Last Sunday morning at the golf course, a visiting youngster got a quick lesson in how to swing and hit a long drive. After a few whiffs, 7-year-old Johnathon Palmer connected with the ball and sent it sailing through the air and down the fairway — then set off down the hill to look for it.

Grinning from ear to ear when he returned — without the ball, which was under water — it was clear the golf bug had bitten him.

“I hit it all the way to the pond!” he shouted. “I want to go golfing again.”

It is that kind of enthusiasm that members of the Vashon Golf & Swim Club on Maury Island are hoping to tap into as they celebrate 50 years as a club and look to the future. President John Bender says that unlike the stereotypes of country clubs as enclaves of the elite, the Vashon club aims to be inclusive, and, he noted, it offers top-notch facilities.

“It is the best recreational facility on the island, and folks on the island should be using it,” he said.

Across the country, many private clubs closed or struggled to remain open during the recent  recession. The Vashon Island Golf & Country Club also felt the effects of the economic slump and in 2010 made substantive changes, creating new membership options, opening its Mileta Creek restaurant to the public and dropping “country club” from its name.

Those changes appear to be working, according to the club manager and golf pro, Craig Wilcox, who has worked at the club for about a year and a half. Now, more than 240 households belong to the club, he said, an increase of more than 60 memberships since he started, and Bender noted that the club feels like a more vibrant place than it did just six months ago.

Still, membership numbers are far less than in the club’s heyday about a decade ago, when the roster topped 400. Restoring membership to its pre-2008 levels is one of the goals of the club, Bender said, and long-range plans will be directed by the members as their numbers increase.

“We could have a health club there, a covered pool, a covered driving area,” he said. “We could have all these things with sufficient membership in the club.”

Currently, he said, a group of members is at work putting together a slate of activities that might appeal to those in the under 40 set, while noting the strength of the facilities that have long been cornerstones of the club.

The pool, the largest on the island, was renovated just two years ago. The tennis courts are well maintained, and a tennis pro offers lessons. Mileta Creek, now under direction of chef Bill Rowe, is thriving. And the golf course, a challenging nine holes with views of Quartermaster Harbor and the Olympic Mountains, is kept in excellent condition.

Bender, who has been a member for 22 years and was drawn to the club because of its golf course, said officials there are mindful of current trends that show that the number of golfers across the country has decreased in the last decade. But Bender said the picture is more nuanced than some figures indicate.

“Millenials like to play golf. They just do not like to spend four hours playing golf. … They might have a two-hour interest, and, in fact, we believe they do,” he said.

Bender credits Wilcox with being able to teach people to play the game fairly quickly.

“We want folks to take up golf if they have not,” he said. “We make it easy for them to learn and easy for them to play.”

One of the challenges of learning to golf at the club currently, Wilcox said, is that there is a small practice range, but no full driving range. Club officials have already made plans and are awaiting permits to build such a facility, Bender said, noting the club hopes to see it completed this fall.

Though much of the club’s attention is focused on looking ahead, just last month former and current club members gathered for a celebration marking its 50th anniversary, including some members who were present from the beginning.

Dorothy Neale, 90, recalls the early days of the club, when 13 Vashon families founded it on Aug. 11, 1964. She and her husband Jim belonged to that group, she said, joining the effort because of his love for golf.

Islander Bob Lande, still an active golfer, also remembers that time and said he was one of the first to buy a membership once the group of 13 purchased the course from Howard Williams, whose father Ben had first owned it. Ben had been the greens superintendent, Lande recalled, but when the course owners at the time owed him money and could not pay him, they gave him the course. When Howard sold it to the interested islanders, Lande said, he sold it for $100,000. Then, as others bought memberships, the club house was remodeled and a swimming pool built, an addition that came in 1966, according to Mike Kimmel, who has been active with the club for many years and whose company, Kimmco, built the pool. Tennis courts were also added.

“For quite awhile, we had … many members and a waiting list to join,” Kimmel said.

In the early days, as was typical, the club had men’s and women’s groups, and Neale, who said she golfed up until about a decade ago, recalls her involvement well, including her first lessons with her husband.

“He told me you cannot talk when you golf,” she said. “I thought that was the dumbest thing I ever heard. I told him I didn’t want to play a game where I couldn’t socialize.”

The lessons took, however, and Neale, who said golfers never brag about their game, went on to be an active golfer, scoring two holes in one, a few years apart, in the 1970s.

The first shot came with a cost, though, as she had to buy drinks for all those in the club house — per club rules — and joked that she had not purchased hole-  in-one insurance and thus had to foot the bill. The second time, she added, she was prepared, and her insurance covered the cost.

Now, she said, although she is no longer able to golf, she still goes to the club and just recently went there for dinner with her daughter and then out to a night at the Vashon Opera.

Her dinner was excellent, she said, and the building filled with activity — which she called a welcome change after the recent quieter times.

“It is busier than ever,” she said.

Lande agreed about the progress there.

“We would like to see it even better than it is,” Lande said, “but it is improving.”