I began my journey to a career in golf at Myerscough College in 2003, and I can safely say that I would not be the owner, editor and chief writer of St Andrews Magazine, or the Clubhouse Supervisor at the New Golf Club without the three years I spent in Lancashire.
The support and opportunities which the college give every student is second-to-none, and now some 14 years later they have become the biggest and best college for golf in the United Kingdom. From SportsTurf to Golf Management and Golf Coaching, the land-based college, some 6 miles from Preston, is the master of golf education provision.
The support and opportunities which the college give every student is second-to-none, and now some 14 years later they have become the biggest and best college for golf in the United Kingdom. From SportsTurf to Golf Management and Golf Coaching, the land-based college, some 6 miles from Preston, is the master of golf education provision.
In 2004, I was part of the first group of students from the college to volunteer at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, 13 years on, the college continues to bring students to the event, performing a vital role in the operation of the event across all three courses.
Around 40 students make the trip from Preston to St Andrews each October, and take up a variety of roles at the tournament. These include Scoreboard operating, carrying portable scoreboards, marking GPS positions for television, assisting camera operators and assisting television scorers.
Volunteering at events such as the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is part of the valuable experiences students gain whilst studying for a degree which sets them up for a role in the industry.
One of the key aims of me setting up St Andrews Magazine was to give back to the college which set me on the road to a life in golf. In 2014 I gave a student the opportunity to work alongside me at the tournament in the media centre. Alex Fleming could assist in creating content, uploading posts to social media and undertaking interviews near the range and at the 18th hole.
This gave him a taste of what it was like to be a golf journalist in the modern world, and see the tournament from a different perspective. It is an opportunity I hope to give further students in the future.
Course leader, Rick Daniels, tells more about the college:
Myerscough is a partner college of UClan, because it has the facilities to be able to run the Golf Programme.
“The golf programme at Myerscough began in 1994, the first year the golf management programme was combined with Leisure Management. There was only 4 or 5 students that did it and me being one of them.
Golf Coaching is another course is running now.
Every year we sit down with what is called a technical advisory board which includes people from the golf industry whether it is manufacturers, Chubby Chandler, employers (DeVere, Marriott, European Tour) and we say this is what we offer, what do you think? Is there anything that we are missing? And with the way that the industry has gone over the last 8 to 10 years in particular, with an emphasis on coaching and performance we started the golf coaching programme in 2008.
It runs alongside a PGA qualification without a PGA stamp, it isn’t a prerequisite that you are a fantastic golfer to become a golf coach.
Performance, looking at the Biomechanics, nutrition, fitness and psychology side of golf, started 3 years ago as a niche market, which no one else does.
And those courses run alongside the management programme which for 20 years had provided a generic view of the golf industry. You get a sample of different areas, but some do now a Masters in Event Management, some go into Player Management and we have students across the world. Mainland Europe now provides many of our students, we have students from Estonia, Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Germany and many more.
If you type in Google now we come up first in regard to Golf Education, we have been going the longest alongside Merrist Wood and there is a reason for that.
At the moment, we have over 220 students, every year 200 students go through the system. We would love to take more. But due to staff and space we can’t. We like to think we provide quality rather than quantity. Those who do the 1618 programme who perhaps aren’t academically fantastic can go through the programme.
We are here at the Dunhill this week, we will be working at the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, we always do the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, we have opportunity to work at the Portugal Masters. We are luckily supported by Eventful Temps for the events in the UK.
Students do leave the golf industry but they have been given transferrable skills, they do marketing, event management, finance, human resources, and these are all exaamples of modules that you study so that if you left the golf industry you would always use those skills.”
Interview and feature by Matt Hooper.
