OLD WHAT’S HIS
NAME!
A recent ‘ring round’ of golf clubs uncovered a worrying trend - that many club secretaries and pro shop staff do not know the name of their head greenkeeper! In addition, he rarely gets a mention on club websites.
Peter Britton suggests it’s time to put yourself about
O
ne of the tasks that the Pitchcare team undertake periodically is the updating of the magazine database.
We do this to ensure that contact details are correct and that the magazine is reaching the right person. It involves little more than contacting a facility and asking who the head greenkeeper or groundsman is, making the change and Bob’s your course manager! Of course, it is often more than that. We check addresses and postcodes and add other contact details where necessary. It is also an opportunity to peruse websites and source future articles that may be of interest. I was tasked with contacting golf clubs. “Hello, it’s Pitchcare here. Can I just check
that we have the correct details for your head greenkeeper?” It’s a straightforward question requiring, usually, a two word answer. So, imagine my surprise when, about five calls in to my ‘hit list’, the club secretary said “I’ve no idea. If you ring back in half an hour I’ll try and find out”. You’re telling me you’re the club secretary, and you don’t know who your head greenkeeper is? The ‘hit list’ was around 500 - about one sixth of all clubs in the UK - so quite a representative number. And the courses were not all ‘little’ ones. There were some well known, heavyweight courses on the list.
Initially I believed this had to be an isolated incident, but, as I continued my
‘call round’, the trend became worryingly regular. I reckon about 12-15% of the club secretaries I contacted had little or no idea who their head greenkeeper was. Some admitted to knowing a Christian name. “Oh, it’s Derek, but I wouldn’t know what his surname was”!
So, the more I phoned round, the more
miffed I got at this situation. Eventually I decided I would bypass the secretaries and speak to the pro shop. Whilst the success rate was slightly better it was not what I would have expected. I even had one occasion when the phone number shown on the golf club’s website was for the ladies locker room! I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the lady taking a shower?
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