European Tour golfer makes sanitiser for the NHS as club launches shopping service for its community

The golf industry is more than doing its bit for society as new stories emerge of acts of selflessness during the coronavirus pandemic – including now of a European Tour golfer who is making hand sanitiser for the NHS while a golf club has launched a shopping service for its members and local community.

Steve Tiley, 37, who won the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge on the Challenge Tour last year and was due to travel to Kenya with the European Tour in March, before the trip was cancelled due to Covid-19, has been producing 2,500 bottles of hand sanitiser a day with a colleague in a factory, reports Kent Online.

Tiley’s father turned his Nutracrest nutritional supplement production line into one that can make hand sanitiser and it has already received accreditation from the benchmark standard that confirms the product quality. In total, the company is producing 5,000 bottles a day for health trusts, key worker employers and care homes.

“It is a real change in environment,” he said.

“We can only work two people at a time and we do 500 bottles and then swap and help make up the solution, there is always something to do. You are not constantly on the machine for seven hours but I do sometimes look outside when it’s nice weather and think about playing golf.

“I am now doing seven hour shifts, four times a week, and also home-schooling the kids.

“There aren’t many skills I can use from playing golf but work colleagues have noted how driven I am. When you play sport you are constantly searching for how to do it better. I just tend to try and do above and beyond all the time.

“Athletes self motivate very well, particularly when you play a sport on your own, you set your own goals. Every day I am thinking ‘how am I going to get better at golf’ and I have used that in the business, thinking ‘how can I make this machine work better?’

“At first, I didn’t think I would be cut out for it, you have to be very technical minded and it was so out of my comfort zone, but I am used to it now and producing 2,500 bottles on my shift. I am getting paid so that is good because there are no tournaments and I can’t play for any money at the moment.”

Tiley, who is a member of Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club, added: “We are having to do things [speak to his father] through FaceTime and when something comes up that I can’t fix, because I am a professional golfer, he is getting frustrated down the phone because he could do it in five minutes. He is like ‘I can’t believe you can’t fix it’ and I reply, ‘well you try standing on the tee at the British Open, you can’t do that!’

“I built a net in my garden and was hitting balls but the novelty wore off a bit. The neighbours out in their garden could hear me and I don’t think they were particularly pleased!”

Meanwhile, Brookmans Park Golf Club in Hertfordshire has launched a shopping service for members and the village.

Brookmans Park Golf Club. Image from Facebook

The club has told The Welwyn Hatfield Times that it is providing the shopping service for both members and anyone else in the village who is unable to get to the shops for essential food and supplies.

On offer is a wide range of vegetables, fruit, salad items, meat and pasta as well as bread, milk and essentials such as toilet rolls. These can be ordered online or by phone and can be collected from the club on Tuesdays and Fridays at specific times to avoid meeting others.

A delivery service is also being provided by the club for anyone in the village who is unable to collect the shopping themselves.

In addition, every young person in Dornoch is to be provided with an activity pack, thanks to Royal Dornoch Golf Club.

The club has donated £5000 to the area’s community council towards the purchase of the packs and also to support the town’s foodbank. It has also loaned five tablet computers to the town’s two nursing homes.

These positive stories follow huge support on LinkedIn and Twitter for Colin Montgomerie, who said the one million Covid-19 test kits earmarked for the PGA TOUR in the USA must go to health workers before they’re used to speed up the resumption of professional golf.