Bocce’s Impact on Country Clubs

How bocce is meaningfully impacting leading country clubs’ culture, revenues and brands.

We all know how pickleball is creating belonging and engagement – impacting revenues, memberships and cultures at country clubs all around the country.

Bocce is doing the same thing.?

It’s crushing it at the finest country clubs up and down the East Coast, the West Coast – and at the best clubs everywhere in between.

Blackhawk Country Club in San Francisco has 825 members in bocce leagues. Similar numbers at so many leading clubs in every pocket of the country. And food and beverage revenues are killing it – creating new weekly evenings for clubs.

?Bocce defines creating a destination activity.

At so many country clubs, more members are coming to play in their bocce leagues – than to play golf.?

Here’s a case study …

Birnam Wood

Birnam Wood Golf Club is a premier country club in Montecito, CA. It’s the home of a Robert Trent golf course, stunning tennis and pickleball courts – blanketed by the most extraordinary setting in one of America’s most desired towns.

The good news is they had two wonderful bocce courts. In a great spot right off the fantastic clubhouse.

The bad news is they had no leagues. No one on their staff knew anything about playing or organizing bocce. All that adds up to very little play.

In June, I told their fabulous general manager, Jordan Sweeney, their bocce courts were like “a swimming pool without water.”

Leagues are the water.?

Having someone on staff that has the chops to build and run the league with the perfect storm of great social skills, lots of enthusiasm, knowledge about bocce, and how to build bocce leagues and events – that’s the water.

I proposed to Jordan that I take a swing at ramping up a summer league – starting from scratch.

We knew what we were selling. It wasn’t bocce at all.

It was belonging. Fun. Happy. Being on a team. Wellness. Playing something with a drink in your hand. Everything that a club is about.

That’s what we were offering.

Teams formed. Buzz buzzed around the club.

It was opening day on a stunning late-June sunset evening. One by one, couple by couple, 242 members appeared.

We served happy. We balanced the fine line between competition and fun. And fun we had.

Birnam Wood had fabulous people full of a love of life – and a yearning to make the absolute most of every single day.

Two months of league play. In the blink of an eye, members that never even knew each other, of all different ages, were having dinner together after the matches, having dinner parties together in their homes …

We had an awards party on the club’s stunning lanai – with the tangerine sun falling behind the mountains and a wisp of the beautiful big blue sea of the Pacific in the air.

We had awards for everything. We celebrated how lucky we all were. We celebrated the importance of being in that moment – with fantastic friends.

Let’s make this happen at your club.

By getting someone at your club certified to be a USA Bocce professional. In two months of Zoom calls – they’ll have the knowledge, inspiration to build the foundation of a long-lasting new social activity at your club.

Let’s create something of which we can be proud.??BR

Jimmy Dunne is the founder of USA Bocce, partnering with leading country clubs to create extraordinary revenues and participation. Jimmy is also an award-winning songwriter, with 28 million hit records and gold and platinum records spanning the globe. He can be reached at (310) 529-1400 or via email: [email protected].