All change in the Pro Shop… At the time of writing we have 7 sleeves of ProV1 golf balls for sale with ‘Happy Father’s Day’ printed on them. They are £14 a sleeve and all the money for them goes to the Birmingham Children’s Hospital. You can find them on the counter in the Pro Shop but that’s if you can find the counter! Yes, we’ve moved it all around again but actually this is the second stage of our previous move around but not for the reasons that you may think. Here’s a brief history of shop changes: - 2002 - When I first came to Brocton Hall I had a £15,000 bank loan to play with and I knew that after fitting the shop out, paying for the insurance, alarm and till system there wasn’t much left to buy stock with so I had a purpose built counter made which filled a 4 square metre area and sat in the middle of the shop. - 2004 - As we managed to acquire more stock, suppliers provided us with larger display stands and we became service centres for Powakaddy and Motocaddy, the counter moved to the back of the shop to provide more display space. - 2006 - We undertook a major project with the clubs assistance to utilise the upper storey of the Pro Shop which until now was derelict. This allowed the creation of indoor hitting nets, the workshop moved upstairs and the shop floor downstairs expanded with the back wall getting pushed further back. - 2008 - We removed the large counter and used a much smaller one which was placed in the window of the Pro Shop. This was at the same time that high street Banks were using pedestals instead of desks and because I’d been on a training course which recommended removing barriers. - 2011 - We wanted to create a changing room in the space behind the counter so we moved the small counter to the back of the shop near the back door, plus we were plagued with people banging on the window asking us to shout the code at them! - 2013 - The workshop upstairs was becoming my home more and more often, so with the help of a member, we sourced some stainless steel kitchen units reclaimed from a McDonalds restaurant and moved the workshop down onto the shop floor which created a bit of theatre as well, much like being able to see a chef at the back of a restaurant - except I’m cooking up birdies! The counter moved to it’s previous position and we launched the online shopping resource, www.foremostgolf.com, which meant we could save space previously used for displaying bags and waterproofs. - 2016 - I was making lots of sets for junior golfers out of second-hand components and asked the members to bring all their old clubs that they don’t use any more. We built a display unit in the centre of the Pro Shop to accommodate these and at the same time converted the upper studio into a simulator and a 600ft square putting green for fitting, play and winter junior coaching. - 2018 - I was always in the way when measuring someone’s clubs or using the loft and lie machine so we moved the workbench 18 inches further out into the shop. This meant we had to rotate the centre second-hand club console.
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