Baum’s first project involved redesigning the look and feel of the newsletter to make it more attractive to the high-end clients he targets. He currently offers two 12-month subscriptions, one at $97 and the other at $147 (which includes the previous 12 issues). He also markets the newsletter as a corporate gift, and has priced a subscription at just below the $100 maximum that the National Association of Securities Dealers places on such perks.

Baum’s newsletter currently has no advertising. He refuses to accept ads from golf resorts or any entity that Golf Odyssey might review. He and his staff (three full-time employees, two of whom are editors) travel to golf destinations using company funds and do not identify themselves as reviewers when they play, in order to maintain their objectivity. Baum also refuses to hire freelance writers. "It’s hard for us to rely on them because we travel anonymously and pay our own expenses," he says. "Most of the freelancers won’t pay their own way."

While playing at a course in Ireland last year, Baum noted 16 golf writers who had been invited to play against each other at the club with their expenses paid. "Each had his own uniform, each had his own caddie. They wined them and dined them," Baum says. "Sure enough, you see a lot of positive stories about the club. And I’m there on my own nickel watching all this." He admitted he is open to considering advertising from the much more lucrative sector of golf equipment manufacturers, particularly in his digital media products.

As with many print publishers, Baum is also playing catch-up to migrate his content onto digital platforms. For the past year, he immersed himself in what he calls a massive project to move his company’s archive of travel reviews dating back to 2000 to the Web. Now some of that content resides on a new website, golfvacationinsider.com, which represents a new brand strategy for Baum’s company. The site offers free content and an email newsletter. His strategy, of course, is to upsell visitors to his paid subscriptions. His new Web technology also enables him to perform business operations, such as subscriber management and fulfillment, digitally.

Baum admits he spent much more time and money developing his Web tools than he originally planned, describing his investment only in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. "It’s too embarrassing," he says. "It’s insane." He has also launched a series of travel books, available in both hard copy and digital formats, that feature detailed destination reviews, and he is working on a partnership with a travel company to offer vacations. He’s engaged debt financing to build the company—"Hey, I’m from Wall Street. I have to use leverage," he says—but retains full ownership of the business and has no plans to seek a partner.

"We have so much stuff going on, it makes my head spin," he says. "This year will be the interesting year. We are in a position to turn up the marketing, because now it’s a fixed-cost business. The question is, can we drive the business to where we can get over the nut."

Matt Purdue is the executive editor of Worth.