THE GOLF CLUB
MANAGER ISSUE TEN | JANUARY 2018
THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE GOLF CLUB MANAGERS’ ASSOCIATION
GCMA
UNBURDENED BY TRADITION
THREE CLUBS WHO HAVE S U CC E S S F U L LY I N T E G R AT E D MODERN APPROACHES
EDUCATION
DATA AND YOUR TEAM
T H E I M PA C T O F T H E N E W G D P R R U L E S O N H R M AT T E R S INTERVIEW
PAUL ARMITAGE
L E G O L F N AT I O N A L’ S GENERAL MANAGER ON HOSTING THE RYDER CUP
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CONTENTS ISSUE TEN | JANUARY 2018
GCMA
CAREERS
06
The latest from the chief executive
38
18
Embracing gender diversity
The latest jobs for GCMA members
INDUSTRY
EDUCATION
20
40
How to...stage a media event
48
The R&A’s David Rickman on the 2019 Rules of Golf
Keeping you In The Loop
INTERVIEWS
REGIONAL
22
Changing Times for A Matter of Opinion
58
Meet the manager: Foxhill’s Chris Fitt
30
Le Golf National’s Paul Armitage
64
Kirby Muxloe’s Terry Walker discusses his week
40
22
30
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THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE GOLF CLUB MANAGERS’ ASSOCIATION GCMA Bristol & Clifton Golf Club, Beggar Bush Lane, Failand, Bristol, BS8 3TH Tel: 01275 391153 | hq@gcma.org.uk CHIEF EXECUTIVE Bob Williams - bob@gcma.org.uk COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Mike Hyde - mike@gcma.org.uk GOLF MANAGEMENT RESEARCHER Jim Cunning - jim@gcma.org.uk EDUCATION COORDINATOR Niki Hunter - niki@gcma.org.uk MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY Ann Jones - ann@gcma.org.uk EDUCATION AND MAGAZINE ADMINISTRATOR Debbie Mereweather - debbie@gcma.org.uk FINANCE ADMINISTRATOR Shirley Edmondson - shirley@gcma.org.uk BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Tash Johnson - tash@gcma.org.uk COMMUNICATIONS EXECUTIVE Marie Taylor - marie@gcma.org.uk PRESIDENT JR (John) Jones 2017/18 CAPTAIN Howard Williams BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mike Hoare, Gary Steele, Phil Grice, Eddie Bullock THE GOLF CLUB MANAGER IS PUBLISHED BY: SPORTS PUBLICATIONS LTD 2 Arena Park, Tarn Lane, Scarcroft, West Yorkshire, LS17 9BF, UK Tel: 0113 289 3979 | info@sportspub.co.uk PUBLISHER Tom Irwin - t.irwin@sportspub.co.uk EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Dan Murphy - d.murphy@sportspub.co.uk OPS DIRECTOR Will Shucksmith - w.shucksmith@sportspub.co.uk EDITOR Steve Carroll - s.carroll@sportspub.co.uk CHIEF DESIGNER Andrew Kenworthy - a.kenworthy@sportspub.co.uk DESIGNERS Vicky Jones - v.jones@sportspub.co.uk Emmi Parry - e.parry@sportspub.co.uk Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, but the publishers cannot accept responsibility for omissions and errors. All material in this publication is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved.The views expressed in The Golf Club Manager do not necessarily represent the views of the company or the editor. Every care is taken in compiling the contents but the publishers assume no responsibility for any damage, loss or injury arising from participation in any offer, competition or advertising contained within The Golf Club Manager. THE GOLF CLUB
MANAGER ISSUE TEN | JANUARY 2018
THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE GOLF CLUB MANAGERS’ ASSOCIATION
GCMA
UNBURDENED BY TRADITION
THREE CLUBS WHO HAVE S U CC E S S F U L LY I N T E G R AT E D MODERN APPROACHES
EDUCATION
DATA AND YOUR TEAM
T H E I M PA C T O F T H E N E W G D P R R E G U L AT I O N S O N H R M AT T E R S INTERVIEW
PAUL ARMITAGE
L E G O L F N AT I O N A L’ S GENERAL MANAGER ON HOSTING THE RYDER CUP
ED U C AT E | I N FO RM | I N S P I RE ‘
001 GCMA January 18 Cover.indd 3
21/12/2017 13:55
ON THE COVER: Paul Armitage All GCMA Conference images: Kate Jackson Photography
WELCOME
ISSUE TEN | JANUARY 2018
A
s the song goes ‘Another year over. And a new one just begun’. But what will 2018 bring to your golf club and our industry? For many of us it will provide a springboard to promote the golf club and maybe promote yourselves – for others it will present a completely different set of challenges. One thing for sure is there will always be something happening within the club environment that we didn’t see coming. For some of us at GCMA, our year will kick off with a three-day training course in Harrogate as part of the BTME event hosted by BIGGA. Once again we will be participating in the exhibition and have a stand next to the main BIGGA suite. If you are planning to visit BTME or take part in GolfBic, which is being hosted on the Wednesday, please take the time to come and meet the GCMA team. We are always keen to meet up with members and their colleagues. You will also note we are launching the Women’s Golf Leadership Groups in February and March this year (see page 18). This is an initiative we have been discussing for the last 12 months, and have eventually managed to bring to the fore. While it is a GCMA initiative, we recognise this will be a cross-industry initiative that we share with women from all sectors of our industry. Within the initial pilot meetings we will be inviting women from both
the golf and business sectors to present thought leadership and share best practice. They will also provide an opportunity for all those participating to share problems and challenges that have been experienced. From the pilot meetings it is our aim to see this group flourish and, in time, provide a view for all of the industry. Finally, I would also like thank those of you who took the trouble to complete the Conference survey feedback. It has provided a very sound base for our conference debriefing meetings where a lot of the feedback will be used in preparing for 2019. Bob Williams – chief executive
“Within the initial pilot meetings we will be inviting women from both the golf and business sectors to present their thoughts on leadership and share best practice“
Leading the way in Golf Business Golf Business & Industry Convention 24 January 2018 | Harrogate Convention Centre The industry’s leading networking and education event for golf club owners, operators and managers. Ensure your club succeeds by investing in yourself at GolfBIC Register now to book your place
btme.org.uk/golfbic
GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
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What you
NEED TO KNOW Relevant news, opinion and expert insight from around the industry. Plus what’s happening around the UK in the world of the GCMA
GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
The year in
PICTURES
1
It’s not long ago in the memory, but the highlight of our year has to be conference at Mercedes-Benz World. There were some amazing speakers and presentations but, top of the bill, is always the Golf Club Management Awards. Fairmont St Andrews’ director of golf, spa and leisure, Amy Yeates, pictured here with chief executive Bob Williams, took the coveted Manager of the Year Award.
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2
The GCMA’s AGM, held at Chesterfield last April, proved expensive for national captain elect Cameron Dawson. Having just been voted in, he went out and played in the Captain’s Cup and managed a hole-in-one at the 12th. Cameron’s perfect shot was struck with a 5-wood from 181 yards and he celebrated by buying everyone a drink afterwards. The Yorkshire regional manager will take over from Howard Williams at this year’s AGM.
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Spreading the word about the GCMA is an international affair and these managers from across the regions did that in style in Sweden in the summer.
Regional meetings are often held in some wonderful surroundings but this view of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, during a North West gathering at St Annes Old Links, takes some beating.
5
A momentous year, in many respects, was topped off when we celebrated the first Diploma in Golf Club Management graduate. Jamie Cundy, Calderfield’s director of golf, completed the modules and workshops in double quick time as well - the whole process taking just under a year. The Diploma is the result of a collaboration with PGA and BIGGA and Cundy, who was presented with his certificate at the Golf Club Management Awards, will be the first of many.
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
Meet the
GCMA Giving a voice to the people behind the scenes who help to run your Golf Club Managers’ Association
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hat is your role? I co-ordinate the region – a full fixture list, six matches, the AGM, Spring and Autumn meeting, guest day for the captain and the Christmas lunch, which is the highlight of the year. There are also a substantial number of fixtures that you have to arrange throughout the year. How many clubs are in the region? We’ve got 150 members plus. We’ve got the full range of clubs from top to bottom. From Sunningdale and Walton Heath through to Woodcote Park, in Croydon and Shirley Park. They are all individual clubs. How did you become involved in the GCMA? I was invited to join back in the 1980s. We were the AGCS then. I worked as a secretary at a public golf course, Farnham Park in Buckinghamshire, and the regional secretary at the time, Bill Short from East Berks, invited me to join. I joined and that was it. I was in Southern region and that’s where I started for years.
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What have you made of the last three decades? The GCMA has grown. It’s more professional. Southern and London have always been professional, though. They are a different type of manager, because I think they have always been salaried. There are very few honorary secretaries in our two regions. Have you seen much change at golf clubs in that time? Are your Sunningdales and Walton Heaths the same as they’ve always been?
“We need to educate the boards to recognise that the GCMA member is a qualified member” They don’t change. They have a standard and that is maintained. What it does is that all the other golf clubs go to that standard. They aspire to that standard. I don’t treat any golf club differently to the next one. They are all the same in my book. Whether I am at Walton Heath or East Berks, where I was for the AGM this year. As far as I am concerned, they are both the
Maureen Brooker - is regional manager for GCMA London & Home Counties region
same. They are both equal and they deserve to be. What do you enjoy most about your role? It’s the inter-personal relationships you have. We communicate weekly. There isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t either send something out from a member asking for help and I’ll always send something out so we are always communicating. What opportunities lie ahead for the GCMA? I would like to see the GCMA in every golf club. We need to educate the boards to recognise that the GCMA member is a qualified member. That’s what I’d dearly like to do – to go and educate the boards of golf clubs to recognise that what we actually do is a profession. Can you see a time when every golf club manager is GCMA member? It should be, absolutely, and you have to go through the education path to do it. Too many board members think that Joe Bloggs can step in and do that job. They can’t and then they suffer. It’s educating golf clubs. We don’t advertise ourselves enough within the golf club.
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
Captain’s corner
HOWARD WILLIAMS
I
was privileged to work at the Sanderson Farms Championship, a PGA Tour event at the Country Club of Jackson, in Mississippi. A total of 950 volunteers, 40 PGA Tour/ShotLink staff, 70 from the Golf Channel and an additional 350, providing retail sales and catering, were on site. It is a massive operation. How did I get involved? Early last year, a friend who had volunteered at the tournament for over 20 years asked me to consider working as a ‘walking scorer’. What could be easier than carrying a scoreboard for 18 holes and changing the occasional number! When asked to report for my training, the truth began to dawn. I was not carrying a board, but entering three players’ scores into a palm-pilot and noting where their drives had finished and the area from which they were playing i.e. fairway, first cut of rough, deep rough, fairway bunker, greenside bunker, water or native area. I also recorded if the player took a drop, either a free drop or under penalty, and if a provisional ball was played. When each hole was completed the scores had to be quickly double checked and verified leaving very little time to keep up with play. No pressure then! All this information, together with the laser operators providing measurements to the ShotLink control centre, was instantly transmitted to the on-course
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electronic scoreboards and the Golf Channel for worldwide transmission. There was additional training for the 2017 event as the electronic hand-held devices had been upgraded. On Thursday morning, the first players teed-off just after it became light at 7.20am with the driving range being floodlit from 5.30am! Plenty of gloves and woolly hats were on show. The course was in excellent condition with many players giving plaudits to the superintendent, Stanley Reedy, for the wonderful putting surfaces. Then followed nearly five hours of intense concentration as I recorded every shot for my group of players – not easy when there is sometimes an alligator nearby! I had to enter the colour of each player’s trousers and top to facilitate identification by the TV production crew, commentators and laser operators. This went well until the temperature rose and each player peeled off his sweater to reveal a different coloured shirt underneath. I hadn’t anticipated this and had to immediately radio in to the control centre to prevent certain confusion. As the only point of contact with the control centre, I was also responsible for actioning any player’s request for a rules official and this had to be done without any delay. I will have a great deal of respect for walking scorers in future! At the end of the round I joined the players in the recorder’s office
to answer any queries about the scores. One of the first round leaders, Ryan Armour after a 66, was eventually crowned the champion with a five shot victory over Chesson Hadley. It was his first PGA Tour win in his 105th event. Another highlight was a guided tour of the ShotLink truck where all the data from the walking scorers and laser operators is processed prior to transmission to many oncourse electronic score boards and to The Golf Channel. The amount of data gathered
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The Sanderson Farms Championship may be staged at the highest level, but there are still things we can apply in our own competitions...
Caption in here
and statistics produced is simply mind-boggling. It is used on the day during live TV transmission and is analysed after the event by players, coaches, caddies, officials and many followers of golf around the world. It was a privilege to learn at firsthand what goes on ‘inside (and outside) the ropes’. My abiding memory of the whole event was the enthusiasm of all the many hundreds of volunteers some of whom had been continuously involved for over 20 years.
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From the daily 5am floodlighting of the range until the final match was concluded, and the scores verified, the volunteers completed a huge variety of responsibilities with an enthusiasm that was infectious! It became our event and that was obvious to players and spectators alike. Each of us made a payment of $45 towards the cost of the uniform provided (hat, shirt and jacket) and food supplied during each shift from Monday until Sunday. Enthusiasm costs
nothing but it is both inspiring and uplifting. This is something to be harnessed and utilised when our own clubs run an event, be it a Captain’s Day, charity day, County or Union fixture. Everyone involved can be a part of the experience, with a shared commitment and enthusiasm, which lifts player and volunteer alike. This can help build bigger volunteer teams, produce greater team spirit and, ultimately, enable us to attract more members to the truly great game of golf.
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
This GCMA club is famous for…
ALWOODLEY It was in Leeds, at this course, run by Julie Slater, where a famous doctor cut his teeth
T
hink Dr Alister MacKenzie and a former nursery in Georgia, a club that hands out a green jacket every April, springs to mind. Augusta National was the crowning achievement of the ex-surgeon, who carved out an international career as a course architect. Cypress Point, Pasatiempo and Royal Melbourne are among his other most celebrated achievements but it is in Leeds where his design brief first began. MacKenzie was one of the founder members of The Alwoodley in 1907 and was made honorary secretary. He laid out a course in quick time but it was not without incident that his innovative views would become commonplace. MacKenzie learned lessons of camouflage during a stint in the Boer War and transferred these to golf – using artificial features to blend in with hollows and mounds already in the natural setting. It was a golfing illusion. Bunkers looked more fearsome than they were, blind shots altered your perspective. These were visual tricks that put doubt in the mind of the player. But
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MacKenzie admitted the ‘worry’ his ideas caused among the new Alwoodley fraternity – writing in The Spirit of St Andrews that:“every committee meeting was a dog fight, and on many occasions we nearly came to blows”. The first medals had already been played when Harry Colt, the most famous designer of the day, came to visit at the end of July 1907. It seems his chief task was to soothe concerns and, given how closely aligned his views on design were with the Dr,’s the latter’s fledgling career received a timely boost. What remains now is a remarkable testament to his talents. The 10th, a sweeping
dogleg with a green sitting at the bottom, was an early model for Augusta’s famous 13th. While he became a prolific global designer, his link with Alwoodley remained. He was club captain and stayed on the green committee until relocating to the US, where he would firmly establish his legacy. But it was in a corner of Leeds where the master of Augusta took his first steps. What is it that makes your club special? Every club has something that makes it unique, that sets it apart from everywhere else. Why not let us know what it is? Email s.carroll@sportspubs.co.uk
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
A cultural shift to embrace GENDER DIVERSITY The Women’s Golf Leadership Group is part of our commitment to achieving greater gender equality in the GCMA community...
A
s I announced at our Conference in November, I’m pleased to confirm the GCMA will launch the Women’s Golf Leadership Group in 2018, as part of our commitment to achieve a more inclusive culture within golf. The Women’s Golf Leadership Group, which will meet for the first time at three locations around the UK in the New Year, is part of our commitment to achieving greater gender equality in the GCMA community. The group reflects the overall aspiration for golf club management to be genuinely inclusive and embrace gender diversity in the broadest sense. It recognises that to achieve this aspiration there needs to be a cultural shift that properly enables women to flourish at all levels of the industry. The GCMA has seen a big rise in female members over the last couple of years – almost 100% increase since 2012, and with nearly 20% of our members now women, it’s clear there is a fundamental shift in the demographics of our membership. The group will exist initially to bring like-minded people together to share the challenges they have
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faced, and provide a forum to look specifically at what barriers exist within the current culture of golf club management. The vision for the group is to develop best practice and create consistent opportunities to advance gender balance throughout 2018, with a view to developing a wider programme of events and initiatives in 2019. It should also be noted that three of the last four GCMA Golf Club Manager of the Year winners have been female, and the group will also champion the achievements of women in the industry. The key themes of the Women’s Golf Leadership Group are to embrace diversity, ensure inclusive leadership, encourage collaboration and be proactive in addressing the under representation of female golf club managers with innovative
“The vision for the group is to develop best practice and create consistent opportunities to advance gender balance”
Bob Williams is the GCMA’s chief executive
plans and strategies. The first step towards achieving this objective is to identify key priorities for change to enable all those who have a stake in the future of our industry to get behind clearly defined calls to action. The group will be launched in February and March. Key leading women from our industry, the PGA and BIGGA will be invited to join female members of the GCMA for thought leadership presentations and facilitated networking. All female members will receive an invitation to attend and participate in an open and frank discussion about the current challenges. This will then serve to identify the nature and scope of work required with owners, boards, committees, golf club members and others within the golf club management community. The first meetings will be held on February 1, Fairhaven Golf Club, North West; February 27, Enville Golf Club, Midland; March 21, Foxhills Club and Resort, London & Home Counties. I would like to thank Fairhaven, Enville and Foxhills for agreeing to host. If you would like to attend or send key female staff from your organisation please email marie@gcma.org.uk or call 01275 391153.
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Women’s Golf Leadership Group Networking events, encouraging thought leadership and sharing best practice
Meetings: Thursday 1 February, Fairhaven Golf Club, Tuesday 27 February, Enville Golf Club Wed 21 March, Foxhills Club & Resort If you would like to attend or send key female individuals from your organisation please email marie@gcma.org.uk or call 01275 391153.
Visit gcma.org.uk/womens for more information
GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
In the
LOOP 1. England Golf’s new governance structure... What’s happened: England Golf, based at Woodhall Spa, have voted to change their governance structure to meet the Government’s gold standard. This will see the board reduced from 15 to 12 members, comprising of eight elected directors, three independent members and the chief executive. What does it mean? England Golf have been undertaking a number of measures to try and modernise how the game is run, while complying with the Code for Sports Governance. That is designed to ensure that UK sports bodies lead the world with the highest levels of governance and transparency. While that’s obviously beneficial, it’s also essential if you want to qualify for public funding. England Golf currently receives £8.48 million from Sport England, spread over four years. Nic Coward, England Golf’s independent chairman, said:“From the outset England Golf has been a high-performing organisation leading the way for change and
Three things you need to know from the last few weeks in the golf industry…
(this) vote is another positive statement.” 2. Are membership fees in Scotland going to rise? What happened: More than 500 delegates from across Scotland descended on Edinburgh for Scottish Golf’s first national conference. This was arranged after a Special General Meeting, which was due to discuss a controversial proposal to more than double the affiliation fees clubs play to the organisation, was pushed back following the resignation of former chief executive Blane Dodds. The consultation for that has been extended until March. According to reports, attendees
at the ‘Future of Golf in Scotland’ event were told that the price of membership may need to rise in the future because of the ongoing funding crisis in the game. What does it mean? Writing in The Scotsman, Martin Dempster reported board member Stewart Darling saying that clubs had been losing around 5,000 full members every year over the past 10 years. He warned that without bringing in new blood, an average subscription could rise by 34 per cent in five years’ time and 84 per cent over a decade. Arguing that some clubs were not welcoming to women and children, he said that was a “fundamental issue”. Eleanor Cannon, the Scottish Golf chair, who has assumed an executive position in the wake of Dodds’ departure, was also reported to have described the membership situation as “urgent”. Proposals are now due to be discussed at Scottish Golf’s Annual General Meeting in March. 3. Can this sounding board help ensure healthier clubs? What happened: Golf club
@GCMAUK Martin Slumbers - @RandA chief executive - agrees with @MikeHyde that clubs need to adapt and offer flexibility to keep golfers in the game.
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Do you agree? @GCMAUK @RandA @MikeHyde Whilst the industry has to be adaptable, individual clubs may
not have to. Sometimes we, the players, have to cut our cloth to suit current circumstances. @golfminder
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We want to hear from you! Send your correspondence, on any subject, to letters@gcma.org.uk
managers from across the country, and the GCMA, have come together with England Golf to shape the business support it offers. The Club Managers’ Advisory Group aims to provide “an ear to the ground, offering feedback and opinions on the programmes and resources offered by England Golf”. What does it mean? Creating stronger clubs “which are thriving, healthy businesses” is the aim and, quite rightly, England Golf say they require the views and needs of
club managers. Niki Hunter, the GCMA’s education coordinator, is part of the group, which will act as sounding board. The group is chaired by Alistair Booth, chairman of Frilford Heath, and among the other members are Aldwickbury Park general manager Emma Clifford and Gary Pearce, general manager at Fulford, in York. The pair are both former winners of the Golf Club Manager of the Year award.
Welcome to our newest GCMA members Mike Ridout, manager of Beacon Hall, in Canada William Townson, manager at Woolston Manor, in East Anglia region Richard Odell, manager at Sherwood Forest, in East Midlands region Mark Grieve, manager at Datchet, in London & Home Counties region Dr Angus Mackenzie, honorary secretary at Sandwell Park, in Midland region Nat Sylvester, honorary secretary at Churchill & Blakedown, in Midland region Martin Edge, secretary at Hesketh, in North West region Hayley Taylor, manager at Crewe, in North West region Simon Payne, secretary at Cowglen, in Scotland region Nicholas Marshall, assistant at Tenterden, in South East region Ian McMahon, secretary at Filton, in South West region Robert Climas, manager at North Hants, in Southern region Nick Duc, manager at Holtye, in Southern region Timothy Priestland, owner/director at Ashburnham, in Wales region
Flexibility is very important. As is customer focus. But those two can easily become ruthless price cutting and a race to the bottom, which only has
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one end, destruction. Customer focus, flexibility, and confidence in your offer all need to go together. @oxfordgolfcons
Carol Saunders, manager at Holywell, in Wales region James Glover, manager at Hallamshire, in Yorkshire region
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A Matter of Opinion
CHANGING TIMES
From left to right, Gary Peddie, Scott Patience and Richard Pennell
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oking, West Surrey, St George’s Hill. Three neighbouring clubs known for their wonderful golf courses and their firm reputations as among Britain’s most traditional. Don’t think for a second, though, that these clubs are rooted in the past, content to bask in their glorious histories. They have made tweaks and
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changes to keep up with the constant shifts in society and have benefited from their modern approach. But how do you negotiate such a tricky path at institutions that can look back at a century of traditions? How do your members react when you unveil a different approach? Our three managers reveal all… At Woking Richard, you’ve taken the step to go from a strictly twoball club to three and
fourball trials on Tuesdays and Fridays. For your members, was that a difficult decision? Richard Pennell: Yes. I think they found it a difficult concept. They are so used to twoball golf and it is a major part of the ethos of the club. It’s a valuable thing at Woking that you can play golf quickly and get back to lunch with the family, or whatever. But there was a financial imperative. We needed to raise more visitor revenue and the members are intelligent people.
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How do you find the tricky balance between moving with the times and upholding time-honoured traditions? Three managers, whose clubs have all moved to modernise, discuss the issue…
When those facts were given to them, they understood and they could see that we needed to do something. We are doing this on a trial basis and they have been very accommodating. We have just started that trial and we’re already picking up some extra revenue as a result. The signs are good. Have you all had your own instances where you have had to modify decades of tradition? Gary Peddie: Just before I arrived at St George’s Hill, they had just gone through what was described as ‘sockgate’. It’s the classic (debate), but very important to the members of the club. Up until that point, you were only allowed to wear long hose as socks with shorts. They could be any colour but you couldn’t wear a short sock at all. Now, St George’s Hill is a golf club of lineage. So it has grandsons, parents, grandparents, who absolutely cherish membership at St George’s Hill. But, of course,
the grandsons and sons, and daughters, wanted to play golf in clothing they were comfortable in for the modern day – where they could play elsewhere. Experience of playing overseas, where they are used to wearing short ankle socks (meant) this went through a debacle of letters backwards and forwards to the then secretary. In the end, common sense prevailed. Now they allow a sock of any length as long as it’s white. If you choose to wear long hose, then it is the full length of sock. Also since I’ve been there, in the restaurant of the club – dining in the restaurant – you had to wear a jacket and tie. We’ve removed the need for a tie, because it was starting to impinge upon corporate business. So it’s for exactly the same reasons that Richard is talking about. We had some of our clients paying significant amounts of money to be there for a day. They were saying to us ‘come on, we don’t wear ties at any time in the
business world. Why on earth do we need to here?’ I’ve had to work very hard to smooth that with our members, who are used to, and it was a taken, that the tie will be worn. Scott Patience: There’s the social change that’s going on in the country, and golf clubs take time to catch up, but it starts to influence the financial things going on in your club. Our clubs are in strong positions, for various different reasons, but other clubs are not and they more are open to change. Woking is changing to fourballs from twoballs. It’s a big factor for the club, but it’s also a financial need. We had to drive membership. We’ve got a full membership so now we are limiting golf days, on certain days. We are making Fridays exclusive for members, whereas we had golf days in those times. We needed the revenue. Now we’ve got a full membership, and we’ve a waiting list, we don’t need that pressure. We’ve got to recognise the balance with the membership.
Scott Patience Secretary/manager at West Surrey
Richard Pennell Secretary at Woking
MEET THE PANEL
Gary Peddie Club secretary at St George’s Hill
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Also, with the changes, we have introduced Ready Golf – which The R&A have been promoting and some clubs have been doing – as a pace of play (initiative) but not everyone wants to run round the golf course. You encourage different people into the game. They are learning
to accept modernisation but that willingness has to come from the right source. We’d been in (a session at conference) with David Bancroft-Turner about the politics within clubs. That’s exactly what you have to do. That’s exactly what we’ve done. A little group of The R&A people have sown a seed, they
”That’s the key. You communicate and engage the members. Engaging is the tricky one, because you could get 500 different opinions” – Gary Peddie
the game and it’s not the easiest sport. GP: That’s a really interesting concept. I think all three of our clubs are quite heavily laden with R&A members and, consequently, Ready Golf was an easy sell. When The R&A members went and played in the Spring Meeting, this year, they all came back with the policy and procedural guidelines behind Ready Golf. We put it in front of the members and all of them jumped on it straight away and said ‘fantastic’. It’s really made a difference to the way people get round a golf course. So I think there’s a willingness
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are well-respected people in the club, and, all of a sudden, my job of selling Ready Golf has got very easy. That’s the way forward on any of these things. What’s really interesting to me is that the smallest point is often the one that creates the biggest emotive reaction. That, for me, is always understanding what those points are and making sure we work around them – or away from them. Because if they are small, then really, they are not that important in terms of the business. SP: How have you found it, trying to make the change? RP: It’s been fine, actually. We’ve
taken lots of feedback from the members. We consulted with them and shared various bits of information with them and anything is a compromise in the club, isn’t it? The impression you get speaking to the members who come forward to give you their opinion, they are already firmly in one camp or the other. But as soon as you make the changes people provide a different kind of feedback. They say ‘that’s great. We’ll bring three clients down on a Friday afternoon’ or ‘I haven’t been able to do that. I’ve paid x number of thousand pounds to join this place’. As soon as we made the decision, some more positive feedback came back. It has been fascinating, actually. GP: The point that you made Richard was the communication and that’s the key. You communicate and engage the members. Engaging is the tricky one, because you could get 500 different opinions. Actually, as we learned at Conference, when managing a golf club there are three sets of people that you need to talk to. One of them regards the governance of the club. We need to manage the governance of the club, whether that’s a board of directors, or a management committee. Get them on side and then look at how we are going to talk to the members and how we are going to deliver a statement to them that allows them the opportunity to engage with you back. RP: At Woking, the impression I get is that they communicated very little with the members before I got there. I am doing more of that. I want to do more still but we’re giving them information about maintenance routines on the golf
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”The example of taking phone calls is intrusive. You’re part of a community and you have got to learn how to fit in to your club” – Scott Patience
course and things we are doing to improve the playing surfaces and so on. None of this is rocket science. They ought to have been sharing that communication before, perhaps, but the response to that has been very positive, which is fascinating. Members care about the place, they are proud to be members and they want to know it is being managed well and going in the right direction. They respond really well to that. GP: If you look in the members’ bar on a Saturday afternoon, of the 40 to 70 people that are sat in the bar, 90 per cent of them have got their phone in front of them. It’s not on, in terms of being audible, but they are picking up messages and they are doing emails. It’s using that to take it forward. Mobile phones are a really tricky subject. You’ve used it to your advantage Gary. Has that been the case throughout? GP: It is now at St George’s Hill. If you’d gone back five years that would never have happened. But the world of technology moves at such a speed that we’ve got
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to grab hold of it, otherwise we are going to get left behind. You certainly can’t take a call in the clubhouse. It’s always understood that you can in the locker room. You can in the car park. You can have your phone out on the golf course because there may be an incident where an emergency call needs to be made. There’s a whole health and safety route to take on that one. Essentially, golf clubs that don’t move that way are going to be stuck. The next generation of golfers will walk with a phone in their hand and if we don’t engage with them we are in big trouble. But it is doing it properly. SP: If you look at the members we deal with, they retired before the internet really took hold. It influences all our lives – in work and social – and we have to engage because it’s a huge change if you don’t. But the example of taking phone calls is intrusive. You’re part of a community and you have got to learn how to fit in to your club. If a member joins a club they are not just joining a golf course, they are joining a community. It’s how you balance that. Golf
clubs aren’t necessarily the market leaders in some of these things but they have to see what works in what forms. It’s there. We’re not going to get away from it. GP: What’s interesting is that a lot of the people that come to St George’s Hill are chairmen of FTSE 100 companies, or the like, so they are market leaders in whatever they do. They are already using their phone, their iPad and their device. What would be any different in a golf club? It is managing it at the club and making it work for you. One of the things they (members at St George’s Hill) don’t like to do is player scoring. They don’t like putting their scores into a terminal after they have played a tournament. They will have myself, or my number two, or one of the professional staff, check the scores, manually input them and then create a leaderboard. The leaderboard is often manual and they love that. That’s a tradition of the club that they don’t want to lose. I understand that. Why on earth would I try and battle against that? RP: But, at the same time, you are
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using the technology – given that you are doing to do that for them and smoothing things. It is exactly the same at Woking. It still makes it a lot easier for us to do that, doesn’t it? It saves us time. SP: That particular element makes very little difference to the Woking members, or St George’s Hill, but you are still looking after them and the technology – and keeping your eye on technology – can save us all time in the background. GP: When I am managing one of these competitions, I am probably – as I’m looking back through the bar, taking the cards, marking the scores up – engaging with more of
you do it before you ever have a meeting. You know the people that are going to be vocal – who will say things that you want them to say or not want them to say. Sometimes you actually want them to say the wrong thing because then you know that everyone else will then say ‘well, we don’t agree with that’. It’s getting that balance but you are doing it in advance of when you are actually going to make the decision. The Government do it all the time, don’t they? They leak things out and some things they do, and some things they don’t, to see what the opinion
but also a very informal way. It’s not dictatorial, so everyone is taking a role and actually engaging in conversation with me about various topics. Then, when you start to talk to these key people, you very quickly understand that, actually, it’s not that important to them so we can talk to other key influencers. RP: The long term health of the club they love is more important to them than socks or mobile phone use. At Woking, we had a handful of absolute twoball advocates who thought it was the end of the world, regardless of the financial implication of not changing and
is. I guess we do that as well – depending on what it is and if it’s going to be a tough decision. GP: There are key influencers in every club and I think what you have to do is sound them out and listen to them. You have to understand where they are coming from as you understand some of these guys will make it difficult if you go against them. You gain their confidence, which I think you do by managing the club in a very authoritative way
allowing some more visitors. When confronted with the facts, and sat down quietly to talk through what other options there were, they’ve ended up almost being the strongest positive influences because their minds have been changed. They see that there is common sense behind this – it’s not a kneejerk reaction by a new committee or secretary and they’ve ended up being more vocal in support than some of the people who began
”The long term health of the club they love is more important to them than socks or mobile phone use” – Richard Pennell
those members in those two hours than I do at any other time in the week. You learn more about what they are thinking, about the golf course and the state of the club, what they’d like to see, what they don’t like. It’s amazing. How do you encourage members towards the objective you are looking for? SP: You would draw them in. We talked earlier about how you influence, and the politics, but
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in a very positive frame of mind. They’ve completely turned around and are going out supporting your cause or the things you want to do among the rest of the membership. It’s fascinating to watch, actually. SP: That’s important as well. It’s all well and good talking about these decisions in advance but, actually, when you make the decision and you’ve communicated it – whether it’s to the board or sub-committee or even the membership – you need them to promote it in a positive light so you see it through. (Otherwise) You undermine the very position you’ve taken. I don’t just mean as a manager. I mean as a board or membership. Traditions are still important to all your clubs. .. SP: When I was at Sunningdale recently, and at St George’s Hill, you go and they have embraced all their history. You are just fascinated by different pictures, or stories, like the (Sunningdale) Cadets playing at Baltusrol. The juniors have played a match there. How does that work? You are intrigued by the
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”You’ve got to embrace what your club is. But you do have to understand. We were born in 1910 and we’re not the same club that we were then” – Scott Patience history of the club. It’s very tasteful. It’s not in your face. Sunningdale is obviously one of the best courses in the UK, if not the world, and you’ve got to embrace what your club is. But you do have to understand. We were born in 1910 and we’re not the same club that we were then. GP: I think tradition and business really work together. I think the average member probably wouldn’t like to hear the word business mentioned too often about their golf club. But it is a small business. Tradition is one
of the key characteristics that sits behind what the club is. We are very proud of our history at St George’s Hill. It’s all over the place when you walk into the club and you immediately think ‘this is an exceptionally traditional club’. I think a number of people find that very daunting, when they have visitors to the club. But then when they meet the staff, they are made to feel exceptionally welcome and so that façade that was initially built up is immediately broken down. They then love the environs of the traditional clubhouse and the sight but also understand that it comes at a price and it has to work. RP: I love the way lots of clubs – and I want to do more of this – are using technology to shout about their history and tradition. It’s so easy to do these days with online archives of aerial photos from the 1890s, and lovely old pictures of the golf course. It’s very easy to share those via Twitter or other forms of media. It’s a very modern way of sharing it but just reinforcing the traditional thing. It’s a nice balance.
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The interview
PAUL ARMITAGE
H
ow did you become involved with the GCMA? I first met GCMA communications manager Mike Hyde at the 59Club Awards and we moved on from there. I’m a Brit, living abroad, and working on
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quite a reputable golf course – I guess it was a good idea. Have you worked in the UK at all? No. I went to university in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1989, I got a grant to do Erasmus with the European Union. I ended up at Dijon, in Burgundy. I went to the
university there for nine months, then I did six months in Spain – at the Chamber of Commerce in Malaga. It was 15 months and the time of my life. I went back to the UK, finished my degree, and then got offered a job in Dijon. I went and have never been back. That was in 1991.
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As general manager of Le Golf National, Paul Armitage is in an enviable position. Later this year, his course will hold the sport’s greatest team event – The Ryder Cup. The GCMA member talks to Steve Carroll about his background, THAT competition, and what comes next… How did you get involved in golf club management? Golf has always been a sport I played as a kid. I never wanted to be a pro, never really played for the county, or anything important. I just enjoyed my golf, was a single figure golfer. When I got to France, it was booming in the early 90s. It
was booming on the growth of the number of golf courses – but not necessarily on the number of golfers. Lots of golf clubs were struggling to get members and struggling to survive, really. They’d been built but they hadn’t really thought about where the customers were going to come
from. That first year, in 1991, I was working at the university in Dijon and helping, on a Wednesday and a Saturday, at the kids’ school. I was volunteering – giving free lessons to help the local pro create new golfers. It was a barter system, and I would get free golf. I could play as much as I wanted at the local club. I did that
“The tickets that went on sale sold out in two hours and 50 minutes. It wasn’t just 1,000 tickets, either. We are talking 40,000 a day”
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for a year and, during that, I must have caught the eye of the golf manager there. My French was improving rapidly and he said ‘would you like to come and be an events manager and try and help us get things moving?’ Then I thought about working in golf. I went into that in 1992 and have never left the industry since. From Dijon to the Ryder Cup… From Scunthorpe to the Ryder Cup. There was an excellent bid, France did very well and the French Golf Federation did really well. A lot of that is due to one man’s vision and pushing and pulling. That’s Pascal Grizot. He’s still the chairman of the French organising committee. It’s brought up quite a lot of challenges for the French. One of them is the golf club – what kind of golf club do they really want? They decided the one they had built, and envisaged, had lost track and moved away from its original story. It had to come back to basics, be shaken up a bit and modernised, and they needed somebody who had a bi-culture – both to talk to the European Tour and Ryder Cup Europe. I suppose there weren’t many candidates who ticked all the boxes. You’d expect the French to get behind the Ryder Cup, but is this going to be a massive expat excursion? The tickets that went on sale, last October, were daily or season tickets for individuals. Certain amounts were allotted to go on sale and then, after that, they get on and sell the hospitality and the sponsors get a certain amount of tickets as well. The tickets that went on sale sold out in two hours and 50 minutes. It wasn’t just
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1,000 tickets, either. We are talking upwards of 40,000 tickets a day. Ticket sales went extremely well and the good thing, for the French market, is that Pascal Grizot got written into the final contract that the home country should get 40 per cent of daily tickets. Actually, 47 per cent were sold to the French. So France has got behind it. The next biggest market is the UK, for obvious reasons, but the Americans are coming in force – a lot more Americans than at Gleneagles.
to deliver a golf course, and a golf course that’s in good nick and has gone through 7.5 million euros of work. Between July 2015 and May 2016 we closed the Albatros course, which was a risky time. We get exactly the same winters as you do and how do you grow grass in winter when you have been doing drainage, irrigation, and putting in new cart paths and drinking water all over the place because 60,000 are going to be on site every day? You’re putting in fibre optics for TV and wi-fi.You have
What challenges are there in hosting a Ryder Cup? It’s a very different tournament to the Open de France you stage? The first challenge is that we have to deliver a golf course. Some of the logistics, security and transport – there are other people doing that, it’s not necessarily down to one team. I’ve an extremely good superintendent, Alejandro Reyes. He was brought in one year before me, in 2013, in a big change process. He is a magician, a very clever guy, a very nice guy, and he’s doing an absolutely brilliant job. He’s making my job a lot easier. Our main job for the Ryder Cup is
got a city – a town – on your golf course. We went through that period of work and we were on time and on budget. My mission was not to organise the Ryder Cup. It was very clear. In my second interview, the first sentence was that. ‘Paul, we don’t need a director for Ryder Cup France. We need a guy to come in and turn this business around and make it ready for an international tournament. We’re going to be a massive bucket list golf course and we’ve just been pottering on and doing our own thing for 20-odd years. Change the whole thing. Get the staff ready. Get us ready for whatever’s going to fall on us and
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we’ll do the rest.’ That gives you purpose and clarity straight away… Absolutely. When I was brought in I didn’t really know Pascal Grizot or Ryder Cup Europe and when you don’t know these people you have to win their confidence. It’s not a quick process. It’s not just by talking. It’s not just by coming in. I brought into that job application and interviews a project – ‘we’ll do this, this and this’. They said that was exactly what they were looking for. It’s not just good enough – to do the talking. You have to do the action. So it took about two years to gain all of the organisers of the Ryder Cup’s confidence. Now I am
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very much more involved in the Ryder Cup than I ever dreamed of as a golf manager.
no other golf course in the world that organises a Ryder Cup and a main tour event in the same year. We’ve got both – with a build and a breakdown. It’s totally insane, but it’s going to be fantastic because it is so well organised. The good thing is it is the same promoters. The HNA Open, when it was brought into the Rolex Series, changed promoters to the European Tour. So we are now working on those two events with the same people.
What’s the split between Ryder Cup and day-to-day club work? Right now, it’s at least half of my job helping take care of needs for the Ryder Cup and HNA Open de France. We are unique. There’s
How will the course recover so quickly from the Open de France? What if there is bad weather? There’s no worries for the course. This year was extremely good.
“The course is looking good. The European Tour are happy. The European Ryder Cup captain is happy”
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Le Golf National In the mid 1980s the then French Golf Federation president, ClaudeRoger Cartier, wanted to create a permanent site for the Open de France. Construction began in 1987 and the site, at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, between Paris and Versailles, opened in 1990. Le Golf National has two 18-hole courses, the Albatros, which will host the Ryder Cup and the Olympics and was designed by Hubert Chesneau and Robert Von Hagge, and the shorter Aigle, or Eagle. A nine-hole course, the L’Oiselet (Birdie) makes up the complex. The Open de France has been held at Le Golf National every year since 1991 except for 1999 and 2001.
We held, on purpose, the Paris Legends Championship (Senior event) on the same weekend as the Ryder Cup so we could see how things had moved on, and the weather and the climate and what the course was feeling like. To be perfectly honest, the course was actually better at the Paris Legends than at the French Open. We can get dry spells and we did get a very hot, very early summer, which put a bit of shock onto the grass and around the golf course. The course at the French Open was very good but it was not at its best this year. We didn’t have very many people this year, so there wasn’t much trampling down of the golf course. We were down on numbers visiting the Open
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de France, mainly due to bad weather. We had four days of bad weather and delays in play and a lot of rain. That was also a good point because it showed that the work we’d done on drainage was working perfectly. In the Ryder Cup, they want to steer away as much as possible from a Monday finish. That’s why, since Celtic Manor, we had to do all the drainage and irrigation works. The event is only a few months away, how exciting is that? It’s very humbling. We have to stay concentrated. We can’t let go and say ‘It’s done and dusted’. No. We do actually have to deliver an event now, and succeed in delivering a good one and, hopefully, the
best one we’ve ever seen. We are staying very concentrated. The pressure has moved a little bit. It’s a nice pressure at the minute because, as I say, we’ve delivered a golf course. Whatever happens to it now – if something goes wrong – it will be out our hands. We’ve got the work done. The golf course is looking good. The European Tour are happy with it. The European Ryder Cup captain is happy with it. We’ve got one last point of work – there’s a new tee line for the driving range – so our pressure is actually nicer now. We are moving on to more intricate details of organisation. That’s not me who’s responsible for it. I am helping, but I am not responsible for it.
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Who is Paul Armitage? Born and educated in England, Armitage has been working in France since 1991 and replaced Oliver Roche as general manager of Le Golf National in 2014. He had been managing director of LeClub Golf, one of a series of management roles he had held in France over two decades. He had shepherded the organisation through a period of growth that saw a 300 per cent increase in turnover and an increase in facilities from 70 to 116. You’ve had a few moments where you’ve been able to sit back and take it all in… Probably the highlight of my career so far was the ‘One Year to Go’ event. It went very smoothly, was very well organised by the French Golf Federation with the European Tour, and the best way to review those three days was what Jim Furyk said in the first five minutes of the press conference – live on American TV and Sky – that he was blown away with everything we did. We had dinner in the Versailles Palace. You never go there for dinner. That evening was a very proud moment for me because, a couple of months earlier, the President of Ryder Cup France
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called me and said ‘we’d like you to consider being MC for the One Year event’. It wasn’t easy to find someone who can flip back easily from English into French. That was a fantastic moment for me. Stressful, but nice. What do you do afterwards? Since September 13 last year, we have an answer for the golf club. We have changed our staff a lot - 50 per cent of them since 2014 – to gear them up and they’re the people who really understand what’s happening to Le Golf National and who want to take the change forward. At every seminar, it’s always come up as a question at the end of the day. Someone at the back of the room, one of
the gardeners or someone from the commercial staff, will put their hand up and say ‘the Ryder Cup’s all good but what do we do after?’ You think ‘well, we are going to run a golf club. We’re going to try and make it a profitable business and give customers an experience’. That was the answer. Because we didn’t know. It was like a soufflé. Where do you go now, after you’ve done the third largest media and sporting event in the world? Well, we’ve got an answer and we have a next ambition. It’s called the 2024 Olympics. Paris won. It was announced on September 13, last year, in Lima, and the day it was announced a contract – which had already been signed between the French Golf Federation and the Olympic Committee as part of the bid for France – came into action. In that contract, it hands over the club for ladies and gents golf. I think Le Golf National has an amazing few years to come. I don’t think it will stop there. It’s about the only thing that can top a Ryder Cup, isn’t it? It’s the number one event in sport on the planet. It will be unique for many years to come. I don’t think anyone is going to copy that (a course that holds both a Ryder Cup and Olympic competition) too quickly. It is a USP, absolutely. From a personal point of view, we will see what happens. Will you still be there for it? I don’t know. I go back to my interview, the mission and the letter I got and once we’ve achieved everything that’s on that letter are they going to come up with something new? I think we have to wait and see. Whatever happens, I am thoroughly enjoying what’s happening now.
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Principles of Golf Club Management This training course is designed for either newcomers to the profession of golf club management, or an existing manager, secretary or assistant, who wants to bring themselves up-to-date with current management practices. The course content is relevant for both private members and proprietary clubs. The course is delivered by industry experts and serving managers, and topics include: » Membership & Club Management Systems » Food & Beverage Operations » Marketing and Membership Schemes » Running Golf Competitions » Golf Club Governance
» Course Ratings and Handicaps » Accounting Principles » Health & Safety » Employment Law » Golf Club Law
Upcoming Dates 21 – 23 January 2018: Harrogate, Yorkshire BTME condensed course
12 – 16 March 2018: Newbury, Berkshire 10 – 14 September 2018: Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire 19 – 23 November 2018: Wyboston, Bedfordshire Costs The cost of the course is £995 (VAT exempt; January course £360+VAT). This includes all course materials, accommodation (except Harrogate) and food throughout.
To Book or for More Information
Visit gcma.org.uk/education, or contact GCMA education coordinator Niki Hunter: niki@gcma.org.uk or 01275 391153
GCMA RECRUITMENT
FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE VACANCIES BELOW, VISIT GCMA.ORG.UK/JOBS
COOMBE WOOD GC ::: GENERAL MANAGER
Situated in Kingston, Surrey, on the private Coombe Estate, Coombe Wood is only nine miles from Central London. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in supporting the board with the day-to-day running of the club with particular emphasis on marketing all of its facilities, including events which will follow a refurbishment of clubhouse facilities in 2018. To apply, please forward your CV to kevin.mullen@coombewoodgolf.com Region: London & HC | Salary: Competitive| Apply by: January 15
TRENTHAM GC ::: GENERAL MANAGER Trentham Golf Club has one of the finest courses in the Midlands and has hosted Open Championship qualifying, England Golf and Staffordshire County events for both men and ladies. Trentham is a members’ club and will be celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2019, having been recognised by The R&A in 1894. As General Manager, you will be responsible for creating and delivering the business plan to drive golf membership, green fee revenue, food and beverage and events income.
Region: Midlands | Salary: Dependant on experience| Apply by: January 26
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Good
PRACTICE Advice on golf club management issues – from finance to clubhouse rules and employment law to staff morale – from our panel of experts
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How to ... stage a
MEDIA EVENT
Burnham & Berrow secretary/manager Karen Drake addresses guests at the media day
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he ‘media’ get a bad rap these days but, when it comes to publicising your golf course, they can be your best friends. With a bit of foresight and planning, you can make contacts at newspapers and magazines to give your club exposure, without necessarily having to shell out large sums. Traditional methods see clubs pay for advertising space – whether that is a conventional advert or advertorial. But if you think slightly differently, as Burnham & Berrow did, you can
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potentially gain more exposure at a far lower cost. Wanting to market the new course work that had taken place over the winter, secretary/manager Karen Drake held a ‘press day’ at the Somerset venue and has since reaped the benefits. The club have had reams of newsprint and online coverage from reviews and stories about the top 100 course as a result – column inches that would have cost several thousand pounds had they approached it through conventional means. “We had been very busy during
the winter months undertaking major construction works to extend some of the Championship golf holes,” Drake, who is also GCMA South West regional manager, explained. “As a way of ‘showcasing’ the new tees, we invited some of the top golf publications and sports journalists to experience for themselves the new layout, sample the newly refurbished retail facility and our state-of-theart performance studios. “It was my marketing director who said we should hold a press day. He had the idea and I ran with
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If you’re looking to raise your club’s profile, a media day may be the way to do it. Karen Drake, secretary/manager at Burnham & Berrow, did just that...
New tees were built at Burnham & Berrow
it and made it happen. “The reason it worked so well is because we use a publicity agent (Helen Heady). She was able to give me some contacts. Initially, I started writing to the various magazines and publications. “But because I didn’t have a direct relationship with those people, they just either ignored me or refused. I got involved with Helen and she gave me some contacts. “She engineered a lot of it because she had the contacts – and because of her they then accepted.” For Heady, who runs Londonbased Heady Public Relations, hosting a media day has two purposes. It brings publicity – in the shape of articles and reviews – but it also forms much-valued connections clubs can use in the future. She explained:“While the ultimate aim of hosting a golf
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The diggers move in during the construction work
“The experience the journalists had was of a very friendly club and that did us a lot of good” day is to generate some postevent media coverage, it is also an excellent way of engaging and building relationships with journalists, both local and national, on a more personal level than just communicating via email or telephone. “Moreover, with first-hand experience of playing the course, journalists are likely to imbue their reviews with more information, while the day will also give them a better insight into the atmosphere of the club and all the other facilities that it has to offer.”
Logistically, tees were booked out, banners made, along with meals and bacon rolls. The media, sent a personal invitation, were invited to play a competition as a trio with a board member making up the fourball. There was also a long drive competition using the performance studio and a presentation on the club and its history. “They (board members) were primed to be very positive about the club,” Drake said.“They talked passionately about it and they were the right people to go with them. “The experience the journalists had was of a very friendly club and that did us a lot of good.” Those who attended were asked to write articles for features for their publications based on their experience. And that’s where the value really started to tot up.
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Presentations were key to delivering Burnham & Berrow’s message
“There was a cost,” Drake added of the day.“I haven’t really counted it up but it was no more than £1,000 but I reckon we probably got about five to £10,000 of advertorials as a result. “They wrote very favourably of us. We couldn’t have written those articles better ourselves. “One of the stories that made me feel good was my finance director happened to be at St Andrews with his very important clients that he was treating to a day there. “They were in the little pub by the course and the Golf Now brochure was there and our
“There was a cost... but I reckon we probably got about five to £10,000 of advertorials as a result” picture was on the front cover. He just said how proud he was to suddenly walk in and see that on the table and pick it up, while saying ‘this is my club’. “That was very rewarding.”
Turf is laid during the construction work
Drake said the success of the event meant the club would hold another in the future but, asked what advice she would give to others considering doing the same, added that a focus on something to show had to be the driving force. “We had the new extended 6th, we had the new extended 9th and we were doing some work on the 11th that wasn’t completed at the time. “At least they were able to see what was happening and they saw the photography the head greenkeeper had done.
Burnham & Berrow in all its splendour
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Staff hard at work as the construction continued
“It’s definitely worth doing but you have to have something to show – something new on the golf course and to use that as your reason. You pitch to your journalists at the level of standards that you might be as a golf course. “We are lucky to be in the top 100 golf courses and so people want to come and visit us because it’s on the list. “Other clubs, that don’t have that, could easily do a similar thing – but as a lower key affair and invite local journalists to come and sample the day. “But you do have to put some
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“It’s definitely worth doing but you have to have something to show - something new on the golf course” effort into it. You can’t just invite these people. “You have to have relationships with them in the beginning otherwise they’ll just turn you down.”
Burnham & Berrow The Championship course at the Somerset venue is a fixture of top 100 lists and Burnham & Berrow have a proud history. The club are renowned for helping JH Taylor, a member of the Great Triumvirate of late 19th and early 20th century golf, which also included Harry Vardon and James Braid, on his way when they hired him as a youngster in 1890. Set among the glorious dunes of the Bristol Channel coast, some of Britain’s most prized golfing events have found a perfect home at Burnham & Berrow – from the Brabazon Trophy to the British Ladies’ Amateur Championship. The traditional out and in links is perfectly complemented by the 9-hole Channel course, a layout considered to be one of the hidden jewels of the South West.
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What can you learn from a
RYDER CUP VENUE?
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he Ryder Cup probably isn’t coming any time soon to your club. That’s not to say, though, that you can’t apply something from events happening at Le Golf National. Everything there is obviously
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on a huge scale - whether it’s the 450 buggies that will require an electrified car park to charge them all, the 4,000 people a day that will be working on site or the new road that’s being built just for this event. But in preparing for this threeday golfing jamboree, there are
common things Le Golf National are doing, and have done on the journey to hosting this tournament, that can help you and your clubs when staging your own events. It doesn’t matter if it is simply making an AM-AM that little bit better or improving the monthly
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You might not have the prestige of hosting golf’s biggest team competition, or the budget of Le Golf National, but there’s things you can apply at your own clubs, as the GCMA’s Young Managers’ Group found out on a trip to Paris…
medal. To investigate, nine members of the GCMA’s Young Managers’ Group travelled to Le Golf National during the European Senior Tour’s Paris Legends Championship. Held exactly a year out from the Ryder Cup, the team were given a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes of a major tour tournament and discussed with general manager Paul Armitage and his team how they are preparing to stage the biggest event in world golf. They included superintendent Alejandro Reyes, along with David MacLaren, head of the European Seniors Tour, and tournament director Pierre Antoine Missud, who talked about their careers and detailed the skills that had equipped them for their current roles. What came out was some sage advice on the logistics and organisation required in such events and how the small things can make a difference. “I forgot how easy it is to become blinded at your own venue,” said Amy Yeates, director of golf, spa and leisure at Fairmont St Andrews and the GCMA 2017 Manager of the Year. “Paul showed us an amazing, yet simple, slideshow – of before he started at Le Golf National – of all the things that were out of place yet clearly visible by the customer. “The small details such as crooked signage, rubbish in the car park, broken range baskets or a
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negative sign saying ‘range closed’. “We could all find a handful of similar things at our clubs but we choose to walk past them every day and forget that, collectively, the customer’s experience is affected by all of them. “So my team and I have now introduced ‘photo day’ where they have to show me photos of the facility and all the little things that are both good or need changing. “The simple things are the most impactful.” Armitage spoke of the rebrand Le Golf National had undertaken to reposition themselves from
somewhere that had been seen as a cheap golfing destination. “Our courses were in excellent condition, however, we were asking ourselves (whether) the rest of the experience was poor, and if the Ryder Cup was tomorrow, we weren’t asking ourselves the right questions,” he said. “We weren’t branded. We were eaten up by the Ryder Cup brand completely, which meant good sales in the pro shop but we didn’t have our own image for after the Ryder Cup, and we changed all that very quickly. “We’ve upgraded our services
”We weren’t branded. We were eaten up by the Ryder Cup completely, which meant good sales in the pro shop but we didn’t have our own image for after the Ryder Cup”
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Scenes from the Paris Legends Championship
massively. Our changing rooms were not anywhere near up to scratch – we didn’t even have towels available. “We didn’t have one buggy, at a resort destination – so imagine American guests coming here. We didn’t have any rental sets. “We weren’t asking what kind of services do the customers need to make this business work? Our major change is that, now, every decision we make comes from the customers.” Armitage added it had taken the club nearly three years to make the all changes he wanted, and get the team in place, to make them ‘good from one to 18’. The desire to improve, whether it is talking about the Ryder Cup, or solving the challenges of a corporate day, is indicative of the passion of Armitage and his team. That struck a chord with many of the young managers out in Paris. Tristan McIllroy, golf and games manager at Roehampton, was certainly excited by the
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improvements that had been made and how they could apply elsewhere. “It was interesting to listen to Paul openly talk about the issues that he encountered when he arrived at Le Golf National and what changes he made, including brave ones such as increasing the green fee by 600 per cent overnight,” he said. “The team that Paul has assembled are very passionate and all seemed aligned to ensure the golfing experience is first class. “The short video, to demonstrate to staff where improvements needed to be made around the club, was very poignant and I have certainly looked at things around my club with a sharper eye.” Also key was emphasising the importance of developing relationships with one another and how that was the bedrock of making the project a success. “It was really refreshing seeing officials in high-powered positions so willing to engage with
”It was really refreshing seeing officials in highpowered positions so willing to engage with members and staff”
members and staff,” added James Turner, the teaching professional/ assistant general manager at Ellesborough.“This is something I will do my utmost to adopt myself, as well as other members of staff.” But equally important for GCMA communications manager Mike Hyde wasn’t just the way Le Golf National developed and embraced people to make their projects work, it was how they were also using technology to make things more efficient. As he explained, however, that
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wasn’t at the cost of people. In fact, it was a combination of the two that was enhancing the operation. “From a GCMA point of view it was fascinating to hear how Le Golf National have moved towards removing humans from the initial booking process as much as possible, moving a large percentage of bookings online following a lead set by McDonalds in France, where the company first installed the digital ordering points that are now common across the world. “The idea is that automation doesn’t necessarily need to mean less staffing, but that it frees your staff up to enhance the customer experience elsewhere in that journey, which has greater value to the golfer than having someone to speak to and initially book the tee time.” You might not have the Ryder Cup. But there is still plenty you can pinch from Le Golf National that can help you make your club and events that little bit better.
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WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PUT ON A RYDER CUP? LE GOLF NATIONAL GENERAL MANAGER PAUL ARMITAGE DETAILS A FEW OF THE PRACTICALITIES with a farmer working on it. The strange thing about the Ryder Cup They helped us secure that land, is everything that happens on the golf to allow us to have two entrances. course, which we manage normally, is Without them, we wouldn’t have been not our responsibility from September able to have 60-odd thousand people. 1, 2018. We hand over the keys to Health and safety is just a huge Ryder Cup Europe. responsibility. This dictates when they Everything that happens off site are going to start each village and is our responsibility - that’s in the various hospitality structures prior to bidding document and that’s the the French Open. French federation and our mission. So if we’re building for that, we’ll That’s what we’ve been working on start building at the end of April – for the last 10 years. that’s already nearly a two-month So (dealing with) transport are build. We’ll probably start to see some Ryder Cup France, myself and two Ryder Cup buildings appearing by the others on my team and we’re working middle of April, for an event that won’t with the local council, the mayors and happen until the end of September. a transport company who will be the This schedule dictates which parts of official company. the site close on certain dates. We have to make sure we have It also dictates our budgets, as if enough buses and trains to get we’ve got l’Oiselet (Le Golf National’s everyone out here, and that’s our 9-hole course) closed down, then responsibility. That’s not Ryder Cup we’ve got no revenue and things like Europe’s responsibility. We have to that. That’s in our business plan. deliver on that. The Open de France has a new The Community of Agglomeration promoter, which is the European of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (CASQY) Tour, which has helped us immensely have put a seven figure sum into the as we’re only talking to the same event to help us. promoter about both the Open and It’s the body that groups together Ryder Cup. eight townships. They’ve been There are three production extremely supportive, and they’ve companies coming in for the TV helped on transport, they’ve helped coverage and we’ll use the same area get us planning permission to do our for both the Open and Ryder Cup. work. For example, for the drainage on We’ve put fibre optics in all over the the golf course we needed to have a golf course, so they’ll almost just be planning and building permit. plugging and playing. They won’t be There’s a field, across from the have to lay cables all over the course. seventh hole, that is protected land
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Playing by
THE RULES
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anuary 1, 2019. D-Day for the new Rules of Golf. A process, which will have taken seven years in total, comes to an end with a set of rules designed to equip the game for the modern era.“There were two guiding themes,” said David Rickman,
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The R&A’s executive director governance.“We were determined to be far reaching and radical in our thinking. At the same time, we believe it’s very important that we maintain golf’s essential principles and character.” The aim was to try and write a set of rules that could be both
understood and applied by all golfers. “We wanted them to be simple, consistent and fair.” So, in conjunction with the USGA, every one of golf’s rules has been examined, reviewed and, in some cases, changed. Some of the proposed alterations
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In 12 months’ time, the most fundamental changes to the Rules of Golf for over 30 years come into effect. David Rickman, The R&A’s executive director - governance, tells Steve Carroll why they will make the game easier
courted high publicity when they were first announced last March. The results of a further review – following a six-month consultation period last year – will be announced in the spring before the new regulations come into effect on the first day of 2019. Ahead of the next stage, we sat down with Rickman at our conference to talk about the process… Did you have a reduction to 24 rules in mind, from 34, when you started the process? No, we didn’t have a set number in mind. We felt they could be reduced. We felt, more importantly, that they needed to be re-ordered. We felt there were a number of aspects of the Rules where they were scattered and they could be produced in a different order. That was one of the first things we did. In terms of the group, we put together what we called a Rules Review Working Group and that included people from The R&A, USGA, but also, importantly, people from the professional tours. The professional tours are our shop window and probably where the rules are placed under greatest scrutiny is at the very highest level, where people are playing for their livelihoods. Understandably, the Rules have to work at that level. This group was put together and one of the keys for making this work was that we decided in 2012 to run, in effect,
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two reviews in parallel. There was the 2012 to 2015 normal quadrennial review, which resulted in the 2016 Rules, but, alongside that, a number of us were also involved with this Rules Review Working Group so we took that time to conduct the fundamental review. One of the great difficulties was trying to do this huge body of work – to do this rigorous analysis – within a four-year time period. Like most brilliant ideas, it’s the simple ones that you suddenly say ‘the trick is, in effect, to start that process early’. So we ran those two processes in parallel, produced the 2016 Rules dealing with pressing small issues, particular issues including anchoring (so not small), but that then meant once we got to March 2017 we felt we were now ready to unveil the proposals. Why do you unveil those proposals so early before the intended implementation? I think it comes down to the fact that all of the materials, whether it be the new Guide Book, which will replace the Decisions book, the new Players’ Edition – all of the new material which then has to be printed, distributed, translated to potentially cover the 60 million golfers all around the world – all of that flows from the finalisation of the 24 rules. We have to get those agreed and finalised and then all of these other aspects work from there. For as long as we are working on refining
“We didn’t have a set number in mind. We felt they could be reduced. We felt they needed to be reordered. We felt there were a number of aspects... where they were scattered” and improving those rules, we can’t quite finalise all the other work. So we need to finish that by the spring of 2018 to enable us to do everything else. It’s a nice problem to have, where people are saying ‘well, we’d like to use these early’. But that’s why there’s this timelag. It’s just the practicalities of getting the Rules in place for a self-
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”We are not writing the Rules for our own ends. We are writing them to try and help the sport be healthy and be the wonderful sport that it is. ” regulating game.
particular attention to.
It also gives you the opportunity to think again about certain proposed changes that you received a lot of feedback on during the consultation… That’s really important. We are not writing the Rules for our own ends. We are writing them to try and help the sport be healthy and be the wonderful sport that it is. We need to listen to the feedback that we’ve received. Fortunately, that feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. But there are a number of areas where concern has been expressed and certainly those areas we have paid
One of the most important things you’ll do is the Player’s Edition. You’re writing the Rules in an easier way for people to understand. We do all want to follow the rules but, when we’re in a tricky situation and scrawling through a 200-page book, it’s difficult… That’s probably been my biggest frustration. Either when people feel too intimidated to even try and find the answer or, even worse, if they do have a rule book, they do open it and they can’t find the answer. A lot of attention has been spent on the spread of the 24 Rules. What
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are we trying to cover? We’ve tried to use explicit headings. We have tried to make the sub-rules clear, in terms of what they are doing. If we have got to have some exceptions, which, sadly, we do, we have tried to make the subject of that exception very clear. So if that structure is better than it has been in the past and the focus on the Player’s Edition is then to go: okay, the main rules, the full Rules – however we want to describe them – need to have these full levels of detail. There are these very particular cases that we need to cover but they don’t happen very often so those are the types of cases we are going to remove from the Player’s Edition. The attempt is that the Player’s Edition will focus on the fundamental rules, the rules that everybody needs, the ones that commonly come into play. Then if something happens that is not covered by that, there will still be the heading and a signpost where someone can then go deeper into it if they absolutely have to. Speaking with a club manager’s hat on, that should make things easier because they will be able to refer to this edition. It will be easier to understand when they get the inevitable queries on a competition day… That’s certainly the hope. This is all about the rules of a sport so it needs to work on the golf course. It needs to work for golf club managers when they are asked these questions. They will have not only the Players’ Edition but the Rules of Golf in their complete form. They will probably also have the Guide Book and that will then have interpretations that perhaps aren’t
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otherwise clear. The aim is that there will be this range of materials that the different end users of the Rules, whether it be players or officials, can select what they need and that will give them different amounts of information as required. Do you have particular change that really stands out – that’s a favourite of yours? I quite like the change to the damaging the club rule. From a technical point of view, it simplifies a difficult rule significantly. But it feels right to me and, in some ways, it puts the game more on a level footing in that amateur golfers never have the chance to replace a club that’s broken because they don’t have anybody they can send to do that. Professional golfers currently do. So that element of that particular change, I quite like. These are the most fundamental changes to the Rules we have seen for at least 35 years, how exciting is it to be in the final stretch of this long process? There’s probably a wide range of emotions. Excitement is one. Relief is probably another. There’s the inevitable nervousness around dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. With any project of this kind the devil is in the detail and we have still got a little bit of detail to work through. But, overall, it has been a very rewarding exercise. I think it has been timely for the game. That’s the most important thing. I think it has come at a good time for the sport, which is evolving and advancing in all sorts of positive ways. I think that the rules modernisation is part of that. I think the sport will be better because of it.
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What’s among the proposed Rules changes? Dropping a ball You will be able to drop a ball from any distance above the ground, as long as it doesn’t touch anything and falls through the air when dropped. Repairing spike marks Long desired by those in the professional ranks, you’ll no longer incur a penalty for repairing spike marks or any other damage done by shoes, a club, and almost anything else on the green. Relaxed rules in a penalty area No penalty for touching the ground or water and you may move loose impediments in a penalty area.
Searching for a ball The maximum time to search for a ball is set to change from five minutes to three. Leaving the flag in the hole If you make a stroke from off the green and the ball hits the flagstick, while it’s still in the hole, there is no penalty. A ball in motion that accidentally deflects If a ball in motion is accidentally deflected, either by you or your equipment, there is no penalty and the ball is played from where it comes to rest
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Data protection
AND YOUR STAFF General Data Protection Regulation will be enforced in May and clubs must comply. In the second of our series of articles on the subject, Joanne Bone, of employment law specialists Irwin Mitchell, looks at how it will affect HR
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he way in which golf clubs process data is changing significantly. All businesses that use personal data have until May 25 to comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation.
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The penalties for non-compliance are potentially huge, with fines of up to 20 million euros, or 4% of annual worldwide turnover, whichever is bigger, levied on businesses that don’t get up to speed. You may think data protection only applies to your relationship with customers. But it
also applies to your staff as well. Here are some of the issues you’ll need to consider as you look at GDPR and HR... Do we need to undertake a data audit in respect of our staff? Yes. We would suggest that if you have not already, you carry out a
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data audit in order to identify areas where action needs to be taken to ensure compliance with GDPR. There is no set way to carry out a data audit but, in general, you need to understand the staff data that is held within your organisation, where that data comes from and where/how it is stored, what happens to it while it is within the organisation and when and how it is deleted. You will need to consider these data processing activities in light of the requirements of the GDPR. Where you identify any areas of non-compliance, or where activities pose a risk to the business, you will need to formulate a plan to address them. The scope of the audit should include all staff personal data held in electronic format or contained, or within, a structured manual filing system. It may be you need to consider data stored or processed outside of the HR department, such as by finance or a third party provider. Your audit may, therefore, have multiple stakeholders, and the timeframes necessary for carrying out this activity should not be underestimated. Our employment contracts
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contain clauses in which the employee consents to us processing their data. Can we continue to rely on these? Probably not. Under GDPR, consent needs to be specific, informed and freely given, which means that individuals should have a genuine and free choice as to whether or not to consent to the processing and should be able to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment. Current draft guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office is that employers are unlikely to be able to rely upon consent as the lawful purpose for processing most employee personal data, because of the imbalance of power in the employer/employee relationship. There are, of course, other lawful purposes which most employer processing activities will fall under, but in accordance with the new accountability principles, you will need to be clear from the outset of the lawful purpose on which they are relying. It is very common within the UK for employers to have general ‘catch all’ consent clauses within employee contracts or data protection policies. These will no longer be valid forms of consent, not least because they seek
blanket consent for all employee data processing activities. Employers, therefore, need to review employment contracts and HR policies to identify where consent wording is used and consider whether this needs to be amended. If you no longer intend to rely upon consent as the lawful purpose for processing, you need to inform your staff and give them updated information about the lawful purpose you do intend to rely upon. Does that mean that we cannot rely on consent at all? Not necessarily. If you want to rely on consent for any aspect of employee data processing, then in accordance with the guidance as currently drafted, you need to ensure that: Consent is a positive “opt in”, separate from the other terms and conditions of employment. It should not be vague or encompass a wide range of issues. In addition, the employee must be asked if they agree to their data being processed at least every two years. The form of consent is specific to the data in question and what you are using it for. If you are sharing the data, each
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third party must be named and specific consent obtained from the employee in relation to each party. You advise the employee they can withdraw their consent at any time and how they can do so. You keep specific records regarding consent to demonstrate compliance. Please note: We are expecting the Information Commissioner to provide guidance on the issue of consent in the next few months which will, hopefully, clarify this issue. Do we need to make any changes to our HR policies and procedures? Yes. If you don’t already have a data protection policy, now is the time to draft one. If you already have a policy you will probably need to make amendments to make sure it sets out clearly the following information: What personal data is and why data protection is important. Information about your collection and use of personal data, the reason why it is collected and why it is processed. What the data rights of employees are and how you will ensure that these are upheld (see below). How data breaches are dealt with. The consequences, for your
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business and individuals, of noncompliance. Other HR policies, such as IT, social media, flexible working and conduct policies may need to be reviewed and updated too. Once updated policies and procedures are in place, make sure your staff understand them and keep compliance records to satisfy the accountability requirements of GDPR, and work towards preventing data breaches. How long can we keep information about our staff? This will depend on the nature of the information you are processing. You will be required to review and update your data retention and deletion practices. You should have a written policy (as part of your Data Protection Policy, or a separate standalone policy) which sets out when, and how, specific categories of personal data are deleted. Personal data will need to be retained for longer in some cases than in others. How long you retain different categories of personal data should be based on individual business needs. But keeping personal data for too long may cause the following problems:
There is an increased risk the information will go out of date, and outdated information will be used in error As time passes it becomes more difficult to ensure that information is accurate. Even though you may no longer need the personal data, you must still make sure it is held securely. You must also be willing and able to respond to subject access requests for any personal data you hold. This may be more difficult if you are holding more data than you need. Are there any new rules about data breaches? Yes. GDPR will introduce a duty on all organisations to report any data breach to the ICO within 72 hours, unless it is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of the individual affected. Breaches will also have to be notified to the individuals affected where there is high risk to their rights and freedoms, for example identity theft, discrimination or fraud. A personal data breach means a breach of security leading to the destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data. This means a breach is more
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than just losing personal data. For example, an employer could be responsible for a personal data breach if an employee’s pay record is inappropriately accessed due to a lack of appropriate internal controls, or if payslips are sent to the wrong person. We recommend employers have an internal breach reporting procedure in place which should include: Guidance on what constitutes a data breach. Decision-making protocols about whether notification to the ICO or individual is necessary and who will be responsible for this. Recording systems for all breaches, including those where there was no obligation to notify the ICO. You may also need to consider amending other HR policies, such as the disciplinary procedure or whistleblowing policy to give effect to the data reporting procedure. Will our staff be able to make Subject Access Requests (SAR) under the new regime? Yes. GDPR enhances employee rights to access personal data held by their employers; entitles them to more detailed information regarding the way in which their
data is processed; reduces the time limits for the employer’s response and abolishes the current £10 fee for responding to a SAR. This may encourage more people to make a SAR. Many already do so in an attempt to obtain information they can use as “leverage” in other employment disputes. It is worthwhile considering putting in place specific SAR protocols, including template letters and carrying out an assessment of your organisation’s ability to isolate data relating to a specific individual quickly. As a minimum, we suggest appropriate training and guidance is put in place to ensure that staff can recognise and respond to SARs quickly and efficiently and, if they are considering refusing a request, they are aware of the legal basis on which they may do so. I’ve heard about the “right to be forgotten”.What does this mean in respect of our staff? GDPR provides staff with a new right to require employers to delete personal data where: The data is no longer necessary for the purpose in relation to which it was collected. Consent to processing has been
withdrawn and the employer has relied on the employee’s consent to process the personal data. The personal data was processed in breach of the GDPR. We recommend you make sure your data protection policies and any data privacy notices you issue to staff set out clear rules and guidelines about how an individual’s ‘right to be forgotten’ will be complied with. Do we need to train our staff about GDPR? Yes. Properly trained staff can make all the difference, not only in demonstrating your organisation’s commitment to upholding the principles of data protection within the GDPR, but also in ensuring staff data is properly and lawfully obtained, stored, processed, deleted and in helping to prevent any data breaches. All staff should be trained in how to handle data. This training must be evidenced and monitored and updated. We suggest specific training is provided for staff responsible for dealing with employee’s data subject rights such as SARs or requests for data to be deleted, and for those responsible for data breach notifications.
WE CAN HELP Joanne Bone can be contacted on 0113 218 6429 or by emailing joanne.bone@irwinmitchell.com Joanne Bone is a partner at Irwin Mitchell advising businesses across all sectors of intellectual property and IT issues both nationally and internationally. She provides specialist advice in relation to IT contracts, e-commerce and data protection.
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
From the
HELPDESK We are going to take on two 16-year-olds to work part-time (three days a week) on the golf course for four months next summer. I would like to prepare a statement of particulars for them for this duration. Am I obliged to include holiday entitlement for this period? Yes, you must include holiday entitlement, even if they only work one day. Obviously, this will be on a pro-rata entitlement as they are only part-time. My club has associate membership and are considered voting members. What is their status and the significance of HMRC on their fees? They have no restrictions of access to the course, competitions or functions. Without a policy (Equality Act 2010) are they effectively full members? Can they be excluded from the committee or prevented from playing some competitions? Their status is whatever the club decides in its constitution. Their fee, and the fee for additional rounds, are regarded by HMRC as membership subscriptions and exempt from VAT, even if they end up paying more than the cost of full membership. It may be that as a club you would want to cap that but, again, that is up to the club. The club can decide to allow only those that pay the full sub to be full members if you so wish.
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The club can decide, however, that it is worth embedding in your constitution who can, and cannot, vote to provide clarification to prevent it being managed by a group who only visit a few times a year. We have an A road which splits our course into two. To make our way across the road, our greens staff have traffic lights designed for their use. Currently, we use white diesel in our club machinery as we had been told red diesel cannot be used to cross main public highways. My chairman says farmers have specific dispensation for their vehicles to use red diesel on public highways. Can this type of exception can be extended to the golf club, as our vehicles only use the traffic lights to cross the A road? Although horticulture is allowed to use red diesel, you cannot use it for your machinery, even crossing the road, as HMRC say ‘we do not regard as horticulture the landscaping and maintenance of grassy recreational areas, such as playing fields and golf courses, or the grassed areas of parks that are made available for walks, picnics and general recreation.’ However, they do allow an exemption for ‘self-propelled mowers’ as follows: ‘I have a self-propelled mower that I use for cutting grass on sports and playing fields. Can I use red diesel to go there on the public road? Yes, mowing machines may use
red diesel at all times. So it appears you can use red for mowers but not for your other machinery. Full details of the rulings can be found at gov.uk/government/ publications/excise-notice-75-fuelfor-road-vehicles/excise-notice-75fuel-for-road-vehicles. Can you give me an example of a trustee of any UK golf club becoming personally liable for an actual club liability? We have no knowledge of trustees being pursued but the president and treasurer of a club in the South West had a torrid time of it a few years ago. The club in question has now become a limited company! But even the best run golf clubs can suffer major embarrassment at the 19th, reported Gerald Irwin, of Sutton Coldfield-based licensed insolvency practitioners, Irwin & Company. “Things can go badly wrong as highlighted in a recent court case involving a golf club that had engaged independent contractors
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This month: Taking on teenagers, tax status for associate memberships, rights of way on your course, and...do all of your visitors need to be signed in and are members responsible for them?
to carry out work. The contractors damaged a pipe-causing heating oil to leak onto a watercourse situated nearby. The incident was reported to the Environment Agency, which duly brought criminal proceedings against the club president and treasurer with both facing fines, imprisonment or both,” said Gerald. At the preliminary hearing, the club officials argued the club should have been the defendant but the Environment Agency appealed and the matter went to the Court of Appeal. “The Court of Appeal concluded that, although the club could be sued as an unincorporated association, the Crown could have sued the club members as they were jointly liable for the actions of the club. Ultimately, the defendants were acquitted as the Crown accepted that the club was the proper defendant in the case,” added Gerald. He continued: “The main lessons to be learned from this affair are plain. Any member of a club or official of any unincorporated association should immediately review club rules, check that the club is insured and, most importantly, take steps to convert the club into a limited liability company.” I have been asked if it is a legal requirement that a golf club should have a visitors’ book. Should every visitor be signed in and attested by a member? If you are a private members’ club, with a Club Premises Certificate,
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then all visitors must be signed in - usually in the pro shop if they are playing golf but, if they are guests of a member, then the member must sign them in as they are responsible for them. We have issues with children, youths and dog walkers, using the course more or less as a park. What legal preventative action can we take, or can you offer any other advice? The ‘right to roam’ was introduced by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW) and gave members of the public the right to enter and remain on ‘access land’ for recreation and many of the public are under the impression that golf courses fall into that category. ‘Access Land’ has been mapped and you can find out if your club is in one of those areas by logging on to: openaccess. naturalengland.org.uk/wps/portal/ oasys/maps/MapSearch/ If it is, this may be why you have a problem. However, golf courses are included in the list of ‘excepted land’ (see here gov.uk/guidance/ open-access-land-managementrights-and-responsibilities) and are not subject to the ‘right to roam’. Therefore, no-one has the right to access a golf course for that purpose and those who do so can be treated as trespassers but dealing with them is, unfortunately, a difficult issue. The following is a statement from the police: ‘Trespass to land is a civil wrong and as such the police have
no jurisdiction. Under common law, the landowner has a right to re-entry on the land. However, the ejection of the trespasser is fraught with danger for the landowner. Initially, the landowner should ask the occupier to leave the land and if he/she does then all is well. However, the problems start if he/ she refuses to leave the land. The owner of the land could commit several criminal offences if they forcibly remove the trespasser and his/her property from the land. The best and safest course of action is to obtain a court order, which, if breached, may then turn into a criminal matter. If the police do attend an incident such as this, they are merely there as observers for any possible criminal offences committed by either party. The police cannot assist in the removal of the trespassers or their property from the land in question. The police do have some powers against larger groups of occupiers if damage has been caused. Trespass is very complex and guidance should be sought where appropriate.’ Therefore, one action you should take, if you have not already done so, is to erect signs warning the public that they are trespassing as that may help in removing them or reducing the number of incidents. An online helpdesk staffed by industry experts offers an advisory service. Visit gcma.org.uk/ members.
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
Meet the
MANAGER
Sponsor of the 2017 GCMA Manager of the Year award
With Chris Fitt, the director of golf at Foxhills, in Surrey
Chris Fitt
H
ow did you get into golf club management? The turning point was at sixth form. Do I make the decision to go to university or go America and play golf? At the time, the Applied Golf Management Studies degree had been running for a couple of years. It was either all in that basket or, if that didn’t work out, I was going to America. I got onto the
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degree programme, did three years at university where I developed the love and passion for the game a little bit more on the vocational side. I quickly realised that, on the playing side of things, I wasn’t quite there, and focused on the career and industry. I had three really good placements. The one that really stood out was at Gleneagles, where I learned a huge amount across the summer from the pros I was
working with, the resort and how much was going on. I learned a lot about the customer service and standards that they expected. I also worked on a couple of really big European Tour tournaments. That really ignited my love for the resortstyle club and that’s pretty much where I have ended up in each position I’ve taken since then. What’s the best thing about your job?
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Dealing with the members and when I get the feedback of satisfaction from our members. A close second to that is the feedback from the visitors – that they have had a great experience and enjoyed the customer journey. Number one, I love walking through Bar Nineteen a couple of times a day – especially first thing in the morning – and looking around me and stopping and having a conversation. That’s what I love doing. What are the challenges? We’re a proprietary-owned club but we’ve still got a very strong membership base and a loyal membership base – people who have been members for 30 or 40 years. In that respect, it’s quite similar to a private members’ club so you are managing the expectations of your members, who do have very high expectations and who are very well off and successful in their own careers. At the same time, we have got the commercial direction of a proprietary owned, small family-owned, business where we have to seek out all the revenue opportunities possible and blend the mix of member golf with visitor golf. There are also the different aspects of the business. One of the biggest USPs of Foxhills is families. While we do have two fantastic courses, and the courses were there first, we have got 3,000 country club members, 11 tennis courts, a big
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youth club, five swimming pools, the gym with classes running every day all day, and so it is the mix of the businesses and how we all work and blend together. What’s your favourite golfing memory?
“I love walking through Nineteen a couple of times a day - especially first thing in the morning - and looking around”
Chris Fitt
It’s got to be the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles – getting there at 5am in the morning in the pitch dark on the first tee, on the opening day, with the grandstand already full and queues to get in. I took my dad up and we ran from the park and ride to the grandstand. I thought ‘if we get there for 5.30am, we might get
into the grandstand’. We got there about 5.15am and it was full. We were still in the thick of the action and the atmosphere on that first tee, when the players walked out, was just unbelievable. The whole weekend was unbelievable. How do you see the role of the club manager developing? My role at Foxhills is very to different to a club manager of a small 400 person private members’ club or the club manager of a Gleneagles. In order to be a successful club manager your number one focus still has to be on your members and your customers – the customer journey. I have found a much bigger appreciation for differentiating your customer journey to create those little moments of magic and how key that is to the engagement of your members. There is a lot of competition now for your membership. The number of golf clubs are reducing and consolidating their memberships, so there is more competition now. The days of spending £3,000 on membership are not numbered, because there will still be some clubs that have a market for it, but the competition among clubs for members is now a lot higher.
Get In Touch To contact Foxhills, visit foxhills. co.uk or call 01932 872050
GCMA.ORG.UK | 59
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
From the
REGIONS LONDON & HOME COUNTIES Assistants’ Meeting Thursday, November 30 Clandon Regis Golf Club Club assistants from around the region met at Clandon Regis, in Surrey, for the first of what is hoped will be many such meetings. A number of managers offered the benefit of their years of experience at the new networking event. They were: Jerry Kilby, of Bramley; Woking’s Richard Pennell; Clandon Regis’ Paul Napier; Gina Rivett, retired of West Hill; Terry Jackson, retired of St George’s Hill and Mo Brooker, London & Home Counties regional manager.
Described as a day of speed dating for golf industry professionals, the assistants were divided into groups, on six tables around the room, and given 20 minutes of quality time with each of the speakers. During this, they had the chance to ask questions about anything they wanted in the industry. A number of discussions, inevitably, focused on one or two elements – such as software
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systems, management structures within each club, social media and membership retention. One topic that consistently appeared in each discussion regarded staff and their importance within the club.
Regional Managers Full details at gcma.org.uk/ regions Chiltern & Home Counties
Martin Bennet East Anglia
Gary Smith East Midlands
Rod Savage London & Home Counties
Maureen Brooker Midland
Rob Wormstone This was also the emphasis of a final question and answer session with the experts and generated a lot of food for thought, regarding customer service at the assistants’ venues and the experience provided. It also looked at how to improve, promote and encourage teams through training and feedback. The day was filled with lots of discussion and detailed knowledge about the industry the assistants all work in. Attendee Jenni Baldwin, of Harleyford, said:“It reinforced why I want to be a part of this business. This truly reflects on the people that gave their time to speak to us. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and certainly look forward to the next meeting. “I hope it encourages other regions to hold this sort of event for assistants as it was a reassuring experience and also a great networking opportunity.”
Norfolk
John Barnard North West
Neil Annandale Northern
Terry Minett Northern Ireland
Jim Cullen Scotland
Bernard Flockhart South East
John Edgington South West
Karen Drake Southern
Joan Raffety Wales
Mike Rees Wessex
Alex Taylor Yorkshire
Cameron Dawson
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GCMA 2018 DATES FOR YOUR DIARY GCMA AGM
INCLUDING THE CHANCE TO PLAY FOR THE CAPTAIN’S CUP
MONDAY 16 APRIL | MOOR PARK GC
NATIONAL GOLF DAY MONDAY 18 JUNE | BROADSTONE GC
GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
A week in the life of...
TERRY WALKER Marie Taylor talks to the club manager at Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire
T
his is a special year for Kirby Muxloe. The Leicestershire course will mark their 125th anniversary. That will see the club stage the English Women’s Open Amateur Match Play Championship over a week in July. At the helm, and making sure all the celebrations go off without a hitch, is golf club manager Terry Walker. He has been at the club for just
Monday I’m usually in the office for 7am each morning. Not only do I find travelling easier at that time of day as I live 25 miles away, it’s a great time to get up to date with post, emails and admin tasks, especially on a Monday when I’ve generally not been in the office over the weekend. I’ll also see what phone messages have been left but won’t return any of them until after 9am – I have a strict rule of not making any calls before that time or after 9pm – not even to my mother! I’ll always have a catch up on a Monday with the professional and head greenkeeper to see what’s happened over the weekend and have a reminder of what’s coming up during the week. Mondays are usually sub-committee meeting day so I attend those, take the minutes and
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over two years, following previous stints at Lingdale and West Lancs. Walker used to work in financial services before turning his attentions to golf club management, having spent so much of his time at clubs with his two golfing sons. Walker gives us the low down on how he structures his time throughout a usual week and also shares a recent initiative that helps potential golfers get into the game.
have my say! I’m fastidious in getting the minutes out to the sub-committee chairman for approval and have a selfset deadline of within 24 hours from the close of the meeting. I believe that the sooner I get them distributed the better as everyone will remember what they are supposed to do as a result of the meeting. Tuesday The majority of our ladies play on a Tuesday so there will be an early morning check with the cleaners to make sure their changing room is spic and span and ready for their arrival. My assistant, Julie, is in today so when she arrives, we catch up. It’s our 125th anniversary this year so we have a number of events planned to celebrate. We’re also hosting the English Women’s Open Amateur
Match Play Championship in July, so together we make sure they’re all on schedule. I am also county secretary for the Leicestershire & Rutland Golf Union and their meeting takes place on Tuesday evenings. Wednesday Today’s priority is the preparation of this week’s e-newsletter so it’s ready to go out to members on Friday. I’m a big believer that as a private members’ club, it’s their club and we make sure we tell them what’s going on now over the next week to 10 days. I get the head greenkeeper to update on forthcoming works on the course and the pros get the chance to advertise their latest offers. Our members are really responsive too. We included details of an England Golf initiative – for unwanted and old golf
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Terry Walker with the ‘Friday Girls’
clubs to be used in helping potential golfers get into the game without the expense of having to buy clubs – and, in response, Kirby Muxloe members achieved a fantastic total of more than 500 clubs being collected. Thursday The first job on a Thursday morning will be to monitor how we’re doing in terms of the bar, kitchen and green fees for the week to date. Checking this against forecasts and preparing budgets for the forthcoming year sits alongside attempts to finalise the annual calendar of events so that next year’s golf club diary can be signed off and go to print. Any other last minute additions for the e-newsletter happen by close of play on Thursday too.
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Friday The first job on a Friday morning is to complete my location plan for the next two weeks and send it to the president and captain so everyone knows when and where I am. I’m often attending workshops, seminars and conferences so it’s a good communication tool for everyone. The second job is to finish the e-newsletter, post it on the website, print six copies off (five for the bar and one for the noticeboard) and then email it to members. Today is also ‘Friday Girls’ day where about a dozen of the ladies play nine holes and then come into the clubhouse for a drink and a snack. I join them most weeks and have become an honorary Friday Girl. In addition to talking ‘shop’, I’ve been telling them about knitting for my
new granddaughter and have even made mince pies for them! Weekend It’s rare that I’m in at the weekend but if I am, it’s for a specific purpose and, therefore, the day job doesn’t get done. There’s an excellent volunteer network at the club which means that I don’t have to get involved with competitions and we don’t generally take visitors at the weekend. That means I can spend that time with Ella (granddaughter), watching Nottingham Forest or at home in catching up with my housework! Sundays always involve visiting my mother and taking her for lunch. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I even play golf!
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GCMA | INDUSTRY | CAREERS | EDUCATION | REGIONAL
The month
IN NUMBERS
9,488
Total competitions recorded by HowDidIDo in the UK & Ireland during November 2017.
263,699
GENTS:
Rounds of golf recorded and published at HowDidiDo.com
1,609
eagles or better
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5,923
82,480 birdies
LADIES:
LOWEST EXACT HANDICAP
GENTS LADIES
-5.4 -5.3 (plus) (plus)
3,565
786,633
Stats provided by HowdidIdo.com
pars
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