Aged just 25, Fionnuala McHale is one of, if not the, youngest golf club managers in the UK today. At Ashby Decoy Golf Club in Lincolnshire, she talks about her rapid rise at the club from bartender to general manager in just three years, how the financial fortunes of the club have improved in recent months and the expansion of the venue’s ladies’ academy.
You’re one of the youngest golf club managers, if not the youngest, in the UK. Can you tell us how you got to the role of general manager of Ashby Decoy Golf Club?
My journey to general manager has taken three years. I had left the University of Liverpool in 2021 and graduated with a politics degree and was waiting to see if I had been successful in a Home Office vacancy. In the meantime, I was working in a local restaurant and working on the bar at Ashby Decoy Golf Club. The committee of the club at the time had asked if I wanted extra hours in the office to support focusing on private bookings and societies – I accepted in 2022. A few months later the office had a restructure, and I was asked if I would take the secretary position.
I had a decision to make as I had been successful in my application with the Home Office… it felt like a risk at the time, but I decided to take the secretary position. The risk has certainly paid off and I was promoted to general manager in August 2024.
Golf is still predominantly played by older men. As a younger woman, has that been a challenge for you in the role?
I think being in a male-dominated field does come with challenges but it’s important to have confidence in your own ability. The golf club took at risk when I was given the role of secretary; I was a 22-year-old woman, who did not play golf, had never been in a management position and was fresh out of university … sounds like a recipe for disaster! Ashby Decoy were forward thinking, I suppose. Our membership at Ashby Decoy accepts me, they have seen my progression through the club from being a bartender to now general manager and are supportive. My colleague in our office, Sarah, and I both take on anything that comes our way. We both are strong women who have each other’s backs and have been through thick and thin together. At 25, I don’t know everything, but who does? I have a network of other general managers who I speak with and tap into their knowledge and expertise – this has been reassuring in times of uncertainty. If I am being totally honest, having Fionnuala as a name is a bigger challenge than being a young woman most of the time!
Can you tell us a bit about Ashby Decoy Golf Club?
We are a parkland 20-hole golf club in North Lincolnshire, on the outskirts of Scunthorpe. We have one 18-hole course and two practice holes as well, which are a great asset to our membership.
We are going into our 90th year of golf being played at our club.
The club previously was named Scunthorpe Golf Club. We are a friendly club and have a fantastic membership that is growing year on year. We have a beautiful clubhouse that was renovated not long ago; it’s used for functions and private bookings as well as general use for members day to day. We have a fantastic pro, Andy Miller, who has been with us for a number of years and has one of the best stocked pro shops in our area. Ashby Decoy Golf Club is a fantastic club to be a part of and I would encourage anyone to come and have a round of golf if they’re in the area.
The club was struggling financially. Have you turned this around and, if so, how?
The club had been in financial difficulty and in the past six to 12 months we have seen real progress, and we are now seeing our hard work paying off. The committee and I have worked hard to involve members at all levels, whether that be to volunteer to help on the golf course or referring the club to their associates to get better deals in place for us. Communication is key, it was important to the committee and me that we were open and honest with our membership. We know members are more than willing to get involved when there is open dialogue. We reached out to members for help, every member has their own area of expertise, whether that’s being an electrician, joiner, mechanic and so on, and we tap into as many of their skills as we can. We have a great team of volunteers who will put their hand to anything, which means we can keep labour costs down from suppliers. We also have used local suppliers in our town – it is important to me that small businesses help other small businesses, building these relationships has been vital to our success so far. We have particularly focused on the marketing of our business to drive membership, green fee payers and societies to our course, which has been a great success so far and I hope this will continue. We also have diversified our income – we have tried to think outside the box for different events we have hosted to drive people to our golf club who usually wouldn’t visit us. We have seen great successes so far and our forecasts are positive for the future.
What are you reinvesting in?
When I took the general manager position, it was clear that our machinery was holding us back and was costing us with their repairs and maintenance demands. In the past, there had been little investment in new machinery so change had to be made to ensure the golf course continued to improve and thrive. The committee and I put together a plan in the summer of 2024 to invest in machinery that suited our course and spent a lot of time looking at the right machines, whilst being sensible and inline with our budgets. We started the programme at the beginning of 2025 with our first two purchases and will continue into 2026, when we will have a totally different new fleet, which is exciting and will be transformative.
We have recently purchased some new patio furniture for our clubhouse patio. We were in desperate need of something fresh and new to upgrade this area too. I think when you have been through a financially tough time it’s important to celebrate wins like this. It may appear small to most golf clubs, but this was a big achievement for us and a big step forward. Times have changed now at Ashby Decoy Golf Club; reinvestment is happening again which I know will be appreciated by our membership and visitors too.
A more long-term project that we are working on currently is our practice field. After our successful ladies’ academy, we quickly realised that we needed to invest in our practice facilities. We are so lucky to have the two practice holes but if the weather is against us, we currently do not have a covered practice area on our field to use. We are hopeful that we will be able to invest so that we can improve our offering further to our membership.
What does the club do to get more beginners, particularly women and girls, to play golf?
This question made me smile, as we had a huge focus in 2024 on growing our ladies’ section at Ashby Decoy. Our ladies’ section at the club had been dwindling in numbers over the years as the older ladies in the section had hung their golf shoes up and moved to being social members at the club. Myself and three ladies in the section set out to create a ladies’ academy back in July 2024, and what a success it has been! In 2024, we had over 75 ladies through our taster days and 18 join the academy programme to learn how to play and understand the etiquette and rules too through our guided programme. We are starting our taster days again in 2025 with sold out taster days again! It is so rewarding seeing these ladies from never holding a golf club to now gaining their handicaps and playing against and with us in competitions. It’s just brilliant! Since I have worked at Ashby Decoy it is the thing I am most proud of being a part of; the three ladies and I are a great team and were really excited for what 2025 has in store for our ladies’ academy.
Where do you see yourself in the next few years?
I find this question hard to answer because really who knows what is going to happen? I never thought I would be a general manager a few years ago so I am grateful for where I am now. I love my job, and I know that is a privilege, I’ve always believed you should do what you enjoy, which I certainly do. I hope to be happy and content in whatever I am doing.
I know I will still be a general manager; I will have completed my diploma in golf club management this year after working towards it for three years so will be proud once I have achieved this. I hope I am still at Ashby Decoy as I don’t feel my work here is done just yet, there are lots of projects I want to see through and work on still! On a personal level, I would like to make time to play more golf and improve, hopefully. I believe everything happens for a reason and I am excited about the future, whatever it has in store.
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