I’ve inquired at enough private golf courses over the last few years to appreciate the difficulty now being experienced by these clubs. What’s remarkable to me is not that initiation fees are being slashed from $35,000 to $5,000, but that anyone was paying $35,000 to begin with. As a nation, we were certainly spending like drunken sailors a few years back when money was, almost literally, growing on trees in homeowners’ backyards. USA Today provides this update on the plight of the American country club.

For $6,000 a year, Tom Bennett enjoyed the privileges of being a member of an exclusive, private golf course in northeast New Jersey. He golfed pristine grounds and reveled in socializing with other duffers.

But last year, Bennett ended his six-year membership at the private Stanton Ridge Golf and Country Club in Whitehouse Station, N.J.

“Cost was part of it, but service had fallen and upkeep was suffering because membership was down, a death spiral if you will,” says Bennett, 48, who runs a financial-management consulting firm in California but still owns a house at the club.

“The recession (hurt) membership, and that affected the social aspect,” Bennett says. “With fewer people and dues, the club didn’t do as good a job taking care of non-golf parts of the course.” As Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and other members of golf’s royalty prepare to tee off at the PGA Championship — the fourth, and final, major championship of 2010 — in Wisconsin next week, the business of golf faces an economic outlook that is sinking like a downhill putt.

From what I’ve seen, clubs are slashing initiation fees but haven’t lowered monthly dues much from where they were just a couple of years ago. While not privy to how a country club manages its finances or what goes through the mind of someone thinking about joining one today, it would seem that the $400 or so a month nut (plus incidentals) is as difficult to crack as a one-time fee in the tens of thousands of dollars.