Our 150th Landmark Edition A Testament To Credible Journalism

Fair Comment; Spring 2025

La Manga Club in Spain, holds a very special place in my heart. It was the place I visited on my first ever ‘FAM’ trip back in 1993 — accompanied by David Bowers, who remains a loyal and invaluable member of the team — and, I guess, it was then that I started a love affair with the region, which still endures to this day. On that press visit, I started to take more than a passing interest in Spanish property prices, and recall — pre-crash — that I could have bought a four-bedroomed villa, complete with swimming pool for the same price as a three-bed semi where I lived in the UK… hindsight’s a wonderful thing.

The Hotel Príncipe Felipe, at La Manga Club, is where I proposed to my wife, Jane, the best part of 28 years ago, and, as we purchased a villa close-by a few years ago, the North Course, at La Manga, is where I played my first competition as a Spanish Federated golfer last month. But it was in 1996, when I stumbled across a magazine on a table-tennis table at La Manga Club, that my life was shaped.

Having just sold the publishing rights to Football Management — a B2B magazine I launched in 1993 — Jane and I spent a few days cosseted in the five-star luxury of the Príncipe Felipe. As I walked into the changing rooms adjacent to the outdoor swimming pool, I saw a copy of Golf Enterprise Europe floating around. With a passing interest in golf — I used to watch The Open back then but never seriously played — I picked it up, took it back to my sun lounger, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I started to research not just Golf Enterprise Europe, but the golf industry as a whole, and soon realised I may have stumbled across something. The magazine appeared to be published on an ad-hoc basis, and I knew from my previous experience, that one of the most important elements of publishing a credible magazine, is publishing on time. If you announce to the world you are launching a quarterly magazine, then you need to deliver a quarterly magazine, not one which is published sporadically.

In September 1997, to coincide with the Ryder Cup at Valderrama, the inaugural issue of Golf Management Europe was published, and as the spring 2025 issue marks our 150th edition, I would like to place on record my sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone who has made this possible. I’ve always been genuinely humbled by the high regard that the magazine appears to be held in, and I’ve lost count over the years the number of GMs and CEOs who have told me Golf Management is the only golf business magazine they read.

As a journal — to reflect the global nature of the magazine, we dropped ‘Europe’ from the title in 2020 — we have always strived to be impartial and publish an informative and credible magazine that you, our audience, enjoy reading, even if that means on occasions, holding organisations and industry bodies to account. Our partners have been hugely supportive over the years, and quite simply, without you, Golf Management would not exist. I’d like to say a huge thank you to you all.

I’ve always stressed that sponsorship is a two-way process, so I’d like to think that I have played a part — however small — in helping your businesses succeed. As one industry stalwart recently told me: “Golf Management has helped us get where we are, and for that I thank you.”

I guess it’s comments such as that which have helped Golf Management become so well respected across the global golf industry, and, after 150 editions, why we continue to help shape the conversation. Enjoy reading our landmark edition, and those that follow in the months and years ahead. We still have plenty to discuss.