Here’s three key golf industry trends from the last month

Tiger Woods winning The Masters was the number one golf story in April 2019, but away from the headlines there were a number of developments and discussions that could benefit the UK golf industry, writes The Golf Business editor Alistair Dunsmuir.

Could your club forge a deal with a local ice hockey team?

Forming partnerships with other companies, organisations and golf clubs has kept some venues alive in recent years, and there’s a trend towards joining forces with non-golf sports clubs – specifically ice hockey, possibly because a number of ice hockey players are also golfers.

For example, Telford Tigers’ head coach is a member of Telford Hotel & Golf Resort, and the golf club has now joined the likes of Oxford GC and Renfrew GC by promoting itself to fans, and even players, of their local ice hockey team.

Golf resort forms partnership with ice hockey team

What would all-year-round British Summer Time (BST) do for your club?

The CEO of the new UK Golf Federation, Doug Poole, has said having BST in winter ‘would help stimulate all areas of participation and driving ranges would use less power’.

His comments come as a poll of nearly five million people in Europe found 84 per cent were in favour of discontinuing biannual clock changes.

Would having British Summer Time for the whole year help the golf industry?

Golf and Health Week is the start of something bigger

Golf and Health Week in mid-April was a concerted effort by golf’s governing bodies to promote the health benefits of the game – which are almost unique, according to Professor Jenny Roe, environmental psychologist and director of the Center for Design & Health, University of Virginia.

“I think to get out and play golf you are really helping manage your mental health in a very holistic way,” she said.

“When you step into a green space your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and your stress physiology actually changes. You manage stress more efficiently when you are in a green space.

“Contact with nature allows us to recover from brain fatigue, reduces our stress levels and improves our mood. This is linked to the ‘broaden and build’ hypothesis – an increased capacity for creative thought and cognitive flexibility that can – potentially – lead to new thought-action repertoires on and off the golf course.”