Editorial policy

Every decision-critical fact on this site — a fee, a dues figure, a hole count, an architect credit — is stored with the source it came from, the date we retrieved it, and a confidence label. You can see all of it in the Sources section of any club page.

• An estimated fee presented as a fact. Most private clubs do not publish their initiation fees. Where we cannot verify one, the page says not publicly available. A wrong number is worse than no number.
• Reviews we did not receive. We do not write reviews, we do not buy them, and we never import them from another site and relabel them as ours. A club with no reviews here shows zero.
• An editorial score without the evidence to support it. If we hold too little verified information about a club, the page says not enough data to score.
• A ranking generated because a page could exist. A city ranking needs enough evaluated clubs and original analysis of that market, or we do not publish it.
• Another publication’s rankings as our own. Where a named publication has recognised a club we say so and link to it, attributed. That award never becomes an input to our score.
• Anonymous claims as facts. Discussion on our community site is clearly labelled as unverified personal accounts, and nothing from it becomes a fact here without independent sourcing and editorial review.

We keep three things apart and never blend them: our own editorial score, the average of reviews submitted directly to this site, and other platforms’ ratings shown with attribution.

A category with no supporting evidence is excluded from the weighting rather than scored zero, so a club is never penalised for a gap in our research. The full methodology is published, including every weight.

A club cannot pay to be listed, pay to rank higher, or pay to change its score.

A club can submit factual corrections with evidence, and can publish a response to any review. A club cannot have an accurate negative review removed for being negative. If we ever introduce advertising or referral revenue, it will be visibly separated from editorial and disclosed on the page where it appears.

If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — you do not need to be connected to the club. Corrections with a source are actioned faster, for the obvious reason.

When we change a figure we do not overwrite the old one. The previous value is closed with its date and kept, so a club’s pricing history accumulates over time.

Submit a correction

We use original or licensed imagery only. We do not hotlink or copy photographs from club websites or competitor directories, and every image we publish carries its credit and licence in our database.