As soon as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first COVID lockdown in March last year ripples of apprehension began to spread about probable job losses, including within the golfing industry.

It did not take long before forecasts about the economic consequences of lockdown transformed those ripples into a tide and among the first swept away – within just 15 days – was Chris Duffy, then general manager at Huddersfield Golf Club.

“I think I was the first general manager in the UK – especially among the CMAE which I’m a member of – to lose my job due to COVID, and I haven’t been the last,” says 38-year-old Duffy. “But there seems always to be light at the end of the tunnel even if you don’t always really see it at the start.”

The light for this globe-trotter from Teesside was the opportunity to become general manager at Modry Las Resort, PGA National, situated in Choszczno in north Poland and boasting a course designed by nine-time major winner Gary Player.

Duffy and Scooby, his 13-year-old Saluki dog who has been with him since his days in Doha, where he was event manager of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters and head of operations at Doha Golf Club, have quickly settled in to life in a country that he describes as “beautiful” and an “emerging market” in the golf tourism industry.

“The tagline I use for this resort is ‘Where Golf Meets Nature’,” he reveals with obvious excitement about a venue owned and created by Arthur Gromadzki, a Swiss-based investment banker who was born and raised in Choszczno.

“The course is great – Gary Player doesn’t design a bad course – and you have so much wildlife. You have dzik, wild boar, you’ve got deer, you’ve got eagles, you’ve got beevers.

Every hole is individual and Gary Player designed it so that you don’t see any other hole than the one you’re playing.”

This seclusion within the course is emblematic of Modry Las, which Duffy acknowledges is “a bit remote”, being around 50 miles from the nearest main city – and airport – Szczecin. “But when you get here,” he emphasises, “you really don’t need to leave.

“Everything you need is here – the golf course, a recently-opened 2,000 square metre clubhouse, the spa, the hotel accommodation for 50 guests across three types of accommodation.

“We’ve got clubhouse rooms upstairs, garden suites which overlook the 16th hole, then we’ve got three cottages which are self-contained with a kitchen and living room, and we’ve got a private house as well.

“So the place has a variety of accommodation depending on if you’re coming with family and kids or whether you’re coming as a group of ladies or a group of guys, couples, we can mix and match. Yeah… it’s fun.”

The climate, particularly during winter, has offered a stark contrast to that which he became used to in Doha, but just as he adapted to the heat there Duffy has acclimatised in Poland, and has also fully embraced the lifestyle.

“I love the lifestyle here,” he enthuses. “Just simple things like farmers’ markets, you can literally go to the fish farm, which is 5km from here, you can go to the bio farm where they are growing every vegetable you could want. We have a French chef here at Modry Las who is committed to trying to keep us using as much product from local suppliers as possible.”

He patiently spells out names mentioned during the interview, and chuckles when asked about how his Polish is coming along.

“It’s the hardest language in the world,” he laughs. “Wherever I’ve worked, whether it was in Qatar or Spain – or Yorkshire – I’ve always tried to learn or at least understand the language.

“But Polish is a language that is nothing like I’ve ever heard before and very difficult. I’ve got the basics – it’s like any language, you learn the bad words first!

“I want to learn Polish, I’m committed to coming here, but if you try to read Polish you’ve got no chance. There’s so many d’s and j’s and z’s together. For me, it’s more important for me that I can say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, count, say days of the week, months of the year, say how are you? and I’m fine. These sort of things.

“When it comes to members’ emails, at the moment I draft them in English and the course manager does the translations for me.”

Modry Las currently has 200 members, 150 of whom live outside of 70km away – just over 40 miles – and Duffy hopes to persuade more people in the Choszczno region to take up the game.

“In Poland, golf is still seen as quite an elite sport,” he continues, “so one of my missions this year is to break down that invisible barrier at the front gate for the locals; try to get them to come in and use the resort, use the restaurant, create different events at the resort – if COVID allows – things like family brunches or family days, just to try to get people into the resort for events that are not always necessarily related to golf.

“At the moment we have the sort of invisible barrier that, ‘oh, that’s only for the foreigners’, or ‘that’s only for the rich’ and I’m trying to balance that up a bit.”

Duffy is also optimistic that Modry Las, which sits a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Berlin, will prove successful at attracting visitors from further afield assuming that there is some easing of travel restrictions.

“I think we’re going to have a really good year this year, because the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Danish and the Polish, who normally escape to play golf in Spain or France or wherever, in the summertime, I just don’t think that’s going to happen this year,” he posits.

“I think they’re going to look for destinations that are available by car.”

It was Huddersfield Golf Club’s understandable concerns about the loss of potential revenue from events such as weddings and the like that helped point Duffy towards Poland.

Following his redundancy he decided to reach out to Modry Las owner Gromadzki – who he met at the Club Managers Association of America world conference in February 2020 – but while he regrets having to leave after little more than a year in Yorkshire, he is excited about the prospects at Modry Las.

“This place has so much potential,” beams Duffy excitedly. “We have the possibility to expand into other areas such as fishing, kayaking, tennis, cycling, walking – there’s so many options here. The potential to grow is amazing.

“But the main focus here is still golf – golf and conferences – and out on the course you’ve got five tee boxes so if you want to test yourself off the black tees at around 7,200m, go ahead.

“But you can go forward either to white, yellow, red or blue. We also have a nine-hole par-3 course that’s lovely, too, for families, and beginners or junior golfers, or people who just want to go and test their short-game skills. It’s perfect.”

Modry Las Golf Resort has been named Poland’s Best Golf Course on five occasions in its 12-year history, emphasising its standing within the country. Duffy plans to extend that recognition much further afield, in Europe and beyond.