If the experts are correct that it takes just three seconds for someone to evaluate you, then your correspondent shouldn’t have warmed to Alvaro Venegas.

Restricted as we are to interviews by Zoom calls, my first emotion when 28-year-old Venegas said “Hi!” was envy. Here was a handsome, young man – two attributes I do not possess – sitting outside his apartment in a T-shirt, with blue sky all around, in 20-degree temperatures. In February.

But I did warm to him. His story is inspiring, and should act as a wake-up call for those whose upbringing has afforded them a well-paid job because they were born with a silver six-iron in their hand.

He explained: “I was born in Cádiz and learned my golf at Arcos Gardens. I used to ride motorbikes when I was younger and, at that stage, I hated golf.

“But the town was offering free lessons and my parents forced me to go along. I met the pro there, Andrew Laird, and I came to regard him as a sort of older-brother figure, a person to follow.

“At first he was my teacher; then he became my best friend and, somehow, I started following in his footsteps.

“I realised I needed to earn a living and get some food for home, so, after three years, I asked Andrew what he thought. I wasn’t very academic and he suggested I travel to England and take the PGA exams.

“I went to England, when I was almost 18, with no English language skills, no job, no anything. I stayed with friends in London and worked as a kitchen porter wherever I could, trying to learn English.

“On my days off I would take the Underground to the end of the line and see the golf courses I could visit to talk to the head pro and hand over my CV.

“In a month I’d found a job at Mytime Active. They were really good to me. This was in extremis; I didn’t have enough money to survive. When they offered me the interview, I was working six days a week; I asked the restaurant where I was working for a day off to attend the interview and they said ‘no’.

“So I had to make a choice: go to the interview or keep working there. So I quit, went to the interview and was lucky enough to get the job. For a month and a half, until I’d raised enough money to rent closer to the job, I was waking at 5am to take two Underground trains and a bus to get to work.

“I loved it and they said I could study for my PGA qualifications. But they quickly realised my English wasn’t very good and got me started washing buggies – which was hard work compared to Spain – and my English got better and better.”

It was tough, but Venegas realises, now, it was a life-affirming experience.

“It was a real adventure; it changed my life. I went as a kid – I’d never left home or anything – and came back so much more mature. It made me grow both as a person and as a professional.

“My family weren’t having a good time and I didn’t want them to have to support me and give me money so that was another reason to go. I used to hate golf, but now I’m obsessed with it.”

Having spent a few years in England he began to miss Spain and, in 2013, moved to Anantara Villa Padierna Palace, in Marbella, as a PGA pro, while supporting the director of golf as a de facto golf operations manager.

He admits he didn’t enjoy the tuition part of the job – “I wasn’t a good teacher” – much preferring the operations side of the business. And, in November 2017, he became director of golf operations at nearby Los Naranjos.

He recalled: “Our main goal was to position Los Naranjos in an international market and we decided to do that through the [customer-service analysis specialist] 59club platform.

“In our first year we were awarded 59club’s silver flag for service excellence and the goal was to get a gold flag, which we achieved in the second year, and we did it – on one course with 200 rounds per day – with a staff of just five working each day.

“That’s quite a small number of staff to support that number of people and provide a gold-standard service. So, I was looking for a new challenge.”

And it came with ‘challenges’ nobody could have foreseen, as he moved, in February 2020, to Real Club de Golf Guadalmina, at the beginning of the global pandemic. It was a baptism of fire, but he continues to regard every challenge as a positive.

He said: “I got a lot of support from the GM, and the board of directors and we did a lot of back-office work! From February to July 1, the members were trying to buy the club and, now, it’s owned by 2,000 members and it’s a completely different business: less about profit and more about a better member experience.”

And at the end of what must have been a challenging year for both Real Club de Golf Guadalmina and Venegas, the club hosted the final event on the Ladies European Tour in November – the Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España which was won by Kristine Pedersen of Denmark.

And with a Tour event under his belt, Venegas is looking forward to a better year in 2021.

“I think the future for members’ clubs in this part of Spain is going to be very bright,” said Venegas confidently.

“After everything we’ve been through people are starting to realise what is important in life, and, with more remote working, I believe we’ll have a lot of people moving to their second homes here and they’ll be looking for memberships in clubs in south-west Spain.”

He added: “I wanted to prove myself and show I could meet the needs of a larger facility. That motivates me. In the future I don’t see myself purely managing golf.

“I’m studying for a BA Hons in international hospitality and hotel management; it’s hard studying for so many hours after work, but, thankfully, I passed everything in my first year. So I see myself managing a resort in the future, but we’re talking about another five or ten years’ time.

“I want to keep studying and keep getting better. I looked at the profiles of people I admire – the people who manage Quinta do Lago, PGA Catalunya, Verdura Resort, and Finca Cortesin – and I realised all had gone through a period of study in hospitality. This study will open doors for me in the future.”

The young Spaniard works and studies hard and is clearly ambitious. But one doesn’t need to scratch too far below the surface to discover what he treasures most in life. And it’s not a fancy job title.

“I’m always looking forward, to my next project, the next challenge. But I’ve got to be happy. I feel I’ve been lucky in life. My greatest achievement? It’s probably being happy with my world and with my life and just realising that.

“Particularly at this time, when you see the things happening around you – a close friend of my mother’s died recently from COVID – you realise you have just got to be happy. Good things will come in the future.”

In advance of our interview the people I spoke to about Venegas said he was a team player and a good motivational leader. With such a refreshing attitude it’s not hard to see why.