It must be a difficult decision to leave the weather and luxury of Yas Links, in Abu Dhabi, for the less temperate environs of the UK, even if it is ‘leafy’ Surrey.

But to have made the move only for coronavirus to shut down the golf industry just a few months after getting one’s feet under the desk must be highly frustrating. So it’s to the great credit of James Ibbetson that he remains so positive and confident as Farleigh Golf Club takes tentative steps back into a post-COVID golf industry.

Ibbetsen, 31, replaced Sunningdale-bound Adam Walsh as general manager at the 27-hole Surrey club – which is part of the Foxhills group – at the tail end of 2019. To call it a baptism of fire is probably understating the situation – and Ibbetsen hadn’t even been looking for a move.

He said: “I wasn’t necessarily looking, but when the job became available, I started having the conversation. I knew a few of the guys who worked at Foxhills very well through university and previous positions and started to sound them out and it sounded like a good fit for me. And then, I had a telephone interview – with the HR director initially – and then a Skype call with the owner Marc Hayton.

“I really bought into Marc and, while the club was a big reason for making the move, it was more Marc. I like him; I like his vision; I liked the way and the direction he wanted to take the club in. And I thought I could definitely help with that.

“Although it might have seemed to some like a bit of a strange move, look at the places that the general managers before me have gone on to: Russell Stebbings, to Frilford Heath, and, obviously, most recently, Adam to Sunningdale.

“Coronavirus was challenging,” he recalls. “When we closed the doors at the end of March, we still hadn’t even sent out our membership renewal letter – our membership runs May through until the end of April.

“We didn’t know what our member support was going to be like from a renewal perspective. So we took a few days, chatted through the various options we felt we had available at the time and then put a real strong membership renewal offer together, giving members 12 months’ access for the price of ten, basically two free months.

“And then, any period of time lost due to COVID or self-shielding, etc, was to be credited to them at 2021’s renewal. So that really helped us. And we had a really, really strong membership renewal.

“I would say a high percentage of the people who normally pay monthly, put their hand in their pocket and paid annually, and it was also good to see a strong shift in those who normally pay by direct debit, making the move to annual pay. And the response was beyond my expectations.

“We didn’t plead with them and say ’If you don’t support us now, the club might not be there on the other side’, but we sent out some strong messaging and some strong communications, and it was amazing to see the support we got.”

Paradoxically, like quite a few businesses Ibbetsen expects Farleigh to actually benefit from the changes it was forced to implement during the shutdown.

He explained: “I think out of COVID, like a lot of businesses, we will come out of it much stronger. Because I’d only been in the role a couple of months the communication channels we opened up came about through the lockdown process.

“I was making personal phone calls to all the members, checking up on them, to see how they were. And so was my membership and sales guy, and as a result, we’re so much closer to the members than we’ve ever been before. And that’s continued with the new members we’ve signed up. I’m not saying we weren’t a club before, but we do have a real club vibe now.

“People are really using Farleigh – not just for golf; they’re using it for everything. It’s a real social hub in a world where, at the moment, there’s a lot of uncertainties. One thing that is certain is that you’ll always be greeted with a smile here and there’s always going to be someone for them to play golf with. So I think, like a lot of businesses, we will come out of this stronger.”

While the golf course is fully open other areas of the business still need to get back to full ‘fitness’ and the issues they face are still something of an unknown quantity.

“The area that’s hurting the most is F&B – we rely heavily on our food and beverage business,” added Ibbetsen. “And obviously we were closed for a considerable time, reopening loosely on July 4, but we’re still without the main money earner for the club with the functions, particularly weddings and larger parties and events. So hopefully we’ll be able to get those back online in the near future.”

For Ibbetsen, coping with COVID was just another step on a career path that started when he went to the University of Birmingham. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to study, but thought, as he enjoyed golf, he would take the applied golf management studies degree. He graduated in 2010 and immediately started work at Marriott Forest of Arden as its golf co-ordinator.

“Initially this involved three days per week in the operation looking after members, the golf shop and corporate golf events with the remainder of time spent teaching.

“However, I quickly realised that teaching wasn’t for me as I had more of a passion for events and golf days. I like being in the mix, being in the thick of it and ultimately getting things done. I get great satisfaction from helping the team put on a great event for the members.”

Following promotion to golf operations manager in 2014, he eventually left Marriott Forest of Arden to become director of golf at its sister property Marriott Tudor Park, in February 2015, and, 16 months later he was on the move again, this time a little further afield, joining Howie Roberts at Yas Links, a worldclass.golf destination.

He recalled: “Howie was amazing, really, really good to work with; extremely knowledgeable in all aspects of the golf industry, which is quite rare, I think. He was very knowledgeable in the agronomy side of things – he probably knows a lot more than a lot of course managers and superintendents.

“So I learned a hell of a lot from him on that side of things, some of which we’ve been able to bring back to Farleigh, not only changing some of the agronomic principles that we’ve had in place, but also the service levels.

“Howie’s a perfectionist. He’s worked at some top properties throughout the world and he has a certain level of service. That’s definitely instilled in me, and a lot of the service principles and things we put in place there we tried to bring back here.”

Ibbetsen has not been afraid to move to progress his career but is not yet sure of what the future holds for him.

“Farleigh is getting more of a name and more prestigious,” he added. “I’m not saying I’m using it as a springboard, but I’m not going to be here forever. The last few months when it was just a golf course, has kind of reignited my passion for just the golf side, so whether it’s another director of golf position or another GM-style role, I really don’t know.

“We’ve just got to put the fundamentals in place, and that will take Farleigh to the next level. I’m normally a two-and-a-half-to-three-year guy in a role, so I think Farleigh probably has another couple of years of me yet.”