Hopefully, you’ve had the chance to enjoy the beautiful weather of late and get out on the course for a round of golf. We're seeing an extraordinary 450 individual members playing each week, which is only 75 short of our total membership. It would be great to see how this compared to previous months and years but as we've never had to have tee times before, we've never been able to measure it until now. Best wishes to the President, Peter Bright and Lady President, Mary Harris, who would have enjoyed their respective events this week. The rate at which guidelines are changing seems to be accelerating in much the same way as when the pandemic started so it's anyones guess at the moment about the rest of the golfing year. I can tell you however, the committee are considering every eventuality on a daily basis and as with many businesses, it's a tricky juggling exercise to find the perfect happy medium. A quick scan across our trade forums and it's clear that every golf club has different challenges in bringing golf back. Our Pro Shop business can open on the 15th June and we're already filling up with lesson bookings and club fittings. Mike has been busy on the lesson tee this week and fortunately because we coach using ball flight and strike as our main source for information about what went on at impact, we're able to conduct lessons exactly as normal. You won't recognise the studio - just before lockdown Jack Murphy created some fantastic display units for us and Sean Nelson installed 300 shaft hooks perfectly in line. Myself and Simon spent hours during lockdown finishing, painting and re-organising the space and then over the last 2 weeks Jack has been back to slope the floor to make the balls return, Eddie Saunders has redesigned all our signage and Rich Le Page has created a fantastic floor replicating a fairway, rough and green fringe. The wizard who made our golf ball retrieval devices fitted to the flagpoles has also been cleverly making adapters for me to use on all the fitting clubs. We've always tried out best to be able to use any shaft we like with any head but now because I have the ability to hand build clubs from virtually every manufacturer, it's vital to be able to hit them as a demo club first. 'HAND BUILT' is the theme of our new signage to exemplify the attention to detail that we provide and therefore the confidence you can have that your equipment is perfectly set up for you. Custom fitting is only the start of the process, it can easily get messed up from there without being built to spec. I'd love to give you a tour of the studio or have a re-opening event but everything we do now is COVID compliant and covered by our risk assessment so you'll only get to see it during a fitting. If I get chance I'll do a video tour - now that I'm like Steven Spielberg with a camera! This week’s email is packed full of great features. Be sure to scroll down to the Video of the Week to see some amazing Harry Houdini moments from the European Tour. We’re also talking wedges, landing spots when chipping, and we have our monthly quiz for you to give a go (this might just be our best yet!). Stay safe and enjoy the read.
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