nikki: They said that the most prestigious, the Longmeadow Country Club, has a mostly WASP membership.
Nikki: The Springfield Country Club is comprised largely of wealthy Irish Catholic.
Nikki: The Crestview Country Club is exclusively jewish, while the Ludlow Low Country Club serves the lower middle class.
Nikki: The first country clubs with black memberships were founded in the 1960s.
Nikki: The American Heritage article talked about how bad racial discrimination was in country clubs.
Nikki: At the Chevy Chase Country Club in DC, black foreign diplomats in that's correct.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Chevy Chase is like a city around DC.
Nikki: Black foreign diplomats were allowed in, but black Americans were not.
Salina: Geez, this is like the one I did on World War Two with the soldiers.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: As the century came to a close, membership at clubs became more diverse, some by choice, some by force.
Nikki: American Heritage said in 1986, the Burning Tree Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, lost a 186,000 a year no development exemption because of discrimination against women.
Nikki: And it also made the point that by this time, the groups that led the fight for civil rights were joining country clubs, which led to change.
Nikki: So today it might be tempting to say that culture may be pushing country clubs into irrelevancy and, in turn, people away from the country club atmosphere.
Nikki: But a Boston magazine article says that waitlists for full membership are years long, membership dues are on the rise, and members are proud to belong.
Nikki: Perhaps most important, 30 somethings continue to apply and want in.
Nikki: So given that they're still relevant, given that they're a thing people want to do, I think we should talk about some of the ism claims about country clubs that were tossed around in this episode, and then whether there's any proof of truth.
Nikki: Okay, so we'll start with elitism.
Nikki: So that's, again, the idea of exclusivity, that idea that they come to you, not the other way around.
Nikki: And at least in the instance of the elite country and golf clubs, this definitely sounds like it holds true.
Nikki: So that Boston magazine article I mentioned a minute ago does a deep dive into Boston based country clubs, including Brookline, which was that first one I mentioned at the top of this segment, and then another one founded shortly thereafter called the country Club.
Nikki: It offers a fair amount of proof that this is the way things go down.
Nikki: Specifically, it talks about Tom Brady and Gisele Bunchen, who at one point in time were kind of the first couple of Boston and of Massachusetts, because he played for patriots.
Nikki: Thank you.
Nikki: They tried to get entry, and it took several years before they finally did, and apparently it raised some feathers.
Nikki: The article says that town and country magazine once wrote, in the course of the country club's history, the list of people who have been turned away could well rival the fame of those it has accepted.
Nikki: So on this note, the Piedmont driving.
Salina: Club, nothing like that, I like to think of.
Salina: No offense, Tom or Giselle, but there's something that's kind of like.
Salina: Huh?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: You'll wait your turn, buddy.
Salina: Don't you have enough?
Nikki: On this note, the Piedmont driving club here in Atlanta, which I actually think may have been the inspiration for Beaumont in the episode.
Nikki: I was wondering, is invitation only.
Nikki: And the initiation fees are estimated to be at about $90,000 a year.
Salina: Perfectly acceptable.
Nikki: I think I put this here.
Salina: Wait, what?
Salina: Oh, that's right.
Salina: Cause that's not just an initiation fee.
Salina: It's like, that's what they're annually paying to be involved.
Nikki: That one's the initiation fee.
Nikki: I don't think I have the annual fee written down.
Salina: I'm like, that golf course better be amazing.
Nikki: Yeah, and you bet I'd be rolling down it.
Nikki: Put a pin in that, because we're going to talk a little bit about membership fees.
Nikki: I think I put this here because I didn't have anywhere else to put it, but I found this article in the AJC from 2012 about a pretty significant kerfuffle at this club.
Nikki: The antics in said kerfuffle are pretty hilarious.
Nikki: Let's just say maybe proof that money doesn't buy you class and that no one is immune from the effects of alcohol.
Nikki: But the article also is laden with proof of exclusivity at clubs like this.
Nikki: Despite how bad the kerfuffle made them look, members would not speak to the press.
Nikki: Even friends of members declined to comment.
Nikki: So there's definitely some mystery there.
Salina: Are you gonna tell us about any of the kerfuffle?
Nikki: It was just.
Nikki: It's kind of silliness.
Nikki: So apparently this one guy was a member, and he was embarrassed.
Nikki: So.
Nikki: Of some of the things he saw over this.
Nikki: Like, I think there was a tournament in town or something.
Nikki: So he wrote a private letter to the president of the country club, which was then somehow leaked and published publicly on Deadspin or something.
Nikki: I can't remember exactly where, but essentially he laid out some really specific examples.
Nikki: They were very loud.
Nikki: This group of men was very loud.
Nikki: One man passed out drunk on a barbecue.
Nikki: A barbecue that was not turned on.
Nikki: Like a grill that was not turned on, but he passed out on it.
Nikki: A wedding reception that was happening.
Nikki: And the members had, or the guests repeatedly had to ask the men to keep it down.
Nikki: There was something about, like, a contest between the men to pick a golf ball up with their b*** cheeks.
Salina: They don't really grow up, do they?
Salina: I know some do.
Nikki: I have no comment on that.
Salina: I have lots of comments on it.
Salina: But this is your extra sugar.
Nikki: So actually, let's talk about sexism.
Nikki: On that note, you're gonna say, actually, let's talk about sex.
Nikki: So sexism was something Julia talked about.
Nikki: This one, unfortunately, also seems to be true at least partially so.
Nikki: In 2017, the Charles River Country Club in Massachusetts found itself at the center of a couple of anti discrimination claims after they invested several million dollars into club renovations, most notably including a more than $1 million renovation of the men's locker rooms.
Nikki: What was so egregious is that it included a men's only bar.
Nikki: At the time, no women served on the club's board.
Nikki: So a member who the club later painted as a disgruntled whistleblower filed a complaint with the state attorney general.
Nikki: After a barrage of bad press and an investigation, which included interviews with female members who said they've never experienced discrimination, it was determined that the men's only bar was not discriminatory since it was part of a men's locker room.
Salina: What year was this?
Nikki: 2017.
Salina: Oh, that's very recent.
Nikki: I'm glad you're catching on to that, because I'm very specifically pulling out the years and noting when certain things happened.
Nikki: That's very strategic.
Nikki: So I want to, like, sort of a parentheses to that story.
Nikki: So they were found not guilty of discrimination, but that Boston magazine article I mentioned a minute ago, he's like a roving reporter and really committed to his job because he found a way into some of the most exclusive golf clubs, including this one.
Nikki: And he said, as I take in the scene, I can't help but notice that I do not, in fact, seem to be inside a men's locker room.
Nikki: The actual locker room is on the other side of a wall, separated from the dining room, like the bathroom of any public restaurant.
Nikki: So they were found not guilty of discrimination.
Nikki: But he's saying, I don't know, man, maybe some discrimination.
Nikki: So to bring this one a little closer to home, I have to share that the Augusta National Golf Club here in Georgia, which is host to the exclusive and elite Masters golf tournament, which is really hallowed ground in the golfing world, only recently amended policy to admit women as members.
Nikki: In 2012, us secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was among the first women admitted into the club.
Nikki: And this is not related to sexism, but I'm going to put it here because it's related to Augusta national.
Nikki: The club admitted its first black member in 1990, which is a nice segue to the next piece that I want to talk about, which is racism.
Nikki: The very short version, as it relates to Augusta national, is that both moves that is allowing women members and black members followed significant public controversy.
Nikki: Okay, so racism, I mean, we talked about it earlier, anti semitism.
Nikki: This has some massive historical truth to it, as I mentioned, the top exclusion of people on a race basis ensured that country clubs were not reflective of the nation's broader diversity and consequently led to the proliferation of country clubs to accommodate those people.
Nikki: I think a lot of years has.
Nikki: A lot has changed in the intervening years around public perception, around race in country clubs.
Nikki: So top country clubs do now admit black members.
Nikki: But I still think something's going on behind the doors, and I say that to say I found a 2009 golf Digest article that highlighted the legacy of a significant 1990 controversy which ultimately ensured greater racial diversity in golf clubs.
Nikki: So essentially, Shoal Creek Golf Club in Alabama did not admit black members.
Nikki: This is 1990, and it sounds like that was not a secret.
Nikki: That was just a rule of the club.
Nikki: So they were set to host the 1990 PGA golf Championship when the club's founder started a firestorm.
Nikki: When he publicly commented that the club would not be pressured to admit black members specifically, he said, quote, this is our home, and we pick and choose who we want.
Nikki: Ultimately, the club was forced to accept black members when the PGA considered moving the tournament and sponsors pulled advertising.
Nikki: So as a compromise, they admitted Louis J.
Nikki: Willey, a prominent businessman in the area who was black, to be an honorary member as he awaited the full membership waiting period.
Nikki: After the incident, PGA changed tournament selection rules requiring host clubs to have inclusive membership requirements, and golf became arguably more accessible to blacks in the United States.
Nikki: So it was after this controversy that Augusta national chose to admit black members.
Salina: Okay, so nothing actually happened there.
Salina: And I like where they got called on the carpet, even though they should have been called on the carpet.
Salina: I'll tell you the reason I'm saying that is because I seem to remember some, like when Tiger woods first went to the masters.
Salina: I feel like maybe we were in middle school or something, and I could have sworn that there was some.
Salina: There was some controversial stories out at the time, but that was like 96 or 97, so I can't remember exactly what they were, but they were definitely swirling around Augusta.
Nikki: So without having the proof right in front of me, I'll say that what I read.
Nikki: So, around admitting women, for instance, it was 2012 before they admitted women, but I found a couple articles that, like, in 2000, there was a huge controversy.
Nikki: And it feels like some of these issues because we are Georgia based, and I'm particularly interested in the Masters in Augusta national.
Nikki: Just personally, I read these things, and it feels like every couple of tournament years, another one of these things will pop up.
Nikki: That has been simmering for a long time.
Nikki: So I say that to say in early 2000, I found, you know, I was doing my research, found articles in early 2000 where they did still didn't admit women until 2012.
Nikki: So I think this issue of race is something probably that was controversial over the years, but somehow just sort of like not acknowledging it in the press, like the 2000 women's issues.
Nikki: Like, they wouldn't even acknowledge that in the press.
Nikki: They just like said, we're not going to comment on that.
Nikki: So I think that's how they weathered the storm for so long.
Nikki: But they saw what happened in Shoal Creek in Alabama around race and decided to get ahead of it.
Nikki: I was going to add a little piece.
Salina: Isn't that sad?
Salina: Ahead of it in 1990.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: Good job, guys.
Nikki: I was going to add a little piece about Tiger woods and sort of his legacy in golf.
Nikki: And it's interrelated to this segment, but it takes us sort of a bridge too far.
Nikki: But I think Tiger woods, for a lot of reasons, is groundbreaking in golf history.
Nikki: And unfortunately, and or fortunately, I think his race plays a part in that.
Nikki: So the numbers were a little hard to come by, but that golf Digest article gave this example.
Nikki: So we're jumping back into race.
Nikki: Doctor Robert Sims, who practices occupational medicine, grew up a few minutes from the Detroit Golf Club in a city where three fourths of the population is black.
Nikki: In his youth, there were no black members at the club.
Nikki: That's what he said.
Nikki: The first was accepted in 1986.
Nikki: Today there are 60 blacks among the 800 strong membership, doctors, dentists, businessmen, lawyers, judges, and the mayor.
Nikki: That doesn't seem like that.
Nikki: Still not inclusive enough.
Nikki: Still not reflective enough.
Nikki: Sort of related to this.
Nikki: That man I mentioned a minute ago who was let in as an honorary member at Shoal Creek, he said that in an article I found, like five years after he had been admitted, he was still the only black member that had been admitted.
Nikki: So take away from that what you will.
Nikki: So after reading all of these things, the one question that just continued to stick out to me was, how do they get away with it?
Nikki: High prices I understand.
Nikki: Exclusivity I get.
Nikki: But sexism, racism, and out there in the public discourse.
Nikki: So, like, just how are they carrying on with that?
Nikki: It's not even necessarily behind closed doors.
Nikki: So I found a Sports Illustrated article that talks about this.
Nikki: There's like a lot out there about country clubs.
Nikki: Sports Illustrated posted this article in 2019.
Nikki: So let that sink in for a second.
Nikki: Not very long ago, not very long ago, it was ostensibly about a scottish golf club that had announced that week in 2019, quote, for the first time since its founding in 1744, it will admit women members.
Nikki: Perfect.
Nikki: So while this is an old issue, remember the first athletic clubs were started by men, and while country clubs expanded to include their wives and families, sexist policies like the wife losing access after her husband's death existed.
Nikki: So it's not a debt issue.
Nikki: My first thought was they're private, which really allows them to do whatever they want.
Nikki: That's at least partially true.
Nikki: But Sports Illustrated says that being private in and of itself is not an excuse for being discriminatory.
Nikki: And that's per the Civil Rights act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin.
Nikki: That act is not exclusive to public places.
Nikki: It includes private businesses, but only when they're considered areas of public accommodation.
Nikki: So that would be like Mercedes Benz Stadium here in Atlanta, or a local AMC movie theater or a gas station.
Nikki: They're owned by public, by private companies, but they serve the public.
Nikki: The federal laws do not govern private membership clubs with respect to their membership because by definition, those sorts of clubs are not open to the public and as a result, not covered by the law.
Nikki: So that is to say, if a club offers its amenities to the public, so if you can have your wedding reception there as a non member, then it would be illegal to discriminate.
Nikki: However, if they're not open to the public, there are no federal mandates that they have to adhere to.
Nikki: There's also some First Amendment protection at play here that allows like minded people to gather together so legally they're in the clear.
Nikki: It's just that whole, like, moral thing they have to worry about.
Nikki: And indeed, as society changes, country clubs and golf clubs are finding themselves toe to toe with that moral debate.
Nikki: There's also a possibly more compelling argument for inclusivity.
Salina: Da.
Salina: Money, money, money.
Nikki: You know that saying money talks and whatnot.
Nikki: Some golf clubs have faced losing sponsorships, like we talked about a minute ago, or the opportunity to host elite golf tournaments over their discriminatory membership policies.
Nikki: In several instances, that's been enough to change their tone.
Nikki: Think back to Shoal Creek.
Nikki: There have also been tax and other financial implications for clubs with discriminatory policies.
Nikki: I think I mentioned one at the top of the segment.
Nikki: So those are all the allegations alleged.
Nikki: But speaking of money, we've been alluding to membership dues.
Nikki: We've been talking about how expensive they might be, but we haven't really shared what we're really talking about here.
Nikki: In the main episode, we talked about how maybe Suzanne was stretching the $39,000 Atlantic City jackpot by including country club dues.
Nikki: That's with good reason.
Nikki: So I found a 2021 list on rarest.org of the most expensive and exclusive country clubs with publicly available data on fees and dues.
Nikki: And boy, oh, boy.
Nikki: So keep in mind these are the only ones they could have find publicly available data, which means there are other ones that don't share their financials.
Nikki: The Madison Club in California, for instance, allegedly boasts a $200,000 initiation fee and then $33,000 in annual dues.
Nikki: That was number ten on the list of the top ten.
Nikki: Since I mentioned it, Augusta national was at number three, with initiation fees estimated between 250,500 thousand and annual dues of 30,000.
Nikki: So I'm going to post the whole list on the blog.
Nikki: But spoiler alert, number one was Shaken Bay Golf Club in China, they didn't even publish annual dues, but the initiation fee is estimated to be a million dollars.
Salina: Well, you.
Nikki: What would you get?
Salina: Like, what do you get?
Salina: You can golf and play tennis.
Salina: I just can't imagine.
Salina: I'm like, this better be the.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: I mean, I'm sure it's.
Salina: I mean, I've been in country clubs, so I'm like, I know they're nice, but jeez.
Nikki: So this is a little bit of an aside from where I was going to end this segment, but I will say, and I think we just talked about this, there are a lot of business deals that happen on golf clubs.
Salina: Golf clubs, access.
Nikki: There's a lot of access.
Nikki: And you get access to a really exclusive group of people that you need access to.
Salina: Oh, sorry, my plebe is showing.
Nikki: I want to say someone.
Nikki: I meant, I think that story of the man in Detroit, I think that might have said he actually belonged to a couple of country clubs so that he could sort of bounce between and gain from the.
Nikki: I mean, I'm putting words into their mouth, but I imagine that's the point.
Salina: It's just like the antithesis of who I am as a person.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Which I know you, Phil, but I want to end on.
Nikki: I want to end this segment by sharing something that maybe it's not.
Nikki: So the stats vary across sources, but they're somewhere in the order of about 10,000 to 15,000 country clubs operating across the US.
Nikki: I mentioned maybe five or six.
Nikki: So that is to say, they're not all racist, they're not all sexist, they're not all even that elite.
Nikki: They're just businesses offering a community for their members, a place for people to gather on the weekends and socialize with other families while maybe getting in some physical fitness along the way.
Nikki: As I researched, I found a lot of quotes from members, even at the really exclusive clubs, who talked about how integral the club is to their family.
Nikki: That's where their kids learned to swim.
Nikki: That's where they made their best friends.
Nikki: That's where they spent their summers.
Nikki: So I don't want the takeaway from this segment to be that country clubs are bad.
Nikki: I don't think they are inherently.
Nikki: I just think it's important that we educate ourselves on things like this.
Nikki: So, again, knowing, for instance, how prolific racism and sexism still seem to be in really influential parts of our society and among people who lead and represent us, and that maybe these are the places they're choosing to gather, that feels important.
Nikki: So if you're a member of a country club, if you're curious about one, like my father in law is in a country club because he loves to golf, there's, to my knowledge, nothing sexist or elitist about the club he's in.
Nikki: He's just in a part of Georgia where golf clubs are very popular.
Salina: Well, which one is it?
Salina: Tell everybody what's his member number?
Salina: We're gonna go get free drink.
Nikki: So that is to say, we don't want to paint with a broad brush here.
Nikki: I wanted to share that today because I felt like the episode was very one sided.
Nikki: So I wanted to offer the proof of things, or the not proof, as it were.
Nikki: But country clubs aren't necessarily bad.
Nikki: Just wanted to share.
Nikki: So that's been this week's edition of Extra suga.