The joining fee is to encourage loyalty to one club. Around us, a few clubs last year year offered a free joining fee and lower subs. This caused a lot of people to move to their club. Now their membership is full and their joining fee has gone back up to its original cost.
Although talking to a few of the people who moved, they wish they hadn't and now want to come back to our club.
The problem this caused was that most other clubs had to lower their fees to keep their members / get any new members. Now most courses around here are struggling to balance their budgets.

"The joining fee is to encourage loyalty to one club"

No, it's not, it's to tie you to one club. It's just bad business sense to have membership spaces available, and golfers who want to fill them but are put off by a joining fee. And as your friends have found, long-term loyalty comes from providing a good course and facilities - not short-term financial inducements.

Have to agree. Cannot see why I should pay to be loyal to a club. Surely it is for a club to earn my loyalty and if they do not act in my interests, let the course condition slip or book in so many societies so as I cannot get on the tee then it is my prerogative to go elsewhere. What the joining fee is is a financial handcuff to keep me at one club irrespective of the clubs attitude towards the member. And it remains in all of the clubs interests to maintain these fees as if they were dropped, the happy status quo would end and members could move about to the club with the best facilities, atmosphere or whatever the person is looking for. People do not move about simply beacause they do not want to pay a further joining fee or feel that they have to get value for money out of the fees already paid.