Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The presence of a PGA Professional helps too.
For Niall McGill, a valued and long-serving member of the Association, the revival of the North Inch public golf course in his home city of Perth has been an uplifting tale of passion, innovation, vision and enthusiastic endeavour and one that underlines the abundant attributes of The PGA Professional.
The trials and tribulations of Scotland’s municipal golf courses have been brought into sharp focus over the past couple of years with council cuts forcing a number of facilities to shut up shop.
The closure in April of Caird Park in Dundee, for instance, signalled the end of public golf in the city closest to the home of the game in St Andrews.
A decade or so ago, the ancient parkland course at North Inch, where golf had been played since the 1500s, was facing a similar demise, just as the razzmatazz of the 2014 Ryder Cup was in full swing a few miles down the road at Gleneagles.
That’s when McGill’s experience and expertise, as well as his empathy for this special stretch of golfing terrain, came to the fore.
“It was a place very close to my heart,” reflected McGill, who was brought on board by Perth & Kinross Council in a newly created golf officer role.
“I’m a local man, I played there when I was young. But the challenges were significant.
“The course was in poor condition, the numbers were low, it was struggling financially; everything. The No 1 priority was getting the course back to the condition it used to be in.”
McGill, who turned professional in 1991 and served his PGA apprenticeship at the nearby King James VI club, had plenty on his plate.
He was also managing his own flourishing golf business in the city at the Noah’s Ark Golf Centre, which he bought in 2001 and still runs.
Juggling one bustling facility with another that was withering on the vine may have been an operation of stark contrasts, but McGill was determined to breathe new life into North Inch.
With season ticket holders dropping to 175, McGill got to work. “Now, we have 774 ticket holders, with 283 juniors,” he said of this significant surge since 2014.
“Golf course income has more than quadrupled in the past 11 years. It’s £20 for a whole season for under-18s. The junior side is something we have really pushed and, in 2022, we created a North Inch Junior Club, the only stand-alone junior club in Scotland.
“It now has around 80 members, and they have been performing great. Our juniors have won county events and finished second in the National Golf Sixes final to Royal Dornoch. We also have two national age group winners in Scottish Golf Skills Challenge Finals.
“But we just want to bring in as many golfers as we can, of all ages and abilities. Within the 18-hole course, we have created a nine-hole and six-hole layout. There are nine and six-hole green fees too so if you are time constrained, and many people are now, you have options.”
In this game for everybody, McGill’s come-all-ye approach, which is very much the raison d’etre of public golf, has created a demographic that spans the spectrum.
“We have had season ticket holders who are the age of six and others who are 91, 92,” he said. “We have growing momentum and there’s a positive reputation about the place, not the negativity of 11 years ago.
“Our whole thing at North Inch has been to give golfers a better experience than the one they were expecting.
“With municipals, you tend to turn up with relatively low expectations. I think people now go away from here having had a very good experience.
“In April 2018, I convinced the council to bring the greenkeeping staff back in house and under my management. Up until then, it had been maintained by an outside contractor. This is what has allowed us to really improve the conditions of the golf course.”
The Scottish golf magazine, Bunkered, recently began a ‘Public Golf Counts’ campaign to help promote and preserve the country’s municipal courses.
McGill’s work at North Inch shows what can be achieved. The work of a PGA Professional, meanwhile, is never done.
“I’m still back and forward between North Inch and the Noah’s Ark Centre but I’m lucky they’re only five minutes apart,” he added with a smile.
“In the winter at North Inch, our seasonal staff finish and I have one permanent starter. I’ll work there to cover his days off and that saves us some money when it’s quiet.
“You have to run these places like a business. Yes, there are challenges for public golf but there are a lot of facilities that are doing really well.
“Getting golf people involved in running them is important. My PGA training, as well as the hands-on experience I have of running my own driving range, has really helped me drive the North Inch course forward.”
