Country Club or Club for Our Country?

“I would never join a club that would have me as a member.” — Groucho Marx

As a young tennis player winning tournaments, I learned an old truth: to be the best in the country, you had to play in the city. But the city’s country clubs weren’t just athletic centers—they were gatekeepers.Competing at places like Chevy Chase Club exposed me early to a world where privilege dictated access. 

Tennis became my first education in the divide between wealth and labor. My father, a Capitol Hill staffer who helped write Medicaid and Medicare, co-founded the Capitol Hill Tennis Team, which I joined as a boy. The little time I spent with him was on the court. Even then, I sensed the tension between public service and private privilege—between the ideals he worked on and the exclusivity surrounding the sport we shared.

As a tennis professional, I moved between two Americas. I taught at Edgemoor Club, Bryce Resort, Chevy Chase Club, Palm Beach Polo, and elite schools such as Holton-Arms, Sidwell Friends, and St. Albans. Generational wealth insulated many students from struggle; the courts were as much classrooms in inequality as they were training grounds.

My friend Pauline Betz Addie—one of the greatest players of the 1940s—was banned not just from the French Open but from all of tennis because she wanted to play exhibitions. She was tired of living on twelve dollars per diem. After winning what is now the U.S. Open, she waited tables to make ends meet. Her exclusion revealed the absurdity of a system that confuses wealth with worth.

The sport’s economics still mirror that imbalance. Tennis players receive only 14–17.5% of total revenue—far below major team sports—leaving most to shoulder their own travel, coaching, and medical costs. 

The structure rewards the already‑resourced and punishes the rest. America now reflects those courts.The top ten percent hold sixty percent of the wealth; the bottom half hold six. Populism has widened the gap, and while we argue, stewardship disappears. The fractures I saw in tennis are now the fractures of the nation. Many past champions grew up in public parks.

Today, you’d better have a multimillionaire sponsor you. We don’t need more gated communities of thought or wealth. We need a club built on shared purpose—one that keeps its doors open. We need to change this K‑shaped economy. Tennis should be an open club for all Americans, not just those who can afford a country club.