[The New York Times]
When Robert H. Dedman, the world’s largest owner and operator of private clubs, visited the Far East this month, there was one thing he wanted on his itinerary that he could not have: a Dedman-owned country club in China. But if history is any guide, it will not be long before he gets one.
The 60-year-old Mr. Dedman is founder and chairman of Club Corporation of America, and he has achieved most of the goals he began setting for himself 42 years ago. For his company, he said, his main goal is to realize an annual growth rate of 30 percent – a target summed up on his license plate, which reads ”30 PCT.”
He has been coming close, although he said that this year it will be tougher. ”When the economy is down, we do well,” he said. ”When it’s good, we do great.”
Recently Mr. Dedman created a holding company, CCA Corp, to oversee his interests, which include real estate, financial management, fitness centers and a magazine.
But the heart of the business is the clubs, which operate worldwide. Industry executives say the company is so far ahead that it has no competition. James L. Rhoden, president of the Futren Corporation in Atlanta, which owns and operates three clubs in the Southeast, said, ”We’ve all imitated him in one form or another.”
It was in 1957, while a lawyer in a law firm working for H. L. Hunt, the late Dallas oil billionaire, that Mr. Dedman, as a sideline, set up his company and built the Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas. Over time, he added to his holdings, mainly by acquiring distressed clubs.
Last year the company, of which he and his family own 93 percent, had revenues of more than $400 million. The company owns or operates 193 clubs worldwide, with 14,000 employees and 300,000 members. There are 113 city clubs, 52 country clubs, 23 athletic clubs and 5 resorts. The better known are the Pinehurst Hotel and Country Club in Pinehurst, N.C.; Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, and the Clubs of Inverrary in Lauderhill, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale. In New York he owns the Atrium Club, in the Atrium Building on 57th Street near Park Avenue.
”The beauty of the operation is the purity of the cash flow,” said Richard Fisher, senior manager at Brown Brothers Harriman & Company in Dallas, and a friend of Mr. Dedman.
Initiation fees range from $1,000 to $35,000 for a country club and from $500 to $5,000 for a city club. And there is a constant stream of monthly dues.
Several years ago, Mr. Dedman began looking overseas. The company now has at least part interest in nine clubs in Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Malaysia and Singapore. Clubs are also being planned in Australia, France, Italy, Spain, West Germany, Yugoslavia and in northern Europe.
But his push for clubs in China has stalled, at least for now. Late last year, the company said, Mr. Dedman won approval from Chinese officials to build two clubs, with golf courses, in Shanghai and one in Peking – but construction is another matter. ”We are still looking for a Chinese partner,” said Richard Poole, who heads the company’s international division. ”We would like to push this ahead, but I’m not making any immediate plans to play golf there this spring.”
Mr. Dedman always planned big. Having grown up poor in Rison, Ark., he decided as an 18-year-old to make $50 million by the time he was 50 and then give away $1 million each year after that. Later, he vowed to give away one-third of his estimated $500 million fortune before he dies.
Thus, early this month, he gave $10 million to the University of Texas, the largest single gift earmarked for scholarships in the school’s history. During the last 10 years, he has given away close to $40 million, including a $25 million grant to Southern Methodist University’s liberal arts college, which now carries his name.
”The more you give, the more you live,” said Mr. Dedman, a lover of poetry who often quotes Longfellow and Kipling. ”They don’t put any luggage racks on hearses. You can’t take it with you.”
After a wartime stint in the Navy, Mr. Dedman graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1946 with degrees in business, engineering and law. He later got a second law degree, at Southern Methodist University.
In 1959, he became the leading lawyer behind the formation of the American Football League, at the request of its founder, Lamar Hunt, a son of H. L. Hunt, and now vice president of the Hunt Energy Corporation and owner of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Mr. Hunt, also chairman of the exclusive Tower Club here, which is run by Mr. Dedman’s company, says the best way to get to know Mr. Dedman is on the tennis court. ”He has more sayings than anybody I’ve ever met,” Mr. Hunt said. ”He’s the only person who, while playing tennis, will get your ears tired before your legs.”