SleemanMan: So there are real benefits for members of a club then?
Yes there are. They are visible in detail only from inside a CC. For these benefits, the CC needs a certain level, and for levelling it needs XPs donated via CC passes in parallel to the player's XPs - all items unknown to CC-less people.
IMHO, the only monetary - ehm - credit-worth benefits are the unlimited Putting Pal and Shot Pal which come within CC level 4. The other benefits have no commercial value, they include
- rising limits in member numbers, from 15 to 250,
- rising number of parallel CC tournaments, from 20 to 40,
- rising number of Directors (1 to 6?), a title with no special functions,
- rising amount of XP boni for the member and for the CC, up to 5% and 10% resp.
Add a few gimmiks which aren't worth mentioning.
This happens until level 16, from then on there's no benefits for those CCs in levels 17, 18 and 19 currently. Level 20 appears to be unreachable in the next years.
While new CCs may need the member limits to rise and the CC tournaments may be important in big and active CCs, the other items aren't worth a dime to me and do not justify any hype to chase CC points with CC passes, but they motivate quite a few owners to demand CC passes and playing, and member to oblige to this grind which only aims to shove credits into the company's purses.