Meet the PGA pro: Moor Hall’s Cameron Clark

The West Midlands club’s head professional won the Pro Shop of the Year award at the TGI Golf Awards. He tells us what his shop has done to be considered one of the best in the business.

What daily challenges do you face in running a pro shop and teaching?

Time management is the biggest challenge due to the varied role that a modern club professional faces.

How do you manage your day in terms of keeping on top of things?

I run my diary in time blocks. Generally through the summer months I will coach within a morning block and then an evening block. These are generally two to two-and-a-half hour slots. This then allows me the time to spend on other work commitments.

What year did you turn professional?

1993.

You recently won TGI’s highly coveted ‘Pro Shop of the Year’ award. Congratulations! What was your vision and the criteria you worked to in order to design and develop the new pro shop and how would you describe it now?

My vision was to modernise the business. To bring it up to date with modern retail environments. I wanted to offer our customers a diverse range of products with brands which are not seen everywhere. Hugo Boss has been a fantastic addition to our brands due to the lifestyle element of this brand.

What uplift in sales have you seen since the redesign and new build of the new shop, have the results surprised you and what have you learnt from this experience?

The initial uplift in sales was immediate due to the increase in retail space plus the huge improvements that we made in our merchandising and displays. This is grown steadily over the five years since the redesign.

What have been your career highlights?

From a playing perspective without doubt being part of the first Great Britain and relandI PGA Cup team to win in America in 2015. Also being vice captain and winning last year by our biggest ever margin. Now to be named as the captain for the 2019 match I will be looking for a hat-trick of victories.

On a very personal note, playing in the Open Championship at Royal Troon in 1997 was a big highlight and then gaining my European Tour card at the end of that season. The biggest change in my employment came in 2003 when I became the head professional at Moor Hall. I have had 15 great years at the club.

Young golfers are the future of the game – what are you doing to support junior golf and introduce kids to the sport?

We run a very successful junior coaching program at Moor Hall with over 50 juniors involved. Group coaching is done on a weekly basis with holiday camps being held throughout the school holidays. The majority of this is run by my head assistant, Alex.

A lot of PGA pros and professional shops are having to be a step ahead of their competitors in their offerings and technology – what additional added value services do you provide your members and visitors?

We base our whole business on great customer service. I constantly remind my staff that people playing and visiting Moor Hall are here in their free time to enjoy themselves so let’s make it as pleasurable experience as we can. We are very proactive at coaching and playing with our members which helps maintain that engagement.

A lot of golf clubs are now offering academy membership to introduce people who are new to the game – is this something Moor Park Golf Club offers and if so, is this something you get involved in?

We did offer an apprentice membership within our ladies’ section. This proved really successful as we had 13 new members join the club. We are in a fortunate position that we have a full membership and are not actively looking for new members.

There is constantly a new offering of golf products and apparel – how do you manage what you stock and when you stock it to meet the needs of members and visitors to the club?

We are always looking for new brands but only if it is right for our business. We feel that we know our membership well enough through our experience to offer a diverse range of products to meet their needs. My main suppliers are Titleist, Footjoy, Hugo Boss, Galvin Green and Calvin Klein.