Paul Toyer has been the PGA professional at St Neots Golf Club in Cambridgeshire for more than 21 years. Here, he talks retail, how he benefits from being a TGI Partner, junior development and why the club pro’s role is busier than ever.
The landscape of the golf industry is always evolving, how has your business adapted to change in recent years?
The biggest thing I’ve noticed, even more so since Covid, is the amount of online shopping that takes place now – and I include myself in that for my everyday shopping habits.
It has had a massive impact on local shops and the green grass shops at golf clubs. As a result, we must work even harder on our customer service levels to show customers why a product may be a little more expensive in store than it is online.
I like to try to educate my customers that, for example, you might be able to go online and get that pair of shoes a few quid cheaper.
But how do you know they’ll fit? How do you know they are what you and your game need? What happens if they’re not right and you have to send them back? Buying them in the pro shop, you will have an expert in the game, who knows what you need, giving you the right advice. You may be paying a little extra, but you get that added comfort and expertise.
When did you join the TGI Golf Partnership and what made you decide it was the right fit for your business?
I joined TGI Golf back in 2003 when I took on my first PGA professional role at Leek in Staffordshire.
My previous boss at Ashridge Golf Club, Andrew Ainsworth, was a partner and when I got the job at Leek, he advised me to join the group. I did look at the other options too, but the model of being a shareholder suited me much more – I paid my fee and bought my shares in four payments and have then received money back each year for the last 23 years, so made that money back and some.
Having the support of retail experts in the background who are there to help me if I need it makes things a lot more comfortable as an independent retailer – not to mention the better rates we get from the brands as TGI partners. I think it must be extremely hard to be a PGA professional nowadays and not be part of a group.
How has becoming a TGI partner been of benefit to you as an independent retailer and PGA professional?
There have been so many benefits over the last two decades it would be hard to list them all. The main thing for me though is the fact that I am treated as an individual, independent business, everything I do is my choice and I know I have TGI Golf behind me to help whenever I need it.
Having a retail consultant who can come in store and offer free advice and help me with anything I need is a great comfort. Knowing they’ll come into my shop and give me advice that is relevant to my business is an amazing benefit to being a TGI Golf partner.
The marketing support is amazing too. I have an email marketing system that I can use how I see fit, sending whatever I want to whoever I want, whenever I want. There are a wide range of templates to help me communicate with my customers, whether it’s to tell them about the latest in store promotion, events or services like custom fitting and lessons.
MyMarketing HUB is another great tool as it allows us to print professional and personalised marketing material to place around the shop or to use digitally. What I like about it is that it looks great and just has my details on it, there’s no TGI logos or anything that could point the customer elsewhere.
The day of a club professional can see you wear many hats; how do you manage your day?
Good question! I would say my head isn’t big enough for the number of hats that I must wear, and I keep getting more to put on top!
A day here at St Neots is extremely busy even if there are few people around. My day starts about 7am and can go on until late, it just depends what is going on, there is always something to do.
I sit on several of the committees so have regular meetings with lots of things to implement on the back of those.
We have a very active competition season with well over 100 comps running each year. I manage all of those on BRS so whether it’s setting them up, scoring them, closing them down, issuing the prize, getting the trophies engraved, there is an awful lot to do – in fact in many clubs that’s a full-time job for someone!
Did I mention I’m also the club first aider?
In between all of that I have my PGA professional role to do too, so managing the retail business, lessons, custom fittings, repairs … it never stops.
I have tried to restructure my business a little in recent months. I like to give myself two days a week where I am purely in the shop, so no coaching, just in here to catch up on all the admin work that goes into running a pro shop.
I’m a bit old school, so I don’t use any diary software, I have the old trusty PGA coaching diary that sits under the counter so everyone can see it even I’m not here. That’s always worked well for me.
There is a constant flow of new golf products – how do you manage your stock to serve the needs of your members and visitors?
A few years back I built an indoor swing studio within the shop, so I lost probably half of the shop floor, but I felt it was an important thing to do to give my customers the very best service.
This means I have to be a little more conscious of stock throughout the year as I do not have a lot of storage space, so I only have a couple of brands in each category and I have to keep a keen eye on stock levels as I have very little to no storage space.
However, I do have active accounts with most brands, so I let my customers know that I have access to many more products.
Especially with the TGI Swap Shop too, I have the comfort that if a customer comes in looking for a specific product my fellow TGI partners will be able to help me out.
What are you doing to support junior golf and introduce kids to the sport?
The club and I have been extremely active on this one for several years. Coming out of Covid we had about 15 junior members and with golf riding the crest of a wave we felt it was somewhere we could improve on.
So, I started going into the local primary schools and giving lessons to encourage children to get into golf.
We also introduced a new membership scheme where if a full member had any children / grandchildren under 18 they would get free membership.
Today we have a junior section of well over 100, with probably half of those playing competitive golf.
We are also in talks now with the local Brownies and Girl Guides to offer golf coaching to them as part of their programme.
Are you actively trying to attract more women to golf?
We are having a big push on that now as the ladies’ section here has been in decline for the last few years.
We run a Get into Golf programme which has been successful in taking ladies who have never played golf before who have gone on to become full members.
It’s been really successful; I’ve just finished two courses with 14 ladies in total and seven of them have gone on to take out membership. The way we set it up is like a stepping stone into membership and it is only available to those who come through the coaching programme.
They have a course of lessons where we cover everything from the fundamentals of the swing to course etiquette.
Once they have completed the course they can have unlimited golf for three months, if that goes all OK and they want to continue they can either take the remaining nine months of that year’s membership or sign up to a 12-month membership at a reduced rate.
A lot of PGA pros are having to be a step ahead of their competitors in their offerings and technology – what additional added value services do you provide?
We have the indoor swing studio with a Foresight system in there, it has really helped with coaching in the winter months and of course custom fitting.
We run several fitting days throughout the year with PING, which are always successful in giving members a great experience.
Another additional service I offer is regular overseas coaching trips that I book through TGI Golf Travel. It’s a great way to get to know lots of members and build solid relationships with them, discuss their equipment and possible upgrades along with lessons.
What year did you turn professional and what have been your career highlights, both playing and employment?
I turned pro in 1996. Back then playing was a massive part of being a PGA professional, but things have changed a little and I don’t have that luxury anymore.
In my younger days I won quite a few PGA events in the region, but my dream was to play in The Open – I managed to get through to final qualifying on a number of occasions, but never quite got over that hurdle to peg it up at The Open.
Being a PGA professional at St Neots for more than 21 years is a massive highlight, I can’t stress that enough.
Leave a Reply