New thinking will bring a bright future

May 15 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

MENTION The Northumberland club to the average golfer and the chances are it is the golfer, rather than the club, that is living in the past.

Some have said of The Park – as it is called by golfers – that it’s a club run by toffs who don’t like females or youngsters on their course and are unwelcoming to non-member visitors.

It is true the club has attracted some of the finest brains in the country, never mind the county, to an impressive clubhouse and course nestling alongside Gosforth Park racetrack in Newcastle.

Yes, they can count the chief executive of the R&A, Peter Dawson, and the Northumberland county secretary Elliott Procter among their membership.

And yes, their amiable Scottish secretary, Jamie Forteath, was a former major in the Royal Artillery before becoming a golf club secretary 16 years ago, initially at Arcot Hall.

But neither Forteath nor The Northumberland club do stereotypes.

Lunch with this former high standard scrum-half, sailor, cross-country runner and boxer is a treasure trove of anecdotes and the sort of insight into the sport you would expect from a man who has been made national captain of the Golf Club Managers’ Association.

A chunk of both his and the club’s time is spent touring the UK in his volunteer role, taking in clubs from the south coast to Scotland in preaching his gospel of “the fresh air approach to golf”.

Forteath does not bat an eyelid when asked about the fact there are still clubs out there which have a small cartel of undesirables – usually male, long in the tooth and short in the brain department – who present a hostile front.

“Each club will have its own standards and own expectations of how its members are,” he said.

“But bearing in mind that we do want to attract people, a club must look around and decide whether what people do and say is in keeping with the welcome the club wants to give.

“If it’s not, then perhaps the club might suggest to people that, because the future of the club depends on keeping the members they have and on recruiting new ones, they might like to think of that and adopt a more welcoming approach.

“What we must all try to do is to make the membership at each and every club unique to that club and create the kind of atmosphere that will make any member want to stay at that club and not go anywhere else. One of the things that gives me great joy at our club is to receive letters from people who have visited the club, who will not just talk about the club and the staff and the course but will say how delighted they were to have been made welcome by our members.

“It indicates that everything is right. We don’t have anybody here – although we may have done in the past – that fits the group of people you are talking about.”

In recent years, The Northumberland has formed a thriving junior section, now playing league golf, and their women golfers have their own name, Gosforth Park Ladies Golf Club, of which they are proud.

The clubhouse will be an even grander affair by the end of the month, when the finishing touches will be put to £800,000 worth of extensions and refurbishment. And, far from discouraging women and children, Forteath flags up the family Sunday lunches where toddlers and grandparents happily munch away along with everybody else.

The changes made by the Northumberland, 110 years old, are in effect a blueprint for fresh thinking at traditional committee-run golf clubs that the Golf Club Managers’ Association want to see rolled out all over the UK.

Formerly the secretaries’ body before changing its name, it has a membership of 1,600 or 66% of everybody who works in golf club administration, whether as a manager or club secretary. Membership of the GCMA brings exclusive access to a library of documents which, says 61-year-old Forteath “would cost a fortune from professional organisations”.

Most importantly these are in the areas of health and safety plus employment and contract issues; a sort of built-in human resources department at your fingertips.

It is the sort of back-up club professionals have had from the PGA for decades and Forteath said: “What I would like to achieve at the end of the day is that all golf clubs and golf club committees would be able to look to our association and from them get advice on the level of expertise that they should be looking for from their senior administrator.

“To that end we have recently initiated a Certificate of Golf Club Management with Buckinghamshire University. It is a year’s course online which has been designed by golf manager professionals and is also open to people who have just started in the golf industry.

“There is a fresh air approach in golf nowadays in that most golf clubs now understand the need to welcome new members and not just to get them to join but to make sure that when they do come in they immediately feel they are part of the golfing family at that particular club and of the golfing family in general.”

:: TO inquire about joining the Golf Club Managers’ Association, ring Jamie Forteath on (0191) 236 2498.