"We're the kind of club that [Henry] Ford built."

As part of Time Inc.'s look at Detroit, Golf Magazine's Alan Bastable considers the state of the wonderful Detroit Golf Club and how it's coping with lean times.

Thanks to Detroit's 15-percent unemployment rate and, more specifically, the implosion of the automotive industry, more than 100 club members have resigned in the last three years, prompting DGC to drop its initiation fee from $39,000 in 2006 to $6,500 today. It is a dilemma faced by many southeast Michigan clubs that have for decades relied on Big Auto to keep their tee sheets full.

"We're the kind of club that [Henry] Ford built," Beals says. "It used to be nothing to have our upstairs bar full every day of the week with salesmen wooing the GM guys or whatever. They'd take them to play golf to close the deal, but that has all dried up."