It takes some cojones to launch a new business aged 50, but Mike Waldron did just that with Carousel Golfing – and celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

But Waldron, now 75, is prepared to take risks: for here was a man who built – and flew – his own replica World War I bi-plane. His passions for golf and aviation came from a young age, as he was very much a product of his environment.

He explained: “Having grown up at Prestwick, where my dad ran the airport, my enjoyment was across the garden wall. The location of our house meant I jumped over one wall and I was on the golf course, and, over another, I was on the airfield, so I grew up in-between the two loves of my life. As it turned out I went into golf for business and flying for fun.”

He certainly struck lucky with his first job in golf, working with one of the UK’s legendary coaches and administrators: John Jacobs.

Waldron recalled: “I left school and went straight into golf – literally, left school on the Friday and started in golf on the Monday – with John, at Sandy Lodge, in 1963. That exposed me to the teaching of the great man which put me in good stead for my whole career.

“It was a vicious winter; the snow was about a foot deep and my first job was to dig out the practice balls from the snow and return them to John’s teaching bay. At the time I thought ‘I’m not too keen on this pro golfer life’,” he laughed.

“The last pro job I had was on the continent and I had an idea about a golf-bag storage system. I rolled it around in my head for some time and, one day, just started the company with about £350.”

Initially, the Carousel was manufactured in Europe and sales were concentrated in the UK and Ireland, but the business grew and he took the simple concept to the USA, Canada and the Caribbean, among other places. He designed the units to be built in component form and assembled on-site, because, as he explained, “particularly with the original model, you’d be shipping air if you sent the complete product.”

He added: “I’d seen something vaguely similar to it but it wasn’t a commercial proposition at all. Mine was a lot more relevant to what was commercial, because designing it to be assembled on site ensures shipping it to wherever is very cheap. You can get 20 units – that’s 240 golf bags-worth – on two pallets.

“It works if you want to store the same amount of bags in the same space; the same amount in half the space; or not build an extra building – all of which are major considerations.

“There are umpteen different reasons why a club may want to install it, but the income generated can be enormous year-on-year, with, potentially, an almost immediate return on investment.

“The 12-bag Carousel unit currently costs £395, so, if a club charges a member £100 a year for storage, that’s £1,200 in the first year with a profit of £800.

“If you have a square of space, three metres by three metres, that’s 84 big golf bags in there, plus an entry/exit metre-wide walkway. You don’t sell the sausages, you sell the sizzle,” he laughed. He laughs a lot, does Mike Waldron.

“They’re also very solid. I was asked once, ‘how long is the guarantee?’ I said ‘I don’t know really – about 100 years if you like. How long do you want to guarantee a thick metal plate and an iron bar for?’

“At Aphrodite Hills, in Cyprus, the manager wanted a maintenance area for the buggies. They already had a bag store, so I went down there and put all the bags into half the space, which created their buggy maintenance area. They were delighted because they didn’t need to construct another building.

“You could argue that it’s the simplicity and longevity of the product which has allowed us to trade successfully for 25 years.”

But he hasn’t rested on his laurels. He also launched the secure Armadillo, after he received a number of enquiries for an enclosed, high-security locker system for bags. It was designed with modern golf bags in mind, although it retains the Carousel’s flexibility of installation, with members simply having their own key to deposit and collect their own golf bags.

So, changing conversational flightpaths, what about that plane…?

He explained: “I fly it for my pleasure, but it’s also part of the Great War Display Team, which performs all over the UK, and sometimes in Europe, with impressive dogfights with around nine other aircraft.

“I hasten to add I don’t fly the aircraft in the display itself, I just shuttle it to the airfields. I made it from scratch – it’s a replica of a Royal Aircraft Factory SE5, which was introduced in 1917.

It’s very exciting to fly because there’s a lot of noise and vibration with machine guns and all that sort of stuff – which don’t actually work of course!

“I’ve been flying it for 20 years now and it took me a good few years to make. I started it when I was living in Buckinghamshire. Everywhere I went I made sure I had a big enough garage to take it with me. I moved to Belgium, finished it off over there and started flying it in Belgium.”

Which begs the question, of course, from where does a pro golfer get the engineering nous to design not only a ground-breaking golf-bag storage facility, but also the skills to build a replica plane?

Waldron smiled: “I was very lucky because I spent most of my summer holidays with my grandfather who made everything. When I was a kid, if I wanted a bow and arrow, then I made it; model aeroplanes, kites, you just made them in my day – you didn’t just place an order and see it arrive complete the next day.

“My grandfather was a wonderful teacher for me; he had great skills in woodworking and metalcraft, and I spent hours in the workshop with him. I must have absorbed a lot of his skills.

“I’m always making something. I’m making another aeroplane at the moment, and building a full-size aeroplane is the same as building a model aeroplane – it’s just bigger. And it gets a bit more expensive, but it’s pretty much the same system to make and assemble it.

“I sent off to Canada and, for my $200, got 56 sheets of plans. That’s all you get – nothing comes in a box. So you buy lots of wood and metal and nuts and bolts and gradually start making it. Eventually, after quite a few thousand hours, you end up with an aeroplane. Then you start it up and go and fly it!

“It was a great way of relaxing. It was my way of unwinding at the end of a busy day teaching golf.”

With 25 years in the golf-club-storage business behind him and 75 years on the clock, you might expect Waldron to wind down and spend time with his five grandchildren, but he has no plans to hang up his clubs… or his joystick.

“I love the business; one of the great things about it is you meet so many great people, and you’re always going to nice places to meet them. There aren’t many golf courses constructed around the back of a dingy old gas works,” he laughed… again.

“I know a lot of people and a lot of people know me. I’m a very lucky guy. It doesn’t feel like work to me, so I don’t anticipate giving up the job anytime soon.”