As the Official Legal Partner of the CPG, JMW will offer a range of valuable legal services, practical resources, and educational support to CPG’s Member Countries and their golf professionals, leveraging their award-winning, full-service law firm that offers straight-talking advice for positive outcomes.

“JMW impressed us with their forward-thinking approach and broad experience, and we are pleased that CPG will benefit from JMW’s practical and commercial approach to providing legal advice and expertise,” said Ian Randell, Chief Executive of CPG.

“We also recognise that our Members need knowledgeable, dedicated legal expertise as the golf industry and world at large becomes ever more complex. By joining forces, we can address everything from new media platforms and AI technology to ambassador programs and event promotions, ensuring our Member Countries and their professionals are well-prepared for today’s challenges.”

“We are extremely excited to work alongside CPG and provide counsel tailored to the unique demands of the golf industry,” said Stephen Taylor Heath, Partner at JMW.

“Our goal is to combine expert legal advice with accessible, educational materials that golf professionals and their associations can use to protect and grow their interests. I was pleased to attend CPG’s annual conference in Morocco to see first-hand the exciting work CPG is undertaking and present to representatives of federations from around the world.”

JMW is an award-winning, full-service law firm established more than 40 years ago, renowned throughout the UK for its expertise in achieving positive outcomes for its clients, both businesses and individuals. The firm, and the individuals working within it, are recognised by the prestigious legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners. JMW has offices in Manchester, London and Liverpool.

The firm’s commitment to supporting the golfing world includes sharing example precedents, articles, and content focused on key legal issues that arise within the sport. These resources will be hosted on the CPG Learning Institute Hub, helping golf professionals stay informed and navigate potential pitfalls.

JMW also plans to collaborate with CPG on developing further activities to support legal and governance functions of the CPG’s Member Countries, ensuring accessible, up-to-date advice for Member PGAs. Moreover, the firm will act as a helpline for Member Countries, offering front-line assistance on emerging legal questions.

JMW has already brought its expertise to the CPG Festival of Golf event in January, presenting on legal considerations for utilising media platforms and AI across various activities, illustrating the firm’s practical, solutions-driven style and the proactive role it aims to play in guiding golf professionals.

This partnership aligns with the CPG’s ongoing commitment to delivering innovative services to its network. By securing JMW’s expertise, the CPG continues to empower its Members to excel in a dynamic sporting environment, confident in their ability to tackle the legal complexities of modern golf.

For more information about the partnership and to connect with JMW, visit cp.golf/jmw.

Golfbidder Pro is now fully automated for the whole of Europe, meaning PGA Pros from across the continent can get prices for clubs and inventory, schedule free collections, and receive payment – all through Golfbidder Pro.

“The launch of Golfbidder Pro across Europe is a superb development and further step towards supporting the businesses of many PGA Professionals,” said Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG] CEO, Ian Randell.

“Golfbidder have been a fantastic partner of CPG for many years and a great supporter of PGA Professionals. This expanded offering provides further business opportunities to PGA Professionals across our membership and network, perfectly aligning with the CPG’s mission and activity.”

Business Development Manager at Golfbidder, Thomas Tanner said “We’re always looking for opportunities to improve Golfbidder Pro but ensuring that this service was available for as many European partners as possible was a crucial starting point for us.”

“Now we’ve delivered this solution, focus switches to helping new and current users get the most out of the tool and to start generating a simple and sustainable revenue stream.”

Golfbidder Pro is a free tool for all golf professionals and retailers which offers guaranteed pricing for old inventory and ex-demo clubs, as well as being able to offer customers trade-in and part-exchange options without the associated risk.

“Golfbidder Pro is not just a pricing tool, it’s a sales tool, too. By knowing the value of the clubs the customer already owns, retailers can focus on the lower cost of upgrading equipment, rather than the higher price of buying something new. Our experience shows us, when a customer knows they can part-exchange and only pay the difference they’re much more likely to transact.”

Golfbidder is the biggest buyer of new and used golf clubs in Europe and is committed to helping European PGA Pros and golf retailers do business – a commitment exemplified by the opening of a new European Fulfilment Centre in late 2023.

On the new warehouse Thomas Tanner said “Our main goal was to simplify business processes by removing unnecessary paperwork as we re-establish partnerships with PGA Pros and golf retailers on the continent. With out new facility, we can ensure our European partners receive the level of service they’d expect, just as they did before The United Kingdom left the European Union.”

For any more information or to get started with Golfbidder Pro, please reach out to our dedicated team in Europe at europe@golfbidderpro.com

Golf Genius today announced that over 1,000 private clubs, public courses, and golf associations have started using Golf Genius Golf Hub since launching just one year ago.

Available to all Golf Genius Tournament Management subscribers, Golf Hub helps golf professionals promote awareness, drive registration, and boost participation in golf events, leagues, and clinics.

Golf professionals can quickly and easily create a great looking online registration page for any golf event, league, or clinic. These “digital flyers” are automatically aggregated and showcased via “club hubs” which can be embedded into existing club websites, included in email campaigns and promoted via social media channels. Upon registration, golfers are immediately dropped into the roster in Golf Genius Tournament Management where the golf professional seamlessly proceeds with running the event or league as usual.

“We’re always trying to identify ways to save time for golf professionals and help them deliver a better golfer experience,” said Clint Jarrett, Golf Hub Product Manager. “By eliminating manual signups, phone calls, and emails, Golf Hub removes the friction for golfers and golf professionals.”

Late last year, Golf Genius launched the ability for national and regional associations to create hubs that automatically aggregate events, leagues, and clinics across their public and private member clubs.

Chris Kallmeyer, co-CEO of Golf Genius, commented: “We’re very excited about the next stage of Golf Hub where golfers will be able to use a map to see golf events, leagues, and clinics near them, and then quickly and easily register online. This vision will be a reality in the foreseeable future as a result of key partnerships with golf associations and federations around the world. In the meantime, we’re pleased with the rapid adoption of Golf Hub while we continue to innovate based on valuable feedback from the Golf Genius community.”

Find out more at GolfGenius.com and get in touch at intlsales@golfgenius.com to get your Golf Genius account.

We also get updates from across our Member Countries, find the perfect way to set up a golf event with Golf Genius, reveal the latest in the 2023 CPG event schedule, and much more.

THE VALUE OF THE PGA: TO MEMBERS AND GOLF

EXPANDED GOLFSIXES INSPIRES MORE YOUNG PEOPLE IN EUROPE INTO PLAYING GOLF

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE: WHY PGA PROFESSIONALS ARE THE GO-TOS FOR GOLF TRAVEL

CPG MEMBER COUNTRY UPDATES

RYDER CUP: YEAR TO GO CELEBRATIONS

THE CPG VIRTUAL SERIES POWERED BY TRACKMAN RETURNS THIS WINTER

5 KEY BENEFITS OF THE EDUGOLF PROJECT FOR PGAS & PROS

WHY BALLMARK REPAIR SHOULD BE TOP OF YOUR AGENDA WITH PITCHFIX

WHAT’S ON YOUR JUNIOR GOLF COACHING & DEVELOPMENT MENU WITH GOLPHIN

GOLF SHOP BY GOLF GENIUS – WIN A 6-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION

#IGPN 68 is live and delves deeper in to the value of PGAs to Members and all of golf, the role of the PGA Pro as golf’s ultimate influencer, what the #EDUGOLF Project means for PGAs, and features from @PINGTourEurope, @GolphinForKids, @PitchfixUSA, @golfgenius_emea & much more!

— Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG] (@cpg_golf) November 22, 2022

READ IGPN 68

With functions to manage special orders, club repairs, demo and rental sets, staff scheduling and customer profiling, the Golf Shop product combines numerous features that enable golf retailers to deliver greater customer value, save time and create more revenue.

Saving time, creating more revenue and delivering exceptional value comes from all four corners of the golf operation.

For the retail side of your facility, we’ve just launched the solution to transform your business: Golf Shop. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/iMa6mHZwFR

— Golf Genius EMEA (@golfgenius_emea) November 3, 2022

“We recognise that golf professionals and specialist retailers are always looking for a concise and efficient service to run their shop operations, so we came up with a solution,” commented Craig Higgs, Managing Director for Golf Genius International.

“We pride ourselves on listening to our customer’s needs and Golf Shop is a bi-product of this approach; it’s there to help manage the workload of staff, streamline retail communications and provide PGA Professionals with useful information about their customers.”

Thanks to Golf Shop’s member surveys and profiling features, PGA Professionals and staff can build data-led insights into the shopping behaviours of members and customers, allowing them to tailor the products and services they market to golfers.

Each function is hosted on the Golf Shop app, which provides staff with a more versatile form of tracking retail activity in a user-friendly manner, regardless of their location.

Golf Shop has proven hugely successful since breaking into the US retail market, with many facilities praising the value it offers their operations, including Valhalla Golf Club: “Golf Shop has helped us differentiate our operation and stay successful by helping us provide excellent, personalised customer service,” said Kyle Cramer, Valhalla Golf Club’s Head PGA Professional.

“The product enables our staff to better serve the Valhalla membership. We especially like the automated notifications feature because it keeps members informed and they appreciate getting updates.”

To find out more about Golf Shop and how it can benefit your business, you can book a free product demonstration with Golf Genius here

Find out more at GolfGenius.com and get in touch at intlsales@golfgenius.com to get your Golf Genius account.

TrackMan is a CPG Lead Partner and member of the Business Club by CPG – Find out more here

Developed in collaboration with a team of TrackMan experts, Titleist engineers have created a range of new Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls that incorporate Radar Capture Technology (RCT), enhancing the data capture of launch conditions in an indoor environment. Through this pioneering industry collaboration with another major manufacturing brand, TrackMan is delivering the most accurate information possible for golf.

READ ALSO: TrackMan become a Lead Partner of the CPG

The golf balls improve the TrackMan experience for dedicated indoor fitting specialists committed to a premium, precision fitting; coaches and instructors aiming to give their players even better tools to work with; and Tour professionals and golfers seeking precision data capture from their indoor practice sessions.

“We’re delighted to partner with Acushnet on the launch of the Pro V1 and Pro V1x RCT golf balls,” said TrackMan CEO and co-founder, Klaus Eldrup-Jorgensen. “Titleist is a brand that goes to extraordinary heights to ensure the premium quality and performance of its products and that mirrors TrackMan’s approach to technology, innovation and development.”

“Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x RCT golf balls combine the game’s greatest combination of speed, spin, and feel with new technology that more consistently captures precision performance and golf ball data from TrackMan units used in an indoor setting,” said Jeremy Stone, Vice President, Titleist Golf Ball Marketing. “We have worked closely with TrackMan for more than two years to optimise this embedded radar reflective, patent pending technology. The result is a reliably strong ‘signal’ that enables spin capture on all shots.”

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Inside the Ryder Cup with CPG Chief Executive, Ian Randell, and Jeremy Snape.

The CPG Business Club hosted a live forum with Founder and CEO of Sporting Edge, Jeremy Snape, interviewing Ian Randell live from Whistling Straits, host venue of the 2020 Ryder Cup. Visit the CPG Business Club and find out how you can join future events: https://cp.golf/CPG-Business-Club​

THE WINNING MINDSET

This article is available in The Insider by CPG magazine, click here to download your digital copy.

The similarities between sport and business are often discussed, but there are few people better placed to shed light on the subject than former England cricketer Jeremy Snape. Here, he tells us what the two worlds have in common and what they can learn from each other.

CPG: You were a successful sportsman and changed tack totally on retirement. Why was that? 

Jeremy Snape: I had always considered myself a journeyman pro. I had 19 years as a professional cricketer, starting at Northants with an incredibly talented team with the likes of Allan Lamb and Curtly Ambrose and a squad full of legends that did not win a huge amount but had a great time. And then I moved to Gloucestershire, who were always underdogs. Everyone fitted together into this tight unit, and we surprised so many people, and ultimately redefined one-day cricket during that period, winning five or six trophies around the turn of the century. And that gave me the springboard to go and play for England. I was man of the match on my debut, but I guess I did not always find I was naturally confident. I was hard on myself and quite analytical – I remember playing a game in front of 120,000 screaming people in India but the loudest voice was in my head, and it was the one that was saying, “Are you sure you are good enough to be here?” I let the emotions divert me from my gameplan and no one had ever coached that, and I suppose it sparked a fascination for me in psychology and mindset and how leaders create a high-performance environment. So that is what I turned to.

CPG: I guess whatever we do we can all empathise with those doubts creeping in…  

JS: Yes, absolutely, and I have spent more time trying to understand this now over the last decade or so but often the highest performers are the ones that have the most doubt and insecurity because they have built up so much and they have got so much to lose. And part of that mindset is actually continually testing the boundaries, which means you are living on the edge and you are out of your comfort zone. Elite performers can actually find comfort in that uncomfortable space and they keep going there because they know that if they can overcome those fears, then that is where their proudest moments come from, and their best achievements.

CPG: And you studied this formally?

JS: Yes. I did my Master’s degree at Loughborough University while I was still playing actually, and there was a moment of epiphany, in the final of the Twenty20 Cup in a tight game at Edgbaston, when I needed to hit a boundary to win, and I used some of these skills that I had learnt from my Master’s degree. In India I had been so focused on what the newspapers and the media might say the next day that I forgot to watch the ball in front of me. Here, I was so focused on my breathing and my routine that I played an instinctive shot, and won the game for us.

So I saw the power of these techniques personally in my own career. I wish I had learnt them earlier but that is the way it is, and that gave me the passion to become a performance coach and help people to understand how they can use their mindset to give them a competitive edge rather than be a hindrance. And that led on to coaching in the IPL with Shane Warne’s team, the Rajasthan Royals, coaching South Africa as they went from number four to number one in the world, and then joining the League Managers’ Association (LMA), supporting the leadership development for the Premier League managers and below.

CPG: And you set up Sporting Edge. What was the aim there?

JS: Sporting Edge is ultimately about going inside the mind of champions, elite performers from sport, the military, academia, best-selling authors, futurists, and trying and find out what is it about this high-performance mindset and this high-performance leadership style that can be broken down into tangible tools that business leaders around the world can use. For me the mindset of high-performance in elite sport and in business are exactly the same. We are trying to get the best out of ourselves and to overcome those doubts, we are trying to get the best out of our individuals that are around us, and we are trying to bring an organisation together and help them to navigate change. The lessons absolutely translate across perfectly and we have proven that with thousands of executives around the world, using our digital library of video insights to fast-track their success.

CPG: Do business leaders need to be selfish to succeed?

JS: As a professional athlete you need to be self-focused. Not necessarily selfish but definitely self-focused, and that can lead into selfishness. The team dynamic is all about selfless performance – what can I give to my team? What does my team need of me now? And we tend to think more selflessly and longer-term in a team situation, whereas when we are under pressure we tend to think about survival in the short-term in our own career. I guess in golf that is where that incredible resilience of living in the moment and being able to build a strategy for your tournament or for the day or the round that you are playing and then be able to break it down into these tight routines. So, for example, if you are playing golf for four hours you are actually only playing golf for 23 minutes and it is the transition between the downtime when you are walking up and down the fairway, what you are thinking there, and that ability to really dial up your focus onto the next shot. You have got to be able to forget the last shot, whether it was a brilliant shot and you feel euphoric or whether it was a terrible shot and you have ended up in the woods. You have got to be able to stop that last shot from contaminating the next one, and that is one of the key mental skills that golf demands.

And it relates into business in that you might be a salesperson who has had three bad sales calls but the fourth call, you cannot afford to go into with low energy, low mood and a negative mindset, because that fourth call might be the one that actually transforms your business. It is that ability to reframe and reset yourself every so often rather than just seeing it as a whole day at work or a whole round of golf. Elite performers have that ability to break the game and the day down into focused units of performance.

CPG: The idea of an individual focus is really interesting but what about when golf becomes a team game?

JS: It is very interesting, I did an interview with Paul McGinley about his leadership at the Ryder Cup, and I think there were a few key elements there. One of the things he tried to do was build this emotional connection with the team. So, clearly all the stars are incredibly successful, they are financially secure, there is nothing that they really need but this team culture has the opportunity to be the thing that they are most proud of in their career and Paul McGinley leveraged this in a couple of ways. First of all he connected them back into the emotional history of the Ryder Cup, so all the players that had gone before them in that lineage. They used really powerful, emotive imagery of people like Seve Ballesteros and tried to bring some of that mindset, almost like the ancient wisdom of these forefathers was speaking to them, that they wanted to be part of this community. And then he, sort of, fast-forwarded it again and asked the players, you know, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we were sitting in a pub in 15 years’ time when we were old and grey and we could look each other in the eye and say we did it, during those few days, we were the ones that absolutely sacrificed and delivered and we stayed true to the team spirit.”

McGinley was one of the first people to use data in an analytical review. For two years before the Ryder Cup he was looking at the course profile and the pairings and match-ups. He had got really strict rules around meetings only being 30 minutes, so he had to make sure that in those 30 minutes he had got their attention and their focus. And then he made sure he understood different people’s requirements so, for example, some leaders would have mandated a team meal every day at a particular time whereas McGinley had a rolling buffet because he knew that some of the Scandinavian golfers might have wanted to eat early and go to bed early whereas some of the Southern European might have stayed up later and gone to bed later. Having that ability to flex the environment for individuals to be at their very best meant that they did not feel as if they were fighting against the team, they were bringing their best as an individual into a team environment. And then because they had been supported as an individual, they could give as much as they could.

I have also interviewed a lot of Olympians who have spoken about individual performance being great but actually what really make them proud are when they have played their part in something bigger than themselves. Because that is not just a test of skill, but being part of a high-performing team is a test of character as well.

CPG: Are there attributes that these elite athletes, and by extension business leaders, share?

JS: Elite performers need certain core attributes, without a doubt. What I have learned from interviewing some of the world’s elite performers is that they have got this ability to visualise the endgame in high definition. They can imagine what it is going to feel like. And they can see themselves on the podium, they can build this incredible vision of what it is like and that is what motivates them. But they are also able to break that down into the behaviours and processes that are going to help them to do that. And then, more importantly than anything, they can set out a strategy. The discipline to be able to stick to these basics day after day after day is what sets them apart. So, we all see the Olympians on the podium, we all see the Tour de France cyclists in the yellow jersey, but what we do not see is them hacking up the mountains in the rain for four hours a day, for five years in a row.

The other thing I think is really important for entrepreneurs and elite sports stars is the ability to create a high-performance team around them. They rotate their hitting partners, physios, biomechanists, psychologists, nutritionists around them depending on what their game needs at the time. One of the challenges when you become successful is you get an echo chamber around you of people that just want to say that you are doing really well and they do not want to challenge you. What you actually want is a group of advisors who are going to support you and challenge you to be the very best you can be, to give you honest critique to keep you on track, and that could save you years of making the same mistakes.

CPG: Moving away from the absolute elite level, what would you say to the 12,500 professionals who are part of the CPG?

JS: The analogy I often use which is relevant here is that we are all the CEO of our own performance company. It is very easy when you are part of a big organisation to feel like you are another cog in the machine but actually when you run your own business it is critical, every decision that you make about how you communicate, your marketing outreach, the customer service that you offer, the risks that you take with the events that you are putting on. I think having real resilience is absolutely critical, having that optimism is absolutely critical, and we have needed both of those things over the last couple of years with COVID. But I think it is also important to have some kind of strategic roadmap of where you want to be.

One of the experts in digital strategy that we interviewed spoke about three time horizons being critical for leaders. The first time horizon is what’s your email inbox and your to-do list for the next few weeks or the next quarter. And then he spoke about horizon three being this disrupted future which is maybe five to ten years out where technology might have a different role to play. And the most important place to focus on is horizon two, which is this middle ground between our to-do list and this crazy world that may be very different in the future. Having that ability to plan some of these skill developments or entrepreneurial activities where a golf pro may be learning new skills or setting up a website or building some digital courses, they might seem like they are nice-to-haves in the future but if we are constantly just focused on navigating the short-term and surviving, we never build that business model in horizon two, which could be the thing that completely transforms our business.

CPG: Do you believe that golf is the sport of business?

JS: I do. First of all you get to meet lots of new contacts. If we get to play golf with a friend or a business partner and their colleague or client, then that sort of proximity is already a trusted relationship. And as the game unfolds you get to see what people are like under pressure, when they are losing, when they are winning. You do not often see that on a zoom meeting or sitting in a business meeting. Seeing somebody’s emotional profile as they go through pressure I think is a fascinating tell of what that person’s character is like. And again, you are spending a long period of time, maybe three or four hours, out in the fresh air, you are getting plenty of exercise. You are able to be creative because you have got the blood flow and your brain’s switching off from a lot of the analytical processes and often that is when our best ideas come.

In so many of our social interactions there is a power hierarchy, isn’t there? This person is a more senior leader than me, this person is a multi-millionaire, therefore we defer to their power. But in golf, you could have a multi-millionaire who is rubbish at golf and a young buck who is playing off scratch and those power hierarchies are inverted, and you get a pretty good sense from the way people interact with each other what they are like in business. So yes, I would say golf provides a great shared experience and is very much the sport of business.

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ESET is a CPG Business Partner and member of the Business Club by CPG – Find out more here

Is your business a serial shredder, tending not to think about what personal data is thrown in the waste? Have you ever thought what a cybercriminal could do after simply going through your rubbish? Now that online ordering of golf clubs, apparel and other goods and services in golf is becoming a regular way of life, the scope to be throwing away sensitive information is massive, and criminals are well aware of this treasure trove of information right on your kerbside.

Like most people around the world, since COVID-19 I started to become very good friends with my local delivery drivers as the number of items I received in the post and by a delivery service dramatically increased. From groceries to everyday supplies, my wife and I really started to buy virtually everything online.

Online shopping has come a long way in the past few years and there isn’t much that can go wrong when using reputable websites and shops with great reviews, right? Well, I’m afraid I’m about to draw your attention to yet another potential problem you need to be aware of and remain cautious.

READ ALSO: On course for a good hacking 

Your personal data is extremely sought after by malicious actors and it needs to remain private, or at least as private as you can make it. You need to be very careful of how you dispose of any sensitive data, since you never know who might just end up looking at it, including what you’ve bought online and other details that are on the paperwork that may be cast into the recycling.

I recently received a parcel and to my absolute astonishment my phone number was on the outside of the parcel, something I hadn’t seen before. Not only might this be a data protection faux pas; I wondered if cybercriminals could take advantage of this and what they could possibly achieve by joining the dots with the criminal underworld and previous data breaches and scrapes. After all, when Facebook admitted earlier this year that 533 million phone numbers were now searchable on the internet with corresponding email addresses, I thought this was potentially rather damaging.

But what about what is inside the envelopes and parcels and what if any of these contents head to the recycling bin? Assuming intercepting items in the postal and delivery services is difficult without an insider, I fear that many people may in fact just throw away parcel notes and addresses rather than destroy them with a shredder. It is my assumption that even if some people own a shredder, they may primarily use it for financial information and other extremely important documents that are no longer required, instead of using it on envelopes too.

I even hold up my hand as I was previously only shredding apparently sensitive and private information on paper, but then at the same time folding up and placing any cardboard parcels in the recycling pile – often with my address still clearly visible – but now this could contain my phone number, or maybe even an email address?

This parcel with my phone number clearly visible on it came from an eBay seller but it got me thinking about other documents that I receive now on a daily basis. Other receipts I looked at in my house from other eBay users have sometimes included my email address. Looking at some other receipts of mine – a few, including from a few independent online shops and a major shoe company – included my email address and phone number.

None of my Amazon parcels from the Amazon warehouse have ever included any more personal information in the paperwork other than name and address but one from an Amazon seller did send my email address written on the paperwork inside the envelope.

With the agreement of my friend James, who is both a good friend and also one of the school dads, I decided to test another recycling bin to see how much information I could piece together on him and his family. James happily allowed me to pilfer through his recycling bin the day before it was left at the kerb, with two weeks’ worth of paper and card in it. In 30 minutes of rummaging I found his or his wife’s name and address 24 times, email address three times and phone number twice. I was even able to profile them and piece together what they were into purchasing – something marketeers and advertisers are really struggling with at the moment due to GDPR – but it soon dawned on me that most people’s bins still remain hackers’ treasure troves!

Trash talk

Your paper and card waste can be worth rather a lot of money to cybercriminals due to the amount of sensitive information and what they can do with further tricks into manipulating people with this information. For example, with your phone number and the receipt of what you have just bought, they could potentially call or text you with an update on the product purchased and request you to visit a website that could then entice you to hand over more information such as a password or payment card details. There is the potential of them being able to then access your shopping accounts and purchase items from any stored cards or, worse still, attempt identity theft.

How else can you stay safe when shopping online?

• Shred and destroy any personal data before you place it in the trash and don’t forget to check the envelopes/parcels.
• Use unique, complex passwords and change them if they become compromised.
• Use multi-factor authentication on all accounts.

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ESET is a CPG Business Partner and member of the Business Club by CPG – Find out more here

According to new research from ESET, 80% of businesses worldwide are confident their home-working employees have the knowledge and technology needed to handle cyberthreats to company finances.

ESET surveyed the attitudes of 1200 senior managers across the UK, US, Japan and Mexico for the business segment of its global financial technology (FinTech) research, exploring their attitudes toward security and FinTech.

While many businesses expressed confidence in the face of cyberthreats, the same research also showed that nearly three-quarters (73%) of these businesses also think they are likely to be impacted by a cybersecurity incident, and half said they had experienced a cybersecurity breach in the past. Could businesses be overestimating how safe their employees are?

It is no secret that since the COVID-19 lockdowns began, we have seen a significant increase in cybercrime targeting remote workers. COVID-19 has created a range of opportunities for cybercriminals, with the panic around the coronavirus and the uncertainty caused by the rapid transition to remote work setups affording malicious actors a greater chance of success in their attacks on individuals and organisations.

As employees left the office and dispersed across various locations, devices and networks, certain deficiencies in some businesses’ security stance have likely been exposed. Many companies have had to transition from the firewall approach of the traditional office to a new distributed model. While ESET’s research shows that the majority of businesses feel that their employees are able to handle the accompanying risks, there are a series of new challenges that they may be underestimating.

The inherent risks of remote working

Working from home means employees are connecting to the internet via their personal home router, and this means that company data can be exposed to all the dangers of public networks. So when accessing corporate intranets, using a virtual private network (VPN) is vital to creating a secure, encrypted connection.

However, issues such as slow internet, domestic distractions and simple forgetfulness can cause even the most security-conscious employee to make a mistake and connect without a VPN. This has the potential to expose individuals to malicious actors looking to spy on personal and company data. Therefore, don’t allow employees to connect to your company’s internal systems without using a VPN. For extra security, require your employees to enter a one-time code (multifactor authentication) in addition to a password in order to access your intranet.

Another issue posed by home working is that it can be tempting to switch from device to device. We live in a highly connected world, and with opportunities for socialising and leisure activities limited, we are all spending more time on our personal computers and mobile devices. Using said personal devices to check work emails or do a small task here and there can be potentially dangerous, as non-work devices are less likely to have the same levels of protection that work devices often have installed.

Similarly, it is just as easy to make the same mistake the other way round, by visiting risky websites such as torrent pages or adult sites. These may expose work laptops to online threats, which is particularly dangerous when the device in question can provide hackers with access to invaluable corporate data.

Lastly, there is the ever-present threat of phishing, which has been a prominent threat through the pandemic. With the health crisis providing new hooks for creating convincing phishing emails and text messages, there is a heightened risk that employees will click on malicious links or attachments and allow themselves to be duped by social engineering attacks.

How to secure your employees and your business

Because remote working has changed the way in which we interact with our teams and our colleagues, it can be hard to keep tabs on the extent to which each employee is aware of the steps they need to take to protect themselves and the company. This is why it is important to have regular training and guidance on the importance of cyber hygiene.

It is crucial that every member of staff is proactive in making sure that their devices and files are secure, and in order for this to happen they must be made aware of the dangers that can be caused by behaviours such as using an insecure connection or device, indiscriminately clicking on links, or visiting risky websites. For some pointers on how to stay safe when working remotely, check out ESET Chief Security Evangelist Tony Anscombe’s top tips on WeLiveSecurity.

With that being said, the internet can be a dangerous place, and threats can be difficult to keep track of. No matter how much we know about cybersecurity, it is always possible that we could slip up. As a result, it is more vital than ever to have trustworthy, reliable security software to protect your business. To find out about ESET’s solutions for businesses, head over to their website for more information.

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Have you ever wondered how a cyberattack takes place? Many people question it, but few think it would actually happen to them. However, the simplest of cyberattacks target the human aspect, which can be easily manipulated with the right knowledge and tools – and the outcome of a successful cyberattack can be catastrophic.

I’ve not played golf in a few years but back in my uni days, I spent a good number of weekends with a tee time booked, hacking up the course with my 7-iron. However, more recently, I have turned to a different kind of hacking which is far more fun and much less ego-bruising for me.

I have 14 years’ experience in the cybercrime and digital forensics unit in my local police force and now work as a Cybersecurity Specialist for internet security firm ESET, where I hunt and analyse potential cyber threats facing businesses. Being able to understand criminal hackers often means becoming one (ethically of course), revealing insights which can help potential victims better protect their security.

I was recently asked to investigate the security of an independent UK golf club and like with any good heist, research is vital. Although I am familiar with the surroundings, lingo and attire of a quality golf club, I needed to learn everything I could about the staff and specific club in question; and this is where Google is your best friend. Armed with my online findings and a couple of quality techniques in my back pocket, I was pretty confident I could have some fun with my target golf establishment.

Firstly, I need to add a little disclaimer. Before I embarked on my escapade, I was granted full access and permission by the owner of the club to go wherever I wanted and to do whatever I desired – within reason, of course!

I decided to pose as an ITV employee, enquiring to do a reconnaissance for a new commercial and requesting to take some photos to report back to my producer. I rang the club up a week in advance and gave them my pre-context story. The business development manager answered and (naturally) loved the idea, inviting me to visit the club the following week.

I arrived at the course one sunny morning and headed straight to their reception shortly after 9am, equipped with my laptop, USB, DSLR camera and a trusty hi vis jacket. Once I had met with the business development manager who I’d previously spoken to, I walked off for an hour with my camera and pretended to take some photos of the course. On return, I showed him the photos and asked if I could use the private WiFi, requesting the password which was happily given to me. I then mentioned that I’d forgotten some paperwork, so I asked him if I could pop my USB in his machine to print off a release form. He obliged and even said, “I probably shouldn’t let someone I don’t know do this.”

It was then that I witnessed the true horror show which I did not ever expect – they were still using Windows XP! Support for this operating system was ceased in 2014 and it is highly dangerous when connected to the internet. To make matters worse, XP was running on the machine in the shop with the point of sale software on! With all the financial and sensitive data being run through this device, it would make for a very dangerous outcome if it were targeted.

Once I had pretended that the document I needed to print was missing from my USB, I sent a fake pre-release form via Google Forms in order to obtain some additional personal information from him, along with one of his passwords. He clicked on this link immediately and filled it out. In fact, he then took a call and left me with full access to two further machines with no one looking.

Of course I didn’t actually exploit the network at this golf club, but the lessons learnt were vital. The simplicity of hacking anywhere is eye-opening impressive and relatively easy: a quality backstory, a touch of charm and a spot of luck will get you into most areas all fit enough to exploit. A high vis jacket just helps to seal the deal.

On report to the golf club’s owner, he was somewhat shocked yet equally unsurprised. He thought it may have been easy and said himself that he never thought anyone would ever hack his business. The truth is, however, every business is a potential target and whilst they remain so easily penetrable, they will remain potential victims.

So here’s how to keep a golf club secure:

1. Install the latest, most up-to-date operating system on all computers
2. Implement a guest WiFi and never allow anyone other than staff access to the main WiFi connected to the network
3. Never assume anyone is who they say they are when they request to use a club computer or desire access into rooms unsupervised
4. Keep all passwords away from prying eyes and never write them down
5. Educate your staff on phishing emails and ensure policies are in place should staff need to report something.
6. Encrypt any sensitive data and never leave computers unlocked
7. Never click on unsolicited links or attachments
8. Use a robust antivirus product on all computers

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Unlike its publicity-courting cousin, running, walking is rarely associated with leadership and success. There are relatively few examples of Fortune 500 CEOs ‘powering through’ a 20k stroll on their way to work, nor prime-time comedians ‘sauntering’ through the Sahara Desert for their latest charity/publicity drive. Walking is an also-ran in more ways than one.

And yet, a quick flick through the history books reveals enough famous walkers to more than rival their more fleet-footed counterparts.

From Beethoven to Steve Jobs and the Queen, walking has helped many a historic heavyweight to achieve success in their chosen field, even if they haven’t yet felt the need to brag about it to their favourite financial journal.

As scientists will attest, walking offers an array of benefits for regular practitioners.  Aside from the obvious physical perks of regular exercise, there are the various mental benefits to consider.

Walkers tend to enjoy lower stress levels, as well as increased cognitive function.  To add to this, a recent study by Stanford University found moving around led to an increase in creativity in 81% of participants who had previously been seated.

The only area where walking really falls short (aside from the crummy PR team behind it) is the obvious time commitment involved.  This may explain why it’s rarely the activity of choice among time-pressured modern professionals.

The flipside to this is that, contrary to more aerobically challenging activities, it can be crow-barred relatively easily into the working day.  As well as being the perfect option for a reinvigorating, yet sweat-free lunch break, it is a great way to put a new angle on interviews, one-on-one meetings, and brainstorming sessions.

The most potent pro-ambulatory argument, however, is perhaps the fact that walking is what we humans are originally designed to do.  Not pounding the pavement clad in lycra or expensive running shoes, or – worse still – wedged in behind a computer screen for 10 hours straight.

Walking may not win you any awards in the image stakes, but your body (and possibly career) will thank you for it.

This content appears courtesy of Abintegro, experts in career management, transition technology & e-learning for today’s modern, mobile and technology-savvy workforce – Find out more at www.abintegro.com

Credit: LinkedIn; Design School; Inc.com

The successful CPG Podcast, which has provided listeners with regular insight and conversations around golf, professional golf and the golf industry, has been relaunched into a new and exciting Podcast Show.

In a recent blog I wrote, I focused on the ‘COVID-19’ consumer and how golf clubs can take advantage of increased expenditure, rounds played and engagement from those people who decided to take up golf in the aftermath of national lockdowns.

This exemplified a process of consumer segmentation – a marketing technique that allows us to tailor prices, products and promotions to various people based on differing characteristics. If we do this, we can encourage increased consumption and therefore, increased revenue.

So, how can we segment our consumers beyond that ‘COVID-19’ characterisation? Ordered from the simplest forms, all the way through to the very deep, ambiguous, subjective (and influential) ways, I list and explain some very simple ways that can help guide your own future marketing practice below.

01 DEMOGRAPHIC TRAITS

To breakdown a consumer down based on their objective, easy-to-identify physical traits would be to conduct a demographic segmentation. Such traits include:

• Gender – Female / Male
• Age Group – Teenagers / Young Adults / Middle-Aged / Retired
• Ethnicity
• Occupation
• Education

This is a very simple way of collecting data on consumers to then group and break down, and can be done through various ways such as filling in an online questionnaire or recording data through your tee time booking systems.

How does this affect tailoring prices, products and promotions? Well, consider the fact that men will most certainly choose to play 18 holes of golf together more than women; teenagers will consume easier forms of golf such as the driving range and mini golf; people of higher social classes with higher disposable incomes will spend more at your club and on specialist services such as golf lessons than those of lower classes; and people of white-ethnic backgrounds are more likely to consume golf in general than people from BAME communities.

We now have some valuable insights that we can then focus our marketing activities on to encourage behaviour and consumption. The downside of this form of segmentation is that it is rather generic – it doesn’t factor in individual differences (for example, people from the BAME community do choose to play golf, just less so than white ethnicities). We need to look deeper than demographic traits more often than not to gain more insightful and more influential data.

02 BEHAVIOURAL: CONSUMPTION HABITS

This form of segmentation focuses on the way in which your consumers interact with your brand. There are various ways in which you can do this:

• Frequency – How often do they play golf or have a lesson? Once a week? Monthly? Annually?
• Time – What times of the day do they play? Twilight? Full rate? Weekends? Weekdays?
• Occasions – Do they consume golf during set periods or special occasions? Such as bank holidays, Christmas, easter?
• Type – What product do they consume? Is it a 9 hole green fee? Some PING Golf Clubs? Golf Pride Grips? Junior golf lessons? Golf Carts?
• Spend – How much do they spend relative to the product / service type they are consuming? Low / Medium / High?

This will give you a very good picture of the consumer from a consumption point of view, rather than just who they are as a person demographically. This is more useful and influential, as it allows you to tailor and target key products and promotions to each individual.

For example, as a golf coach I might create a special Christmas offer with discounted golf lessons. There’s no need to send this to your regular pupils who have a lesson every week. Rather, send it to the people that you know buy golf lesson packages at Christmas, historically, and entice their spending with you again.

The only problem with this is it is a data-heavy form of collecting consumer information. Whilst you will build a pretty good picture of each of your customers (and is something worth investing the time in) it is just that – time consuming. If you can allocate part of your week to this task and focus on just the key areas you want to collect data on, then this might be a more efficient and effective way of segmenting based on consumption habits and your available resource. For example, if you just want to increase green fees, then focus on the green fee frequencies, times, occasions and types that are purchased…

03 BEHAVIOURAL: HUMAN IDENTITY

Human identity is perhaps the deepest, most subjective form of understanding consumer purchasing decisions and behaviour. It takes the previous behavioural form of segmenting based on habits to a much deeper level of understanding.

Consider this – those who identify as a male and those who identify as a female (ignoring the biological characterisation) will consume very different products and services. Males watch more gory, action-focused films, generally play heavier-contact sports, wear certain clothes and listen to certain music. Females will lean towards comedies and chick-flick films, play socially-focused sports and wear very contrasting clothes choices to males!

They do all of this to subconsciously –  to exert and portray their chosen identities. In other words, they watch the films they do, they eat the food they eat and they purchase the goods that they purchase to show that they are a male and show that they are a female. It is a complex social construct that we are not aware of most of the time but this form of segmentation looks at our decisions as consumers in a whole new, subconscious way. And that is why this is so influential and must be exploited, as leading golf marketeers.

Now take this premise, and apply it to the fact that there are endless facets and contributory variables that make up our overall individual identity, and not just the male and female role identities mentioned – in golf, there are those people who identify as ‘Golfers’, and those who identify as ‘somebody who plays golf’. You can already assume that there will be consumption differences between these two, right? But in what ways?

For my University thesis, I took this exact idea to try and better understand consumer behaviour in golf and identify the varying consumption habits of such types of ‘golfing identity’. What I found was insightful at the very least but could actually have influential implications for golf marketing practice. Some of the findings between these two forms of golfing identity included:

Golfers

• Travel abroad for golfing holidays
• Hold golf magazine and journalism subscriptions
• Listen to golf podcasts and various other online content
• Take regular golf lessons
• Value playing different courses in their local areas
• Plays at least twice a week
• Volunteer for clubs, counties and other golf bodies
• Value custom fitting and high-spend equipment

Somebody Who Plays Golf

• Usually play one key golf course, within very short driving distances to their homes
• Rarely take golf lessons
• Play golf once a month
• Generally use second-hand, value-focused equipment

So, by segmenting your consumers using these three different strategies, you have begun your journey to better understanding your consumers and in creating a system for targeting of your products and services. It is now a balancing act on how you decide to segment, based on some set questions – How much time do you have? What do you specifically want to find out? What goals do you have? These will all dictate your choices.

Then, ongoing data collection and analysis is necessary to ensure you are continuously understanding and improving your knowledge of everybody who wants to play golf at your venue, or have lessons with you, or buy those new sets of golf clubs and balls in your shop.

If you do, then you can effectively drive your revenue and returns.

In just a matter of months, COVID-19 has shaken and shaped the mere fabric of society. Both business and the golf industry has not been spared either. Local and national lockdowns caused the inevitable closures that we have seen and it is only now that we are beginning to realise the full impact and extent of what has been such a damaging period, not just to public health but also economically and socially as well.

As we begin to recover as an industry, the need to be at the top of our game has never been more important. Clubs, golf centres, driving ranges and other indoor golfing venues are taking the health and safety of their staff and customers very seriously for two good reasons.

The first is the obvious: because right now we have a duty of care to one another; to minimise the spread of the virus and protect each other.

The second is not obvious: because doing so is good for your brand.

Here is why COVID-19 health and safety guidelines and guidance have never been more important for you…

01 SAFETY

As mentioned earlier this is the very real, serious and obvious part as to why we do this. We have seen the devastating numbers off cases, serious illnesses and unfortunately deaths that have been used by the Coronavirus. It has made us all realise that we are not invincible and something so invisible can have a real and serious impact on our health.

It has also raised our awareness of how we behave, including maintaining good hygiene and social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.

For businesses, this has also meant following and implementing various practices and protocols to reduce the spread as well. The CPG recently published its own forms of guidance to CPG Member Countries, and created a hub page with various information, links and documents to help advise and guide those who are perhaps a little overwhelmed by the situation.

These are by no means a magic bullet and they will never eliminate the risk of catching coronavirus – it is a fair assumption to think it is here to stay for the meanwhile and that whilst the chances are low, they are still real. However, what they do do is just that – they lower the chances and minimise the risk as much as possible.

I urge you to have a read and consider some of the points that are in there. Implementing them will not only help keep yourselves safe but also everybody who walks through that door into your club or golf business. I think it is fair to say we all have a moral obligation to do so.

02 BRAND CAPITAL

An inadvertent consequence of doing the above is that it might actually help drive sales and customer activity.

As the world is an incredibly inter-connected, digitally-driven place where conversations from continents away can be had in seconds, information (both positive and negative) spreads like wildfire. As a marketing concept, ‘Word of Mouth’ continues to play its part in the understanding of customer enticement. However, 21st century society has seen the addition of ‘Electronic Word of Mouth’ too and whilst it can be incredibly useful, it can also be incredibly dangerous.

As Marketers, we are constantly on the lookout for those comments, shares, reviews and observations made by customers over the Internet – it is probably the most powerful tool you can have to present your business in a way you want. However, just use the example that a COVID-19 case was traced back to a business who happened to have misjudged or even perhaps ignored some of the safety guidance. You can imagine what will happen next, right?

“Irresponsible” “Dangerous” “Lack of foresight” “DO NOT VISIT”

These are just some of the words I can imagine (and have seen) from customer reviews across the general business space related to COVID-19, and it won’t be going away anytime soon. However, flip this situation on its head to a point where your golf club has followed guidelines to the book:

“Fantastic and safe experience” “Really organised” “Safety-conscious”

I know which descriptives I would want my business to be associated with. This is not to say you will not receive the odd bad review. There will always be that one resistive (often younger) customer who complains and disagrees with what you are doing, and that you are infringing on their basic liberties. That is also happening everywhere else and there is not a lot you can do about it other than explain to them in a diplomatic manner the reasons why. Chances are, they will come round and see sense.

Therefore, acting in a responsible and safe manner and follow the guidelines and advice to the book (whether you agree or disagree with them), will help enforce a healthier and safer environment for everyone and in turn, a better experience for customers. I like to view this situation (as with most new customer-related situations and journeys) as a job interview or talent audition – customers are there to interrogate you and your business, and they want to know your strengths, your weaknesses and whether you can stand up to the task in hand of serving their needs and wants safely.

If you can’t, they will pick you up on it.

If you can…well…positive impressions are the most powerful tool you have in your armoury and they will thank you for it.

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“My lesson bookings have never been busier – how do I keep these customers moving forwards?”

“With long-term prospects and consumer confidence looking fairly low, we are not sure this high will last.”

It is an interesting conundrum, and one that most PGA Professionals and facility owners find themselves in right now. Golf courses, ranges, simulators and clubs are busier than ever with existing and new players to the game. So how can you manage this uptick in participation properly, whilst engaging, enticing and retaining their custom?

First I think we need to answer the question of: Is this going to last?

The answer to that, to a large extent, depends on our actions. If as an industry, we play this situation well by utilising resource effectively, managing our time and creating innovative solutions to meet the excess demand, I don’t see why this pent-up consumption can’t be turned into real and sustainable consumer spending in the years to come.

There is that key comment of “people have been unable to do other things and golf was there first…it won’t last” to deal with. For sure, a large proportion of this increased demand is made up of consumers who have been unable to fulfil their normal spending habits, such as watching their local sports teams (football, cricket, rugby, tennis etc.) and have therefore been on the prowl for something else to fill their time. During this search, golf has provided that short-term solution to satisfy a need but what happens once their usual spending habits reemerge? Most believe golf will be cast aside once more.

However, this isn’t and shouldn’t be a certainty whatsoever.

If we can focus on converting just a small percentage of those people into consuming golf as a more regular habit, say once a month for the next year, it can yield worthwhile returns. Here is an example taken from a local course, who have seen an average increase of 40 visitor green fees per day since lockdown restrictions were lifted.

1. Average green fee charged: €20.00
2. Average number of surplus visitors (using pre-lockdown figures as a baseline): 40
3. Additional revenue per day: €800.00
4. Additional revenue per month: €24,000

Notice how the last figure was calculated for monthly, rather than annually. This is so that you can take into consideration that 40 extra golfers, like with your existing customers, will drop off significantly during the off-peak, winter months. However, it paints a picture of the potential increases golf courses can (and have) seen recently. Just converting 10% of these golfers permanently (4 players!) is worth a significant amount of revenue to your business.

01 BETTER UNDERSTAND THE SEGMENT

Perhaps you already collect consumer data of your visitors, perhaps you don’t. Understanding this segment to a degree is going to be important in order to effectively manage and exceed their expectations and retain their custom.

First you need to set up a system of data collection. This doesn’t even have to be a fancy, state-of-the-art cash register that requires an input mechanism for every player. It can be as simple as staff observations and reporting. Whatever it is, create a procedure or system that your team works with and can work well to, and gain an understanding of a number of things:

1. How often does this consumer play?
2. What points in the day do they play? (AM, PM, Twilight etc.)
3. Do they consume additional services aside from green fees? (golf carts, range, bar, restaurant etc.)
4. Simple demographic breakdowns (Age, gender, occupation, proximity to course)
5. Contact details and GDPR conformity!

02 TARGETING

This really should be with point 01 but it is easier to explain separately. This is because you can’t have a targeted campaign without the previous stage of data collection. The two go hand-in-hand. How you go about creating a targeted campaign is dependent on the data that you have about your consumer, and generating the data that you need is dependant on the campaign you want to create.

First identify a business goal of the campaign. Is this to acquire a set number of additional members? Is this to sell a block number of lesson vouchers? Is this to drive green fee revenue? Golf cart revenue? We will continue to use the example of increasing visitor green fee revenue.

Now that we have a goal, we can begin to narrow down our focus for data collection. We don’t need to find out more about our members as these are not visitors. We also don’t need to focus on our existing pool of regular pay-and-players (assuming you have a database for these golfers already as they will have booked countless of times already).

We need to focus our efforts on those new visitors that we have no data for. Utilising point one, begin to collate data (and therefore understanding) of this consumer, so that you have the information and direction you need on what needs to change or be focused on to increase this golfer’s experience moving forwards.

*As a side point, also ensure they provide GDPR consent to receive marketing information from yourselves when doing so*

Now you better understand them as people, you can provide these new ‘Post-COVID’ golfers with tailored products, services and offerings to entice and engage them for further consumption. Be creative with how you do this, you don’t need to just offer them heavily discounted green fees, mostly because they’ve been paying stated prices already with no complaints, haven’t they? Ask yourselves: why are these people enjoying golf? What is it about their consumption of golf that differs to our existing consumers?

You might find that they enjoy the social benefits of golf such as having a drink after playing, or that they want to try a new sport, or that simply enough their Saturday’s are now free and they need something to do. Well, how about streaming live sport in the clubhouse after? With some heavy promotion and communication to them about this, they will realise that they can now play golf and watch their favourite teams play at the same time…

This is not a magic bullet but the premise of the point is that tailoring your services to each individual better will improve their experience and encourage their future custom.

03 COMBATTING A CULTURE CLASH

A separate point, but nonetheless crucial to maximising your returns.

So often, we hear about the barriers to entry faced by many new golfers. This includes attitudes of existing members and players, strict club regulations and enforced rules on etiquette and behaviour. I am not for one minute suggesting these all need to be disbanded, in fact I would be extremely surprised if they could anyway – golf has been trying to remove them for decades and for various reasons, has failed.

However you view these points (Whilst I personally appreciate the etiquette of the game and standards of behaviour, I cannot understand why wearing a jacket and tie and not using your mobile phone in a clubhouse is still even a rule in 2020), the fact remains that these will no doubt dismay and dissuade the consumers you are trying to target here to continue playing. They are accustomed to freedom of choice, the ability to go where they want and when they want and quite frankly, golf doesn’t – it remains bogged down and unable to offer the same sort of atmosphere because of its traditional nuances.

This last point I am trying to focus on is about engagement – engaging both the new consumers you are targeting and engaging the existing members that you have to work with you in doing so. If you can encourage and create an atmosphere that furthers inclusion, reduces stigmatisation and promotes friendliness, one can be confident that new golfers and visitors will be far less likely to play, dislike the experience and the unwelcoming atmosphere and never come back.

One simple idea could be to create a ‘mentor system’ between guests and members, or have themed nights in the clubhouse that focus on socialising and fun. Even something as simple as how you arrange your clubhouse seating (COVID-19 complying of course) might encourage increased dialogue between different groups, rather than having uninteractive, unsociable bubbles.

By combing a renewed and refreshed atmosphere, with better understanding and targeting, the ‘COVID-19’ golfer might just realise that golf is for them, that it isn’t a sport for the affluent and that in fact they can have as much enjoyment from golf that they would have from other sports and pastimes…

Let us seize this opportunity, whilst we still have it.

1. Why? Why are we doing this?
2. What? What is golf’s promise?
3. Who? Who are we?

Prairie girl Amanda Minchin has always been a master of all tasks. As a youngster she excelled in a variety of sports — hockey, softball, soccer, basketball — and when she started working at Estevan Woodlawn GC in her teens after getting hooked on golf at 12, she didn’t limit herself to one gig. She toiled in the back shop, on the turf crew and in food and beverage. Need a grip changed? Check. A green cut? Check. A burger for lunch? How would you like it cooked?

Now, some three decades after starting in the junior program at the 400-member Saskatchewan club — known as TS&M Woodlawn Club since 2012 when a naming rights agreement was struck with TS&M Supply to fund a renovation after flood damages — Minchin is its general manager. Serendipitously, but also maybe predictably, she’s the boss.

“I guess I had the best education in terms of experience,” laughed Minchin, who was born and raised in Estevan.

But just like her days punching a clock, general manager isn’t Minchin’s sole title. Along with being vice-president of the PGA of Saskatchewan, she is also Woodlawn’s head professional. She’s one of 29 female head professionals in the country and one of a very few to hold both head pro and GM titles. Minchin says she enjoys a bond with other female head professionals in Saskatchewan, and across the country, citing Bobbi Brandon, the head pro at Saskatoon’s Moon Lake G&CC, as a friend and mentor specifically. However, she also says she doesn’t ever think about working in a male-dominated industry.

“It’s never been an issue, if you’re a woman or man,” she said. “To me, I wasn’t raised like that. I was just raised that you do whatever you want. The stuff that you want to do, that’s what you do. Sort of a genderless thing. And that’s how we try to approach things at our golf club.”

A club that recognized and conceded her desire to keep the head pro job when she was named GM. Minchin was adamant about that.

“I got in the golf business because I love being a golf pro, I wanted to be a golf pro,” she stated. “I didn’t want to give up that side of it.”

Not necessarily a club pro, however. After getting into the game just for fun, Minchin improved dramatically around the time she turned 16. It seemed to happen overnight, she explained. It was then that she started to play competitively and discover the places the game could take her. She won multiple Saskatchewan Junior Girls titles and twice finished second in the Saskatchewan Women’s Amateur. She wound up on provincial teams and competed nationally for the first time at the 1998 Canadian Junior Girls at Toronto’s York Downs G&CC. She loved it all — the trips, the courses, the people she met. A U.S. college scholarship emerged as a possibility and she wound up a two-time tournament winner and three-time first team all-conference player at Eastern Illinois University.

Upon graduating Minchin gave tour life a shot, plying her trade on the old Canadian Women’s Tour and teeing it up in mini-tour events whenever and wherever she could. Success — and cash — didn’t come, however, so at 27, having already lent a helping hand in the TS&M Woodlawn junior program from which she graduated, she became a PGA of Canada member and joined the club as assistant professional. She became head professional in 2016 and head professional/GM in 2018. Through the years the accolades have piled up: PGA of Saskatchewan Assistant of the Year in 2012; PGA of Saskatchewan Teacher of the Year in 2015; PGA of Saskatchewan Junior Promoter of the Year in 2013 and ’16; and the PGA of Canada’s Jack McLaughlin Junior Leader of the Year in ’16 as well. She was also an assistant coach for Golf Saskatchewan’s 2017 Canada Summer Games team. It’s those junior leader awards of which she is most proud.

“I love teaching kids,” Minchin said. “As a GM/head pro I still get to do our Tiny Linkster junior lessons. I still get to be out there with the five-, six-year-olds on the weekend and teach those lessons. Might be funny to some people but I think it’s cool.”

Of course, a world with COVID-19 has changed some of that. After a long shutdown, Minchin was just getting junior camps at Woodlawn up and running again in early June, having to create regimes for physical distancing, especially at the youngest levels. But she also noted enrollment for camps is up over last year as are junior and adult memberships. The school of thought that golf might benefit from the pandemic with people unable to participate in teams sports has come to fruition at TS&M Woodlawn with members of the public struggling to get tee times as season pass holders gobble them up with the ability to book seven days in advance. That is something Minchin said she has never seen at the club. As for golf being a safe haven in these uncertain times, her sell of the game remains the same.

“I’m going to push junior golf no matter what, COVID or not,” she avowed, noting the club has produced nine juniors who played competitively last summer and had graduates playing collegiately in the U.S. before the shutdown. “I feel bad for kids. I can’t imagine not being able to play sports and do all of their activities. I mean, I grew up loving all sports. So I feel for kids. And adults. I mean, I miss sports. I miss watching hockey and whatnot. If I could say anything, it’s that we of course feel very safe here, it’s a great place for kids to meet other kids. We see it now. Kids are coming here, they are learning how to make tee times on their own, they’re booking online because kids are so good on computers obviously. But it’s not just about hitting golf balls. It’s learning how to talk to adults, play with adults because we have to fill those tee times. The life skills alone, I’ll always preach that, in a COVID world or not a COVID world.

“We want your kids — boys and girls,” she continued. “We just think kids should be introduced to golf. Whether they decide to go play competitively or whatnot, obviously as golf lovers we see the benefits of it as a lifelong game, so we’re going to be really pushing that in the next year.”

And why not? Look what joining the junior program way back when has done for Minchin.

“I’m from the junior program and here I am 30-odd years later as the GM. To me, that’s a cool story.”

Regardless of our sector, discipline or team size we all have attended or have held a meeting at some point in our working lives. They are a core part of our working and organisational culture that open the doors to create new ideas, collaborate with each other and solve issues to real-world and working problems.

Unfortunately, this has been impacted heavily by the current global issues we are facing, which have forcibly created remote working environments for us all and detached ourselves from one another considerably [and it is also worth assuming that this is a situation we will find ourselves in for the foreseeable future].

So, taking all this in, how can we adapt ourselves and our way of working [in this case, the way we meet] to overcome current difficulties? What is the most productive form of meeting virtually? Is there even a ‘most productive’ form of meeting virtually that currently exists? A few thoughts to consider…but here are some ideas, collated from the CPG’s recent experiences and a wider look at the area.

1. Setup is Important

Unfortunately when we say ‘setup’, we are not talking about stance, ball position, grip or posture here…

To give a very brief explanation [because we highlighted this in our other recent blog for hosting webinars], we need to decide on the platform that we meet on – Zoom and Skype were good places to start.

Then, devising goals for the meeting are still an important part of meetings, albeit pretty different to a webinar. Once these are established, you can devise a reasonable structure to the meeting that considers:

• What are the key topics / proposals / ideas up for discussion?
• Who is best placed to lead each of the above?
• Who is best placed to coordinate the entire meeting, and the above two points?
• How long do you have?
• Do you provide much scope for open-ended discussion?

Just as an example for our own way of working – we have a weekly ‘Catch-Up meeting’, held on a Thursday for approximately an hour. This follows an approximate 50/50 structure where for the first half a set agenda is followed based on various things and points to tackle that we work through. This is then followed by the final half where each team member provides an update on their own work in a more open-ended discussion.

It has worked really well for the past six months, and has provided that much needed, regular information and connection with colleagues to function as a team, combined with the day-to-day frequent individual contact that takes place.

2. Create a Network of Meeting Bubbles

There needs to be an acceptance that it is going to be pretty difficult to get through as much as you would normally do in person and as a group. Practically, it is impossible – connectivity issues often persist and there are those amusingly-awkward time delays where we realise we have both spoken at the same time and then decide to wait for one another to speak. These are simply unavoidable elements of online meetings.

Therefore it is important to use a ‘whole-team’ meeting as one to catch up and provide overview to the current ongoings and developments, not necessarily as a time to solve every issue that the organisation is facing. By having smaller ‘bubbles’ [excuse the COVID-19 buzzword], we can collaborate more effectively with one, two or three members of our team outside the normal meeting space.

For example, there are regular Communication and Events catch-ups during the week with specific team members to solve issues and work through various documents and content together. We can then go away on our own and action these points, and then report this work to everybody at the team meeting later.

The key premise from this is that it is more important than ever to trust one another, and understand that colleagues will be working with one another without direct knowledge or awareness they have been used to in an office. This can pose challenges with tracking work, but there is a growing body of research that supports remote-working environments to be more productive than the office scenario.

3. Maintain Colleague Engagement

The premise of chatting to colleagues through a laptop screen can quite easily encourage technological fatigue, loss of concentration and enthusiasm across the board. Online meetings certainly fill a sociological void, but they do not offer a complete solution to satisfying our innate need to interact face-to-face with others.

Therefore, encouraging greater interaction with one another is an important part of online meetings. This can be achieved through simple tasks such as group breathing exercises [check out Dr. Brian Hemming’s Webinar – 14min 30 secs for a good example on this], allocating time for a quick fire quiz, or allowing everybody to introduce themselves and discuss various non-work related topics that would normally form a natural part of general work chit-chat.

The most important part of this is for the meeting leader and moderator to be aware of the situation – that it is a team meeting and not just a presentation. By ensuring every person has their time to speak and become involved in discussions, they will not only be more engaged but will contribute positively to a more productive online team meeting.

4. Share notes

Once you have conducted your online meeting, the key final stage is to ensure everyone has the information they need from it. Sharing notes is often a lot easier in person because you can physically hand them agendas, outcomes and minutes as you see fit. Doing this over the internet is slightly trickier.

A platform to share notes is the best port of call. Outlook’s Planner function is a really easy way to do this. You can create various sub-topics for each meeting, based on the agenda set. In the CPG’s case, these sub-topics include tournaments, education, members, golf development etc. Then list all the key actions and tasks for each.

It is really easy to use, provides a ‘live’ access point for all colleagues to see and add notes to and ultimately keeps everybody you need to in the know about what is going on, or has gone on from various meetings.

If this is too much, creating a word document from the meeting that can be shared with everyone via email afterwards is a perhaps more laborious way of doing things, but nonetheless equally as effective…

Whilst COVID-19 has forced an inevitable online environment for the way most of us work, function and hold such forms of educational sessions, it is tough to tell what the future holds for webinars and their uses.

Some argue that companies will choose to stick with this virtual way of working meaning webinars will hold a crucial role moving forwards. Others argue that the latter simply cannot replace the classic lecture theatre, classroom or boardroom, and all of the social benefits that these spaces bring.

What is for certain however, is that most of you will have created, taken part in, or listened to an online webinar over recent weeks, which raises numerous questions: Did you find them useful? How engaging were they? How easy was the registration and joining process? Is there another way to host one?

The Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG] have been functioning in a virtual, flexible environment for almost six months now, pre-empting what most people are doing. Here is the CPG’s take on answering these questions, using our own recent experiences.

1. Pick a Platform, Any Platform…

First you need an appropriate platform and there are lots to choose from. Skype has been around for years and something most people are familiar with in some form. Whether that has been speaking to family overseas or catching up with friends from afar, it is a good starting point.

SKYPE

Pros of Skype:

• Hold video chats and make local, domestic, and international calls.
• Conduct both screen and document sharing with large files.
• It has a variety of interactive functions such as white-board, post a poll, and Q&A sessions.
• Free version available, which works well for smaller teams.
• Integrates with Microsoft Teams, which is a useful platform used by a lot of companies already.

Cons of Skype:

• A number of technical issues during calls, such as freezing, connectivity issues etc.
• There is not a large amount of support or help options in such circumstances.
• What if you are using something other than Microsoft Teams?

Overall though Skype is a good option. But how about Zoom? This seems to be a buzzword at the moment, so does it live up to expectations? Or is it merely a shadow of Skype culture?

ZOOM

Pros of Zoom:

• Conduct live video chat.
• Access to various meeting analytics.
• Easily screen-share during a call.
• Use the recording feature to save and document your sessions.
• Hold brainstorming sessions with Zoom’s on-screen whiteboard feature.
• Access in-depth support such as live help, online chat, phone support, FAQs, help articles, and video tutorials.
• Free (up to 100 participants and 40 minute calls).
• A relatively easy registration-creation process.

Cons of Zoom:

• If you host more than 100 participants regularly, you will have to pay (Starts from $14.99 a month…)
• Picture quality is sometimes an issue.

Both are great platforms with some minor hiccups and glitches but overall they do what they say and will be great options for your next online webinar. Think about what you want, factor in your budget and how much support and guidance you want from each service and it should help you make your decision.

2. Identify Your Goals and Structure The Webinar…

This is a relatively straight-froward, self-policing matter. Ask yourself these questions: what is the main point of the webinar – Is it to inform? Create a discussion? Find answers? Provide answers? Will you require a presentation to achieve the answer to these questions? Who’s presenting? How long for?

Once you have done that, you can start to formulate a plan as to how you want the webinar to go. In the recent CPG Masterclass Series – a two-month programme of online webinars – we primarily focused on a presentation model. If we were to answer those questions it would have looked like this:

• Is it to inform? Yes
• Create a discussion? Not primarily, but we can if necessary.
• Find answers? No
• Provide answers? Yes
• Requires a presentation? Yes
• Who’s presenting? External speakers
• How long for? Short bursts of information

Now we have a basis to form our structure. Generally, we followed a presentation-style webinar, whereby the external speaker presented on a certain topic for 20-25 minutes, to provide expertise and knowledge about it and then the listeners could ask questions at the end, and spark a discussion if warranted.

By answering these goals, you can create an effective webinar template.

3. Communicate Clearly…

This is key to delivering an effective, highly-sought after webinar. If your participants do not even know about it, how can they join? Promoting your webinar is therefore important but must be done in the right way.

Think about the channels you use (social media, email, website, blog) and tailor the message to each. Coincidently, we held our own CPG Masterclass Series webinar on just that very premise here. Once you have drafted out some promotional posts (remembering to include the sign-up link in every single one!), get posting.

Then you need to think about the user-registration journey. How do you simplify the process of registering for a webinar? If it is complicated, people just will not join or be interested. Zoom’s registering system is very straightforward – it creates a registration link which takes you to a separate landing page, you fill in a few of your basic details and you receive an automated email to say you have registered along with the timings and access link (the host also receives an email to say they have received a registrant – important data!).

People’s time is precious. Pitch to them what your webinar is about, why it is of use to them and then once you have grabbed their attention ensure they don’t fall at the last registration hurdle.

4. Don’t be Camera Shy, do be Camera Conscious

Once you have completed all of the above and have created a webinar with registered participants, you need to think about how you deliver the actual webinar itself effectively. This is not as complicated as it needs to be, it just needs a little bit of confidence and preparation from you or the presenter beforehand.

Do you stay on camera? Do you turn it off? Personally, we like to stay on camera…the current circumstances have already limited our social contact considerably and whilst Zoom is a good substitute to meet, do you really want to alienate your registrants even further by not showing your face on camera? Its a tricky one but I think your attendees would appreciate seeing who they are listening to.

On a final note if you do choose to go onto camera, ensure you have considered yourself and your surroundings. As we have all seen, there have been some terrible (albeit amusing) examples in the past of meetings being interrupted by children, slightly inappropriate photos in the house or somebody not wearing appropriate office clothing! Whilst you might be at home, preparing the environment you are in appropriately has never been more important.

On a final note, make sure you have as much fun and confidence as possible whilst planning, organising and holding your webinar!

Replicated across both cpg.golf and golfandhealth.org, the hubs aim to bring together various resources, documents, information, examples and case studies from organisations around the world that are working with their stakeholders/Members to get back to playing golf in a safe and secure way.

Resources from France, Spain, Sweden, New Zealand the United States of America, and the United Kingdom, as well as from international organisations such as the CPG and World Health Organisation [WHO] are available to view together, to provide an overview of the different actions and initiatives that golf is undertaking.

Click Here to Find Out More…

As part of its long-term education strategy and in response to the current challenging climate PGAs and their Members are facing, the Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG] have announced a new series of free online Masterclass webinars.

The ‘CPG Masterclass Series’ includes a range of online talks and presentations that cover a variety of subjects and topics, delivered by world-class, industry leading experts from their respective fields.

CPG Chief Executive, Ian Randell, commented: “Like most organisations and individuals, PGAs and PGA Members are being affected in a number of ways by the COVID-19 virus. Whilst policies and guidelines differ across our member countries, we are taking a number of steps and introducing new initiatives to emphasise Togetherness and the sharing of knowledge and information, at a time when being part of a community is more important than ever.

“The CPG Masterclass Series is just one of these steps and we will contain to work with the leaders from across our Member PGAs to roll out others over the coming weeks and months – Stay Safe, Stay Learning”.

Through this increased sharing of knowledge and thought-provoking content, the Masterclass Series embodies the CPG’s guiding principles of Togetherness, Collaboration and Development, and aims to provide both new and supplementary golf education resources for the benefit of CPG Member Country PGAs and PGA Professionals alike.

The initial schedule of speakers includes a focus on the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on golf with Dr Andrew Murray and Dr Roger Hawkes, Project Leaders for the Golf & Health initiative, communication science and its relation to golf coaching with Marie Jeffery, Marketing and student relationship for golf instructors with Jose Vicente Perez, structuring practice and lessons with Adam Young, social media for PGA Professionals with Emma Ballard, along with a variety of other content already scheduled.

Regular announcements of upcoming webinars will be released in due course, with an aim to provide frequent, accessible sessions to enable as many PGA representatives and PGA Professionals to attend.

Further details on the series including the full schedule, speaker line-up, and webinar access details can be found online at cp.golf/masterclass.

If you would like to take part and deliver a webinar then please contact tb@cpg.golf or use the form available on the Masterclass hub page.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE

Despite the obvious and well-documented challenges this has posed to industries, in particular golf, PGA Professionals have adapted to an incredibly difficult situation admirably. You only have to spend a few minutes on social media to see their drive and determination across the world to maintain both their golf games and enthusiasm, conducted under a cloud of doubt and uncertainty as to when they will return to work and the course.

Your clients and customers will no doubt also be itching to get back onto the course, back to playing in weekly club competitions, back to hitting balls on the range and back to having lessons with you. So how, despite having limited ability to interact directly with them, can you continue to build and maintain a rapport? How can you use this time to increase your relevance and prepare your business for when the play button on society is hit?

Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool and something you or your employers will have been possibly engaging with or utilising in some form already. Established mainstream channels such as Facebook and Twitter provide solid bases to create exposure and generate valuable conversations with your existing clients and potential customers, providing it is done in the right way for you and your business.

Don’t stick to just Facebook and Twitter however. LinkedIn provides a professional platform to collaborate with other businesses. Instagram is a fantastic channel for golf clubs to visually present their business – clubs are utilising closed courses to generate fantastic on-the-ground and aerial drone footage, undisturbed, that can be uploaded across instagram, websites and for future content purposes.

There is no doubt other channels such as TikTok [a video streaming site that’s use has surged very recently] will continue to be popularised as tastes and trends change. Keeping an eye on these, learning how to use them and applying them correctly might help you to digitally converse with new audiences and develop your social reach.

Vlogging

At face value, vlogging [creating video content around topics and instructional areas] seems complex. This previous article helps to simplify and break down first of all what video blogging is, how to actually create a great vlog, and then how to effectively deliver it to your audience.

In essence, it requires a small space to be able to explain and demonstrate a shot [if it is a coaching vlog], a camera or smartphone to record yourself and ultimately, oodles of energy and enthusiasm. For sure, it can be daunting to even the most confident of people to film themselves talking but remember that it is you and your knowledge that customers come for week-in, week-out. The only difference is that you are creating that conversation with them through a screen now instead.

Email Marketing and Weekly Check-ups

Remaining relevant is a constant battle we as PGA Professionals face in even more certain trading conditions. Ever-growing competition from clubs, teaching academies and driving ranges keep each and every one of us on our toes to ensure we innovate and improve, so that our clients continue to demand the products and services we offer.

Therefore, in the absence of clubs, teaching academies and facilities, and in fact any form of consumer demand during this crisis, relevancy is ironically, almost irrelevant to a degree.

Front page headlines, news articles and press conferences around the world thoroughly document the challenges and threats of COVID-19, and are obsessively occupying the front of everybody’s minds right now – for good and obvious reasons. So how do you replace, or at the very least, remind people that there is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to their golf games, their golf club and their favourite past time?

First, you need a client database to be able to activate and engage with.

Second, you need an hour or two each week to set aside and create some engaging forms of online communication. This can be as basic as a generic text message such as the one below, or a multispread newsletter that covers what you, a PGA Professional who is eager to maintain their own golf games has been up to, simple step-by-step coaching tips or generic thoughts on the game’s current trends, and why you are looking forward to making this summer the best yet for everyone. You will find people have more time on their hands right now, so engaging them with longer pieces of content should be really useful and effective!

…”Hi [first name]!

How are you? Have you managed to get any form of golf practice in on the garden? 

If you are limited for space and time, try setting up some simple putting drills in your front living room, or a chipping net with some foam balls to keep the your game ticking over. It won’t be long before we are through these current difficulties and back out onto the golf course and I am really looking forward to seeing you back!

If you would like some more tips and drills to practice at home, or anything else, I am here to help.

[Your name]”…

Thirdly, you need to deliver the content. If you have a large database of text messages to send, you could generalise the message to apply to a large group. You could then create a themed WhatsApp group that includes various sections of your client base, such as parents of respective golf classes to send info through and maintain their engagement.

However you do it and whatever you write, if you maintain the thought of ‘I am here and available for when we return to normal life’ at the front of your mind, your message will remain relevant, be well received and at the very least, replace a negative with a positive for your clients.

Final Thoughts

We are all involved in a current national and international effort to defeat this virus, and I first and foremost wish you all and your loved ones good health throughout this challenging period.

Right now we have a duty to follow and enact upon the strict social measures delivered by our respective governing authorities. The quicker we do this, the quicker we get through it and the quicker we can walk back out onto the golf course.

However, I urge you to use this enforced downtime to engage and re-engage with your customers and clients as much as possible. The optimist in me believes a booming feel-good factor of festivities and consumer spending is an inevitability once our lives and liberties are re-instilled. By using this time effectively, you can position yourselves effectively to take advantage of expected surges in demand and make up for any bump your business is currently experiencing.

But this is set to become the new norm for many – short-term for most but may even become more of a long-term solution for others as well considering the current Coronavirus [COVID-19] circumstances we all face (especially as working from home may enable better working than ever in some cases).

The CPG network is a wide one across 31 countries with over 12,500 PGA Professionals. Of those 31 PGAs then a number already work remotely, or at least are able to relatively normally under the current circumstances, whilst others are working out how to be effective given their new situation.

For the vast majority of the 12.5k+ PGA Professionals, and all PGA Professionals in those countries where the virus restriction measures have taken hold, then this is will be a different and possibly unnerving experience.

The following are just a few useful links and resources that can hopefully a) help you to work and be productive at home, and b) utilise the time proactively to develop yourself and your business/organisation. None of this situation is ideal, but, as we are often told in golf, we must focus on the positives.

WORKING FROM HOME PRODUCTIVELY:

Communicating From a Distance: How to Ensure Remote Working Works Best For Your Organisation | Thomas International

The great team at Thomas International explain how “…a greater understanding of how you, your managers, colleagues and teams prefer to communicate can help with the transition to a greater degree of remote working than your business may currently be comfortable supporting…”

Read More – https://cp.golf/33SUzto

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Three Secrets to Effective Remote Working For Your Employees | Thomas International

The Thomas International folk follow up with a 3-point plan to ensure working remotely is as effective for the people in your organisation as possible.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2UMKUjN

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Coronavirus and Remote Working – A Practical Guide | Medium.com

iubenda have had remote workers since 2011 – here Andrea Giannangelo explains how to organise teams, use software tools, provide clear guidelines, and keep workers healthy and engaged.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3dy3GnA

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Online Business Tools to Work From Home | JotForm.com

JotForm, an online form building tool, give examples of tools for project management, remote document access, video conferencing, internal communications, and online payments, along with how JotForm itself is useful when working from home.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2UJQvHO

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Why Working From Home is Good For Business | Ted.com

Matt Mullenweg uses just 4.5 minutes to explain how useful working from home can be and how he does it effectively.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2ykPdvh

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New to Working from Home? Here Are Some Tips to Help You Meet Like a Pro | Zoom.us

Using Zoom for video calls, meetings, etc. is a must – engagement is key to keep workers up to speed and involved (although Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime, etc. of course have their uses too). This guide from Zoom shows how to get set-up and then use Zoom effectively in your organisation.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3atTVoF

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USING YOUR TIME TO DEVELOP YOURSELF AND YOUR BUSINESS:

ed.TED.com – Online Lesson Building

TEDed offers a fantastic service [FOR FREE] where you can build an online lesson around any TED or YouTube video. You can add notes and questions to help guide a student through the lesson and all you have to do is share a link/URL with the student for them to take part (no registration necessary). A great way of engaging students no matter where you are.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2xvLlai

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TED.com – Ideas Worth Sharing

TED’s main video service contains hundreds if not thousands of TED Talk videos of 18 minutes or less that allow people to get their ideas across. Whatever subject you can think of then it’s likely there is a video on there about it. Great for developing your own thoughts and ideas.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2vZ0bpj

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How to Stay Active While You’re Home – SportEngland.org

Developing yourself is not just about being mentaller active – when working from home (especially in cases where social distancing/self-isolation is in place) then you need to stay as physically active as possible. Sport England have brought together useful tops and advice on staying as healthy as possible when at home both for adults and for kids.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2Uq4L9A

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Work Smarter Playlist – TED.com

This playlist brings together a series of TED Talk videos that offers unconventional advice on working more effectively.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3bCie40

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Work Happier Playlist – TED.com

This TED Talk playlist looks at how being happier at work actually comes from focusing on the happiness part rather than the work part.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2JoyhGj

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LinkedIn Learning – LinkedIn.com/learning

LinkedIn’s Learning service offers a huge number of online courses that can help develop your skills in a variety of areas. You can enrol in various courses and then once complete add certifications to your LinkedIn profile.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3asCmoN

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Working From Home Learning Path – LinkedIn Learning

During this time when more and more people are having to work from home then LinkedIn Learning have opened up their ‘Remote Working: Setting Yourself and Your Teams Up for Success‘ course, including time management, productivity tips, video conferencing, and more.

Read More – https://cp.golf/39q1n2F

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p.s. The real working from hero tip is to make sure you choose the right snacks. Shoutout to gingerbread men and blueberries.

Graphic Designed by macrovector / Freepik

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The discussion about appropriate tee lengths for both adult and junior golfers has been around for a few years now. As I’ve been researching the topic recently, here are a few discussion points, ideas, initiatives and solutions that I’ve come across.

ADULT GOLFERS

The USGA and the PGA of America have been pushing forward their “Tee it Forward” initiative. The premise is very simple – we should encourage people to match up their abilities with the golf course length by letting them tee off closer to the green than the standard tee box, so that they can hit more-lofted clubs into the greens. This, as advertised by the golf agencies including The R&A, will result in faster play, more birdies and more fun. Data seems to be backing this claim, with golf clubs and golf associations saying that incorporating the initiative has resulted in increased participation and satisfaction of golfers.

This discussion has two aspects:

1. Getting rid of labelled tee boxes
2. Shortening the courses

The first point is pretty straightforward – golf clubs should stop using terms like “men’s tees”, and either mix up the colours used for the tees, or even get rid of all the colours altogether.

I’ve seen it done at PGA Sweden National club in Bara [Sweden], where there were no colours on the tees. Each of the 6 sets of tees were labelled with the length of the whole course played from those tees instead [like “53” for the 5,300m length]. Check out their scorecard here.

Although it seems like a simple solution, maybe this course is not the best example for the discussion – it’s clearly a championship course [where the Nordea Masters is often played], and even the shortest tees are not really short [4950m].

For participation purposes, creating more gender-less tees seems like a no-brainer to me. You’ll be able to take complete beginners on the course much sooner [playing in the same way as everybody else], it will speed up play, level the field and improve scores [potentially making people more likely to play more often].

Here is a really cool article that explains the logic behind playing from appropriate distances [“every golfer should have the opportunity to hit par threes in one shot, par fours in two, and par fives in three”] and comes up with a very easy equation that allows people to quickly calculate what tee length they should be playing from [it’s player’s driver distance * 28]:

JUNIOR GOLFERS

The exact same concept applies to junior golfers. Well, in fact maybe it applies much more to juniors than to adults. There is a great blog post by Daniel Coyle that explains how playing on a mis-matched field size in any sport affects the “fun” factor for the kids, as well as how the mere design of the playing fields affect junior’s behaviour [like their attention span].

Obviously this doesn’t apply just to golf, here are a few examples [taken from said blog post and elsewhere] that demonstrate what happens if we put junior players into adult-sized pitches, courts, courses [and using adult-size equipment]. It is mind-blowing to see the exact techniques and behaviours normally associated with young performers REPLICATED by adults when placed in the same [relative] environments:

If a similar video existed for golf, we can imagine what it would look like – Tour Players playing on ridiculously long holes [1000 yards PAR 4’s], and maybe even using long and heavy clubs. It would probably look the same as 8 year olds playing from ladies’ tees.

I have encountered a few very neat solutions to this problem, listed below.

US KIDS GOLF – FAMILY COURSES

Family Courses is probably the one initiative around shortened junior tees that has received the most attention in the golfing world.

Again, the premise is very simple: juniors match their driver carry distance to an appropriate set of tees on the golf course [ball-park distances are easy to check by a simple addition to a driving range].

The golf course is set up in a way that recreates the same shots / clubs used from every tee, starting with a Blue set of tees for those who are able to carry their driver 100 yards.

What’s crucial is that creating these additional sets of tees does not require a huge investment. US Kids are using reasonably-priced, simple and un-obstructive “Tee Plates” to mark the teeing location, allowing fairway mowers to ride over the tees with no problem, reducing the barriers for golf courses to invest in them.

JOLF – JOLF TEES AND “ONE-HITTES”

JOLF [a junior golf system co-founded by Neil Plimmer, a previous guest of the Participation Coaching Podcast] recommends a slightly different approach.

First of all, JOLF Modified Golf Courses have three additional sets of tees (JOLF Red, Yellow, White). As with all the previously mentioned solutions, the appropriate tee length is based on the distance that the player is able to hit the ball with their driver / 7 iron.

Holes’ lengths are based on a simple calculation – Red JOLF Tees are 20% of the white adult tees length, Yellow – 40% and White – 60%.

Quite importantly, the JOLF creators advocate for leaving the choice of what tees to play from to the children. Up to a point where children choose their own starting positions on each hole. As explained to me by Neil Plimmer, he would take a child onto the golf course and say something along the lines of “This hole is a one-hitter [par 3]. I want you to start it from wherever you think you’re able to reach the green in one shot” – For some children this may be just 5 yards away from the green.

OPERATION 36 – DIVISIONS

Matt Reagan and Ryan Dailey, creators of the Operation 36 programme [that’s getting some serious attention in the US right now!] have created a whole structure around playing from appropriate tees and shooting low scores [the general goal behind the whole framework being – shooting 36 shots across 9 holes].

As part of their weekly programme, Operation 36 coaches organise Matches that include juniors playing in various Divisions. There are 6 Divisions, and each corresponds to a set of tees, with Division 1 starting from 25 yards away from the hole, progressing up through Division 5 [200 yards PAR 4] and Division 6 [full tees].

Each participant starts in Division 1, regardless of their age and driving distance.

The challenge is for the juniors to shoot 36 [even par] for 9 holes from their Division. Having done that, they progress to a higher Division.

I find this concept very interesting. It provides a clear structure / framework for the juniors to progress through. From a performance standpoint, it also creates the additional benefit of making juniors comfortable with shooting level scores. The programme seems to be very competitive though, and I’m not sure what effect implementing such a rigid structure could have on more recreational, less ambitious or less skilled children. Especially knowing that reaching the highest accomplishment [hitting 36 from adult tees] is statistically, a feat available to just a few.

CONCLUSION

I have been thinking about the concept of shortened and gender/age-less tees for a while now, and I honestly can’t see too many downsides to this.

I mean, really, why don’t ALL golf courses create shortened tees? What’s stopping them from doing it? It is not the cost, as shown by US Kids. Is it just the “tradition” holding us back?

Shouldn’t we all be actively lobbying for changing the tee structure at our golf clubs?

If the whole industry takes on this change [e.g. allowing to obtain/update a handicap on a shortened course, like in New Zealand; organising competitions from appropriate tees; encouraging members, visitors, recreational players etc. to use appropriate tees etc.], I wonder what would its effect be on:

• junior participation
• adult participation
• adult retention (!)
• junior performance
• pace of play issues
• the state of the golf industry

However, the keenest of the keen guests and members will still turn up over the weekends and when any opportunity arises, and the show must go on as events and competitions are still an ongoing activity for golf clubs and facilities, whatever the weather.

Perhaps less serious than the annual Club Championships or your Mixed Am-Am, but winter ‘series’ events do provide an opportunity for you to reinvent yourself, trial some new tricks and get ready for when these main competitions come back around in 2020.

In this blog, Communications Manager for the Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG], Tom Bentley, discusses some simple keys and ideas you may not have considered, and delves into how you can make your calendar season in 2020 the best yet.

HAVE AN EVENT MISSION

True in just about everything we do at work, at home and in any other task completed: have a goal to your event. So often events are delivered by a facility without a general guiding principle or goal, no matter how small it is.

Not having a goal is similar to delivering a marketing campaign without an underlying strategy – the content you produce for that campaign would then be inconsistent, contain mixed messages and ultimately means the impact you want does not materialise.

Determining a goal for your event, whilst at face value appears to be common-sense, is easier said than done. The obvious one is to make a financial return but ultimately that is a focus of pretty much 99% of golf events – without making a profit then the justification for that event diminishes and the chances of it continuing the next year become very slim.

So, what else should the event focus on? Well that is entirely up to you and you can be pretty creative or think outside the box with this. For example, during University I managed and delivered the brief for an ‘Olympic Themed Golf Event’ at a local golf club. We actually had two goals for this event:

1. Make as much money as possible for charity (Birmingham Children’s Hospital) – in other words, generate a profit or surplus to donate.
2. Create an irregular, ‘outside-the-box’ golf event experience that most importantly, entertained each and every paying guest.

What we found before the event, during and in the post-event feedback was that guests’ eyes opened at the event because it was completely different and something that they had never done before.

They also liked that the event had greater meaning behind it and was not commercially driven to simply make a profit for the facility, but in fact to deliver funds to a local cause that they genuinely cared about. As a result, we had created a huge buzz around the event that became oversubscribed quickly and in turn, delivered a successful, profitable tournament that was a resounding success.

Creating new competitive experiences for your membership (new formats, order-of-merits, team competitions, etc.), driving female numbers to your club, raising your club’s profile in the local community or celebrating a special occasion are all examples of varying goals and missions that could guide your event in the future.

Focus less on your return and more on the event and the finances should take better care of themselves.

EMPLOY SOME STARDUST TO IMPRESS

This is not a necessity to your event, but merely the icing on the cake to delivering an exceptional experience. Generally, having an event that delivers a round of golf with some form of catering before or afterwards is the blueprint to every golf event that ever existed.

So how can you add that extra spice to the day that makes it that little bit more memorable? Well, try considering some of these options:

1. Event gifts
2. Live scoring systems/ televised leaderboard
3. Photography

Event gifts do not have to be expensive and can range from a simple sleeve of golf balls from your Pro Shop to a fully-fledged handmade gift.

Our Official Suppliers, Thomas Lyte, recently provided the CPG with some branded leather notepads to present to all our attendees during our official brand launch event.

This premium gift not only struck an instant impression with every person, but it also gave something practical and useful for them to take away and remember the day with. It also promoted the organisation and its brand and offered a substantial intangible benefit that will last a very long time.

A live scoring system is another fantastic chance to really stand out. Creating an event that makes guests feel special and that they are ‘just like the pros on TV’ is a great way of making a memorable event and one that they would all return back to again and again.

Using a leaderboard system is often challenging with the associated costs, tech-savviness required, and time spent that could be used more effectively elsewhere.

The CPG uses a system called GolfBox Tournament across all our events for one main reason – it is so simple to use, without compromising on features and capabilities. Developed in Denmark and utilised by many of our Member Country PGAs for their own tournaments, GolfBox is becoming the market leading system for scoring globally (and is also ready for the World Handicap System changes as well).

Its live scoring capability is as easy as emailing links to each participant, which they open in web browsers on their phone and they are ready to go. We are able to embed and display it across various multimedia channels around the event venue and on our website, which makes the communication of the event that much easier.

The final point is the use of photography, which leads onto the final section…

CAPITALISE ON PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

This is often a side thought on the day of the event, and understandably – there are bigger priorities to focus on such as registration and scoring and the number of hands you have (only two!) are limited. However, effectively managing your time and getting a helping hand with this can pay dividends.

A simple way is having the starter on the first tee take group and individual photographs of each and every competitor as they tee off. You could also have somebody drive around the course taking photographs and videos.

Whichever way you do it, having some visual assets of the day is important, as they can be utilised in various ways:

1. Posting live updates of the event across your facility’s social media channels and website, for followers to engage with as it happens
2. Create marketing materials / collateral to be used for future event advertising
3. Help to showcase the golf course, club and all of its facilities, alongside the event itself

You could get very savvy and distribute photos to each competitor by email using their contact details provided, so that they can then post on their own social media to show how great of a day they have had at your facility and event (simple, and free, word-of-mouth promotion).

You can even include some details and prompts for them such as an event hashtag or your facility’s social media usernames etc. in this distribution.  Do not underestimate how powerful external user posting can be for your business, especially when done right!

CONCLUSION

Improving and enhancing your next golf event is never going to be an easy endeavour, but taking the time to step back and look at the day as a whole, where it can be enhanced and what you need to do to maximise its benefit will go a long way to delivering a successful event.

Following some of these simple guidelines should help put you and your team on the right path to success and ultimately, help you continue to reengage audiences in future events, whilst also helping to attract new customers that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by and entice.

The five attendees of IPE – Danilo Kraljevic, Luka Karaula, Robert Savic, Vladimir Efremow and Piero Mina, arrived in Holland representing various PGAs including Serbia, Russia and Croatia.

The week gave the students an opportunity to complete the first half of their required eight residential days (in which the last four will be completed in February), receiving information from tutors across various disciplines including golf coaching and club administration. By attending, the students have taken the first step into achieving their own professional goals in the golf industry, and the necessary qualifications to support their respective golf clubs and clients in the future.

Director of IPE Jim Van Heuven Van Staereling, commented on the week: “The students enjoyed their stay and went home with an open mind and probably more questions than when they arrived.

“However, facilitating this desire for further learning is the main aim of the first stage of IPE, and I very much look forward to observing their further development over the next few weeks and months”.

Haarlemmermeersche Golf Club was a perfect host for the week, providing perfect practice facilities, 36 holes of golf  (9 of which are flood-lightened) and a close proximity to the country’s capital, Amsterdam. This all enabled a seamless delivery of the programme and maximised the student’s overall experience.

Between now and February, students will undertake and complete an online portfolio – new to IPE, that is guided and assessed by IPE course tutors. This covers every element on the course specification and prepares each student for the final stage of the programme in February.

Upon successful completion of IPE’s learning outcomes, students will attain  ‘Apprentice Professional’ status and be well on their way to becoming a fully qualified PGA Golf Professional with their respective CPG Member Countries.

For more information about IPE, click here

Visit Haarlemmermeersche Golf Club

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There is a well-known phrase: ‘people leave managers, not companies’. Ensuring your organisation is made up of leaders with the right characteristics, level of self-awareness, potential and ability is fundamental in fostering an environment of high engagement and high performance, both of which are key drivers of business success.

Leadership goes beyond the successful delivery of projects or achievement of strategic targets; it’s about engaging your people on the journey towards realising a vision. We surveyed over 200 HR and business professionals on their views on leadership, engagement and talent, and a host of recommended actions from industry experts that you can implement in your own organisations.

This whitepaper aims to reflect on the relationship between leadership and engagement, covering the following themes:

• The role of leaders in driving engagement and performance through team values
• Psychological methods of defining talent and measuring potential
• The impact of employee engagement upon performance

Click Here to Download the Free Whitepaper [ThomasInternational.net]

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Reuben Conibear

Reuben has worked in the Marketing team at Thomas for just over 3 and half years. As Marketing Executive, Reuben’s core focus is to ensure a high quality experience for Thomas customers at all times. In his spare time, Reuben enjoys kayaking, bouldering and spending time with his friends and family.

When we meet new clients, we usually go in with one opinion formed from what we know at that point, which is usually based on touchpoints such as their website or some marketing collateral we’ve seen. But once we meet the people behind that business, that opinion always changes – and usually for the better. This makes us want to work with them and we end up building up wonderful relationships with people. Through our Brand thinking™ process we get to know more of the people behind the organisation, from the top to the bottom. We learn about what they love about the company, what frustrates them and how they live the brand on a day-to-day basis.

The more we do this the more we see the real value in making sure the people in your company live, breathe and are the brand. From the moment your customers speak to one of your staff members on the phone they are forming an opinion of the brand and building an emotional feeling towards your business. Making sure your staff are on the same page as the brand will make this process a lot smoother.

However, it can be dangerous to impose a brand ethos on your team, especially if it’s not who they are or not what they believe in. The comments from them to your clients excusing the colour palette or strapline will soon creep in and undermine everything you’ve worked so hard to build.

That’s why it’s essential to build your brand around the kind of people who work for it and the kind of customers you want to attract. It’s easier for smaller businesses that have a small team, which is why we see so many of them winning when it comes to genuine brand and social content. But all businesses can follow some simple guidelines to ensure their brand works from within:

Listen

First you really need to listen to your team and find out what makes them tick. Finding out what they’re proud of in the company and what they’re not so proud of is really important to finding a brand that will work for them. Maybe there are some brands that they really admire or aspire to.

Build a story

Your brand needs a story. This doesn’t have to be like a kids’ book, it’s important to have a clear message and ethos that everyone can believe in and get behind. It needs to be genuine so that people will believe in it.

Champion heroes

Use the wealth of knowledge and personality from within the team to create brand heroes. All of your content doesn’t have to be authored by the CEO, it can be from other members of staff throughout the workplace hierarchy. Using your internal experts to show your expertise will not only empower your team, but it will make you look like a clever bunch. A website blog is a great place to do this.

The power of attraction

Showing what kind of people and company you are helps the business to grow in the right direction, with the right people. Communicating the kind of internal culture you have can show prospective employees and clients what it would be like to work with you. This may be a turn-off to some people, but they’re not your target market. You need be genuine though, otherwise people may be disappointed.

The big reveal

A big brand reveal is a great way to excite and enthuse your team. Communicating the outcomes of everyone’s efforts to the team you can give a big injection of inspiration. Showing how it will help them and how it represents them will win them over. Using fun visual aspects of the brand internally can keep the inspiration going.

Know the limits

You need to know when to push back. It’s great to get the whole team involved in the process, but you must not lose focus of what the business is and who its target market is. Some decisions need to be decisive and not by committee.

Jan Henriksen, Head PGA professional, Silkeborg Golf Club.

“Here in Silkeborg GC we had the same trend as the national average, and the club decided to do something about it. Our Golf Club has been good at focusing on this particular group of members. As we all can imagine, there is a big gap between being a new player that has just finished a beginner’s program to feeling comfortable joining the men’s or lady’s section.

“In collaboration with the golf club, we as PGA Professionals, have chosen to create a community; we call it Club 37. This is a community for players between hcp. 37-54. We offer an open training session every week where the primary focus is on team spirit. The only thing the players have to do is to commit, and therefore there is a modest fee that they have to pay. The focus on team spirit has made us, the Pros, an important point of reference for this member group. Our training sessions are all about creating a social network between the players, and we ensure that by making exciting and varied drills and exercises that they can have fun and compete with players at their level. The social aspect of the training and the joy of having a fellowship together is key for this group.

“The most important thing for new members that they get a social network that reaches out beyond our weekly session. At the same time, they feel that they get the attention of the club, with is very important for new players (source: Players first survey). It has been a huge success here in Silkeborg and a few other clubs around Denmark, in fact, such a great success that the players normally joke that they don’t want to get their handicap under 37. From a PGA Professionals perspective, when players get under handicap 37, we have happier players who are used to taking lessons and know us very well. That gives us the opportunity to sell more lessons and courses to them so that they can continue their development. Over the years, Club37 has experienced better retention. And with Club 37, the golf club and we as coaches have a mutual interest that links the collaboration across the departments.”

Club 37:

• Is a community for new players between handicap 37-54, and max two years membership in the club.
• Open session once a week, with particular focus on exercises and team spirit
• Low cost

(Looking at the other hcp groups, the rate of resignations is approximately the same. However, since the majority of club members have a handicap more than 37, this group will be the most important to focus on. Source: Players First survey and GolfBox A/S.)

At present, there is a significant focus on the financial penalties that a business could incur should they have a data protection breach.

GDPR, what is it?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on 25th May 2018. The legislation will impact on any golf and leisure business that is either based in, or do business in, the EU. Citizens will have great individual rights and controls, including rights to access, correction and deletion of personal data.

Do You Know What Personal Data your Golf Business collects?

One very early myth to bust is the belief that the GDPR does not apply to your golf club. If you collect, store and move personal information on members (including children), employees, patrons or suppliers in membership database(s), booking management systems, HR database(s) and paper; finance and accounting systems; health records (on employees and members), marketing systems (Customer Relationship Management system) and CCTV or other digital imagery, the regulation applies to you.

Who Should be Involved?

As you will have gathered already, implementing GDPR compliance cannot simply be the responsibility of IT or HR, it needs to be an organisational approach, one that has the full support of the management team, golf club committee and all levels of Directorship.

Where should I start?

A good first step is to complete the Information Commissioner’s Office online GDPR self-assessment (https://eur.pe/2r5wNXU). This will provide you a clear overview of what tasks you need to complete before 25th May 2018.

What other steps should I consider?

• Conduct a Data Protection audit to determine what personal data is held by your organisation and identify where it is located, justify your reason for holding it, how long you hold it for and how you would permanently delete the record.
• Raising awareness across the business and training your staff should be high up on your list of priorities. Consider engaging expert help and then start to develop processes and procedures which will ensure that your business is managing and protecting personal data according to the requirements of the regulation.

But should I quickly get my current customers to “opt-in” again so I’m compliant?

Stop!

There certainly is a lot of ‘hype’ surrounding GDPR and lots of advice coming from many different sources. What this appears to have created is almost a panic amongst some golf club’s – mostly surrounding their current database of customers and prospects. Group emails are flying out in an attempt to gain “consent” to communicate using this medium by asking customers to “opt-in”.

One club recently went through this very process and reduced their database by 99% – yes, only 1% of customers re-confirmed their consent to be sent emails from the club. However, it’s highly unlikely that 99% of customers were simply not interested in the club any more. It’s more likely that a high percentage just didn’t respond and that could be for any number of reasons, nothing to do with their desire to cease communications with the club via email.

Hopefully, seeking “Consent” in this way doesn’t amount to commercial suicide for some clubs – because in many cases it may not be necessary. The new legislation offers potential alternatives, including a legal basis for continuing to email customers called “Legitimate Interests”. The legislation goes further to even highlight some examples of what this may be, and Direct Marketing is listed.

If you would like to learn more about GDPR or want to train your staff on their responsibilities to the new legislation, Promote Training, in partnership with data-specialists Databasix, has launched two new courses that will help achieve this.

• GDPR in Golf
• GDPR for Staff

Promote Training are also offering ‘Confederation of Professional Golf’ readers a limited-time-only offer of 20% off these two GDPR courses. Use the coupon code “CPG1” during the online checkout. (Offer expires 31st May 2018)

Find out more www.promotetraining.co.uk/fundamental-principles-data-protection.