16 minute read
How Scottish Golf kept the game going 58 Meet Bush Hill Park’s Stewart Judd
Coronavirus brought huge upheaval for everyone and Karin Sharp was no exception. Scottish Golf’s Chief Operating Officer found herself leading the governing body when Andrew McKinlay stepped down as Chief Executive in April 2020.
She steered the sport through the first lockdown and was instrumental as golf stayed open in Scotland when later restrictions closed it in every other part of the UK.
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Karin’s first year at the helm has also seen the development of OpenPlay, the first independent golfer scheme to be launched, and a revamp of both the nation’s performance and junior programmes.
We caught up with her to look back over a tumultuous first 15 months in charge…
You took on leading Scottish Golf through one of the most challenging periods any of us have ever witnessed. Clearly you had a lot of experience within Scottish Golf but how did you get through it? It has been a challenging year across the board within Scottish Golf.
We had to make a lot of big decisions at a time of significant uncertainty and many of the early challenges we had to face included furloughing more than half of the staff team and still managing to provide a service to the golf clubs with a much smaller team operating.
But, equally, in the very early days it was about providing strong representation for the sport with government and, in the first instance, to say ‘let’s try and get things back open again’.
As Chief Operating Officer, how do you deal with that? When you took on Andrew’s role, clubs were shut, staff were furloughed, people were working remotely. And you’re still trying to coordinate the sport and get it ready for a restart… There was strong communication across the team, particularly with those who were continuing to work within the business and who, in most cases, were taking on expanded roles and having to do an element of cover outwith their usual area of expertise and authority.
Whilst the team were all fairly established within the organisation there were many who hadn’t worked cross departmentally much before so strong and regular communication across the team, keeping everybody tight and ensuring we had a high awareness of workloads and there was support for each other.
If one person was asked to pick up certain areas or particular tasks, and if the volume was starting to ramp up, we had somebody else waiting in the wings that could have their back - because we were having that strong level of conversation and ensuring that, across the board, we were being supportive, rolling the sleeves up and getting on with it as a strong unit that did what it took to service our membership through a challenging time.
It was also really important to keep the team that were furloughed in contact, up to date and up to speed with what was going on to keep them engaged and ready for coming back to work.
And you’re doing that against a backdrop of clubs, areas and counties looking specifically to you for advice as a governing body. You’d also had to undertake some bridge building at the start – particularly in terms of communicating to clubs how you wanted to take Scottish Golf forward. I’m not being controversial in saying there had perhaps been a disconnect in the past… One of my early aims was to ensure there was regular and very transparent communication with the clubs, the areas and the counties, and to ensure there was as much information and updates as we had available which could be shared with them on a regular basis.
We kept them as appraised as we could against a rapidly changing environment week to week.
We tried to use the different platforms that everybody has become so accustomed to in the last 15 months – Zoom, Teams, other video platforms to engage with Clubs, Areas and Counties and I think that really did help that relationship building piece.
That trust and rapport that was built across those groups has stood us in good stead moving forward.
One of the biggest plaudits Scottish Golf received was being the only country in the UK to keep playing the sport through the lockdowns this winter. How did you manage that? We were very fortunate from the outset that - back in late March and early April [2020] - we started a lot of regular and early dialogue with the Scottish Government, through sportscotland and Active Scotland colleagues.
From the early conversations we were positioning the health and mental wellbeing benefits of the game, particularly focusing on it as informal exercise undertaken
In conversation with... KARIN SHARP
Scottish Golf’s COO has had an eventful 15 months. She talks coronavirus, independent golfers and the future of the game with Steve Carroll…
outdoors on a big acreage where social distancing was pretty easy, as opposed to focusing on the sport or competitive element.
Back in May 2020, while we were a few days behind the other Home Nations and opened on May 29, from that point onwards we were very fortunate that we were able to stay open.
We definitely benefited through the December and January period from having the ability to flip back into informal exercise over competitive golf. That was one of the core reasons we were able to keep the game open here in Scotland.
How do you view the situation with the pandemic now? We are in a strong and positive position right now in that we’ve got all of our national championships - one-day events - back under way.
We’re seeing a lot more activity at club level, participation is strong and there’s lots happening across the whole landscape.
The ability to react to the changing of protocols and moving between levels is something everybody has become accustomed to over the last 15 months or so.
Yes, we would like to see things return to a state of normality but I think there is a fairly widespread acceptance that the sport has been able to adapt and operate with modifications, and that those might need to continue for a bit longer.
As we’re seeing things, hopefully, continuing to ease, I believe the clubs feel that they’ve been through the tough bit and are all looking forward to a good strong summer ahead - perhaps not with international travellers as yet but with domestic golfers looking to make the most of staycation golf. Let’s move onto OpenPlay, Scottish Golf’s independent golfer initiative. Are these kinds of projects crucial to the future prosperity of the game? Absolutely. Golf is a game with a long history and the heritage of the game in Scotland is very strong.
But over the centuries the game has been played, there have been different evolutions and changes that golf has had to adapt to.
What is in front of us now is the wider digital transformation of society and golf has to embrace that or be left behind.
Making the game more accessible and inclusive to a much bigger audience is one of the critical aspects we see as being really positive for the future.
How can the governing body tackle the inherent resistance to change within some elements of the sport? We’ve seen it to an extent with both the 2019 Rules of Golf changes and WHS and we’re seeing it again now… Change is always something that is difficult to navigate. Everybody reacts differently to it.
We will continue to be strong and consistent with our messaging and with our encouragement that golf should be a game that is available for everybody to play.
We want that to be without barriers and welcoming and inclusive across the whole nation. We will encourage and support any golfer that wants to be part of growing the game in Scotland.
Martin Slumbers was very pointed in saying that golf was a sport that talked to itself. There’s a huge number of players who are not affiliated to a club, perhaps have no desire to join one, and they were essentially out of the loop. Is OpenPlay about bringing these people into the fold? It certainly is. It’s about bringing everybody into the game, having everybody feel part of the game in Scotland and making a contribution to the future development of the game in Scotland.
You haven’t been afraid to take difficult and controversial decisions. The new performance programme, for example, is different to anything else seen in the UK with no specific coaching. Can you tell me a little bit about that decision and why you’re not afraid to look at ideas you know are not going to be universally popular? Since Scottish Golf was launched in 2015, we’ve been in a fortunate position from day one with a strong and supportive board. We’ve very much been on a journey of transforming the game and making it more inclusive and accessible to a much wider audience and not being afraid to make changes and to drive the sport forward for another generation to come.
Our performance approach is perhaps a bit different and our view is that most of the young golfers who get to the stage of being selected for a performance programme have had many years of individual coaching and already have strong relationships on the technical side of their performance.
Bringing them into a national setup and expecting them to work with somebody different, that they perhaps don’t know as well, or who might have a slightly different approach – we don’t see that as being where we can add most value.
The technical side of it is for the player and their individual coach to work on.
We’re looking at the much wider playing and performance elements of the game and with Paul Lawrie and Catriona Matthew as mentors – having played at the top of the game, competed under the most challenging conditions, both having won major events and performed in team events such as the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup – means that what they can bring to the players is pretty unique and
very different to the technical side from a coaching perspective.
We’ve seen some really good strong and early feedback from the players as to how accessible Paul and Catriona have been in providing very practical but robust advice.
The players feel they’ve been able to put that into practice on the course pretty quickly and despite this being a fairly new programme, we have seen some very strong early season tournament performances which is fantastic.
I’m absolutely delighted both Paul and Catriona have come on board with our performance programme.
They’ve both done a lot for the sport and the country and both are hugely supportive, keen to give back, and to be part of this journey trying to develop future talent and support our ambition to have future Scottish winners on the international stage.
And you’ve got the new junior framework as well… The launch of our new National Junior Framework earlier this year is very much looking to provide the tools and support for golf clubs from beginner level all the way through a pathway providing coaching and competitive opportunities along the way. We’ve got about 120 clubs using the programme so far and the feedback from coaches, from junior conveners, from players and from parents, has been really positive.
We’re getting some great feedback around lesson planning and the ability for coaches to use our integrated platform makes their weekly coaching and session planning so much easier than it ever was before.
We have also seen strong take up for the competition element of the framework and we look forward to supporting our member clubs in developing the golfers of the future.
We have to ask the obligatory opportunity and challenges question. Coming through the pandemic looks bright for Scottish Golf, and there’s been a huge boom in participation, but keeping those players is going to be difficult as normal life resumes. What are your key priorities over the next couple of years? We have a range of priorities. Supporting clubs with that retention of membership growth they have experienced over the last 12 to 15 months is one of the key objectives within the club support team. We’ll be supporting clubs to ensure we try and retain all of these golfers in membership.
There are many clubs who are still reporting pressure on tee times.
We’re hopeful, as we continue to move back down through the level system, those who have still got tee times out at a wider interval than they previously were used to could return back to a sense of normality and start easing some of that pressure, although I know there are many who are enjoying a better pace of play by still operating to 10 minute intervals!
There’s the wider digital transformation across the sport with different platforms, the Venue Management System (VMS), World Handicapping, Webinars and HIVE Learning where we make available a lot of our educational resource to our member clubs.
People are now getting to grips with the different technology and changes in approach on handicapping, but it’s going to continue to be an area of considerable educational support for clubs over the next 12 to 18 months.
We will continue to support the rollout of our VMS platform, our National Junior Framework and work with the events team and performance team to ensure we return to more regular activity in the year ahead.
Do you think, as far as technology is concerned, that we’ve gone down the rabbit
hole now and we can’t go back to the way it was? We’ve been using phones during the pandemic and there’s the development of the Scottish Golf app. Does everything just continue in that vein? Undoubtedly the sport has caught up with society and what is commonplace in many other walks of life – whether that’s online banking or other app services – golf is now into that territory.
I think the vast majority of people view it as something that they want to see.
Are you optimistic about the future and excited about what it could hold? Hugely excited. As a sport in Scotland we have been very fortunate golf has been able to stay open.
We’ve seen new and returning golfers come into the game and we’ve got a massive opportunity to keep growing that number, to use the digital platforms to attract a younger audience, engage them in the sport and help our golf clubs to flourish in the years ahead.
How well do you know your members?
Roger Brown, Chief Commercial Officer, Fairway Credit...
If you are one of the lucky ones, you will have a great relationship with your members, know them by name, what handicap they play off, what drink they like on the 19th hole and crucially, know what they want from your club…
Or do you?! You’d be surprised at how little businesses know about their customers beyond their name and bank details.
Many businesses worldwide think they know their customers, ploughing forward with the thought “if it’s what I want, it’s what everyone wants” and this method can bring success. However, we all know that one person’s opinion doesn’t actually guarantee success as it may not meet the wants and needs of the majority, thus diminishing their offer, product or service, pushing customers to their rivals instead. Is there a solution?
YES… Customer Insight!! This is the main reason why many businesses survey their customers and prospects to find out exactly what they want from them, whether that is a new product, a new fee structure, better opening times etc. the list is endless.
The most important part of any survey is to find out what your customers think of you, your club, your services and the golden ticket item, if they would recommend you to others. The latter is easy to get an answer on, you add in the Net Promoter Score (NPS) question, set on a scale of 0 to 10 that is then played through a weighting model to provide you with an NPS score. Here is the standard question:
This type of question will help you identify who your supporters are and more importantly who are not. By using an NPS generator (these are abundant online) you will be able to gain a score which is recognised around the world. The score is based on subtracting your 0 to 6 scores from your 9 and 10 scores (7 to 8 are deemed neutral) to give you your final NPS score.
Once calculated, if your final score is over 1 this is seen as a good result, 30+ is great and 50+
How well do you know your members?
is exceptional. To make this more meaningful you should always follow it with an open-ended question:
“Why did you give us that score?”
Getting verbatim feedback from your members is really important, it allows them an open forum to speak out and gives you valuable insight to any potential issues that members might have avoided sharing in the past This in turn provides an opportunity to save potentially disenchanted members. Using the survey will help you to structure any changes required and will allow you to communicate better with your members.
How does Fairway Credit standout? We recently completed our annual NPS survey with our partner golf clubs and were delighted to score +52. Combined with the verbatims it shows that our product and related service are highly regarded and a boost to our clubs’ offering. Naturally some of the feedback was also developmental and this commentary is vitally important to allow us to improve our service, improve our product and show that we are “listening” to our clubs. The next step for Fairway Credit is to start to implement some of the suggestions we received, and this work has already started, there is no resting on our laurels, so watch this space!
Be a part of the Fairway Credit family Fairway Credit have been working with golf clubs in the UK and Ireland for over 25 years, helping golfers enjoy the benefits of a monthly membership payment whilst giving clubs the satisfaction of knowing their membership administration is expertly managed and that income generation is being sustained. As the NPS results show we’re doing this to a high standard.
With 1 in 4 golf clubs in the UK using Fairway Credit we know that we can add value to you and your club. Why not speak to one of our team to see what we can do for you and your members – Call 0344 736 9818.
