Know your PGA Pro - Morne Botha, GM Pecanwood Golf & Country Club

2002.

I absolutely love golf and everything associated with golf! My last few years in school when everyone sort of chose a career or what they going to do after school, my option A, was golf, my option B, was also golf. My dad used to laugh at me...no back up plan...only golf!

Morne Botha - General Manager Pecanwood Golf & Country Club

Mostly yes. I managed to get involved in software development a few years ago and did a few non-golf developments, but I never stopped working in the golf industry.

Yes I played on the Sunshine Tour for a few years and also through my PGA membership I played in a few PGA Championships

It started with Adrienne Thorne in Metropolitan – who taught me basically everything I know today about running a business.

My biggest challenge is to keep our members happy with the end product. The nature of our business at Pecanwood is we run a semi-private club with 95% of our members also being residents – they play golf 3 times a week, eat at the restaurant 4 times a week and use the facilities on a daily basis, therefor we constantly need to make sure the end product is always on par, which is a good challenge!

I love being involved in all the divisions and keep my finger on the pulse at all times. My day starts with a course inspection, followed up by a staff meeting to check our goals for the day, I then proceed with my to do list and make sure I respond to all my mails. I try and balance meetings with board members and senior management on a daily basis but also set up meetings outside of busy times at the club, for instance I know when golfers check-in and I know when its busy in the clubhouse, in those times I want to be around my members to engage with them, I don’t want to be in meetings then. I finish the day with another drive around in the estate to check that all tasks were done, setup our to do list for the following day and then go and have a coffee with my members in the clubhouse.

I must say the lockdown is keeping me busier than ever before, many great webinars to learn from other countries and industries – trying to figure out the new normal. I meet with our board members almost daily to ensure we make the right moves to survive this unprecedented time.

For industry professionals: The PGA’s around the world have great webinars going on at the moment, I also enjoy our Club Managers Association discussions. But my favourite is Trendwatching on www.trendwatching.com, I have seen great innovative ideas which I have implemented already that work great! For the amateur golfer: I love the website and tips of George Gankas on www.georgegankas.golf

At the moment we can allow 30% of our staff compliment on site to maintain our biggest asset.

I don’t think there is a recipe for this but I believe, consumers want to feel safe, that they can trust you and that safety is now a priority. The latter combined with great service and value for money should do the trick. But NO discounts!! - not in this time...we need to survive.

I love this topic, each course is different and they play different, again no recipe I believe but we looked at two things, how our course was setup, not only tees but also ‘no go zones’ with carts, we brought our ‘no zone’ areas closer to the greens (we manage this and move it weekly to avoid damage). Secondly, one needs to rely on technology to give you actual data to take action in order to be affective – I love TagMarshal here, the best I have seen!

Another great question...Yes I believe they are always right especially when it comes to their expectations. I studied Carol Dweck’s theory of Growth Mindset and it definitely helped me understand that one can still grow from any situation even when you get questioned or put under pressure.

Short-term: Pecanwood Estate went through a few bad patches and my mission is to get it back to where I believe it should be, better ranked golf course and 5-star facility. Long-term: Would really love to have a shot on the seniors tour one day and definitely be a leader in the golf industry.

I think its good for now but it needs to change big time to keep delivering good players and be a sustainable industry. Young golfers must create a love for studying in order to go to top US universities to further their studies and play college golf. Many great talented SA golfers don’t follow this route and then eventually go missing. We need to get many more middle class income earners into golf…we are one of a few countries globally where our middle class income group and number of registered golfers are completely out of sink.

Not as much as I like to but I do have my weekly round of golf with my members and can still get it under par every now and again!