When Silicon Valley-based Manish Goel retired from a high-pressure tech role eight years ago he decided – like many avid golfers his age – that he wanted to play more golf, ideally at top-level clubs.

The then 51-year-old did some research and found that, while several top 100 courses in the US – including Pebble Beach in California and Bethpage Black near New York – were public, and golfers could book online to play them for a sometimes rather hefty green fee, more than 80 per cent were private.