Aspiring tournament players Ian Poulter and Jason O’Malley went in completely different directions when they reached the career crossroads at which they had to decide whether to chase their dream.

But both paths ultimately led to Woburn Golf Club where Ryder Cup legend Poulter has been the Touring Professional for almost two decades and O’Malley has served as its managing director since 2007.

The latter was, on paper, the better of the two golfers when entering the professional ranks, scratch as compared to four, but recalls he realised: “very, very early on that I had next to zero ability for being a tour player – and I would’ve had every weekend off.”

The twin assets of pragmatism and analytical acumen that helped O’Malley cut short any pursuit of playing for a living have also played their part in him mirroring, in many ways, Poulter’s against-the-odds success albeit in the field of golf management.

For example, a similar core of self-belief enabled him to go “from the bottom rung at Marriott Hotels golf to the top with Hanbury Manor,” and then have an open and honest conversation with Woburn’s owner, the Duke of Bedford, soon after his appointment in May 2007, on how the relationship would work and what level of autonomy he would be given, in order to achieve the success they both wanted.

“I was 34 when I started at Woburn and I sometimes look back and think they must’ve taken quite a gamble on a young person who might not have had the big names in his portfolio that maybe some of the others applying for the role had,” reflects O’Malley.

What he did have was a track record that, following graduation from Merrist Wood University in Surrey, showed him having improved each of the venues at which he had worked, including Sprowston Manor and Hanbury Manor.

“In the nicest way, Sprowston was a very unimpressive golf venue, but the good thing about moving there was the potential to improve the golf course,” he says, “so I saw it as my best chance of gaining as much experience as I could in my first director of golf role.”

O’Malley helped oversee a deal with a local farmer that enabled Sprowston to enlarge from a course on around 90 acres of land to one on approximately 140 acres, a track created by Ross McMurray, coincidentally a member of the design team for the Marquess course at Woburn, younger sibling to the Dukes and Duchess courses.

Three years at Hanbury followed before his move to Woburn where obvious signs of improvement and achievement have included a £3.5 million clubhouse refurbishment in 2011; the creation of the Tavistock short game area which opened in 2015; the development of the club’s own reservoir and the recent partnership agreement with Titleist.

In addition, during this period Woburn has staged events such as the Women’s British Open – twice – the British Masters and Travis Perkins Masters.

But he cautions: “I think it is great if you can attract tournament golf, I think it gives the team pride and motivation, it gives you the opportunity to show how good you are in the spotlight.

“However, the other 51 weeks of the year are the really important ones because that is our day job, that is what gives us success, which means we can reinvest in the club and continue to progress.”

Crucial, in his eyes, is the attention paid perpetually to the level of hospitality presented by Woburn’s staff to both its members – all 1,500 of them – and its visitors.

“I think there is a significant difference between service and hospitality,” he explains. “Service, for me, can be quite transactional: whereas hospitality needs to be warm, welcome and friendly, which is certainly what we aspire to at Woburn.

“An example of hospitality being when a member approaches the bar and their ‘usual’ is already being poured for them as the member of staff is aware of their preferences and habits.’”

The recruitment, assessment and encouragement of staff all fall into one of four categories that have been constants in O’Malley’s life in golf management.

“I have tried to base every single role that I have done on a wheel which I draw; it is in every single business plan that I have ever done, every single team meeting I have to do,” he reveals. “It is about people and it is about product and it is about process and it is about review. There is more to it than that, but that is how I operate, how I have to set up.”

The pandemic did put a metaphorical spoke in O’Malley’s wheel, as with so many businesses, with staff recruitment and retention proving twin challenges after COVID cast a costly shadow over the hospitality industry.

“So many people wanted to get out of hospitality, retraining through furlough… If you’re trying to find a chef at the moment, good luck,” he smiles. “The people side is fiercely difficult at the moment.”

Woburn’s 12-month projections were promising a healthy 2020 prior to the first lockdown, but a stark example of the financial hit they took is in the area of corporate golf day business, where 97 per cent fell away through the year.

“We could have decided to sell a great deal of membership, each linked to a £10,000 joining fee in order to arrest the shortfall of revenue, and the subsequent cash flow challenges that presented,” he remarks. “But with membership at capacity, this wouldn’t have been the right course of action for the club longer term.

“I am aware how fortunate I am with the owner that I have, and with the integrity that we operate with here, that we can afford to make such decisions.

“We said we will just have to hold fire and have a hell of a nosebleed for 18 months and come out, not as best we can, but we will have to look at what the market will do and what it can sustain and all sorts of things on the other side of it.”

Now on ‘the other side’, Woburn’s corporate golf day revenue stream is thriving again although O’Malley stresses they have kept in mind the need to sate members’ increased appetite for playing.

“We have been very conscious not to over-subscribe or over-sell corporate golf days because we know that members are playing more rounds than ever,” he says. Availability for visiting fourballs have likewise been carefully attributed, and he adds: “We might have two or possibly three dates between now and the first of November.

“The speed of change in the last 18 months has been brutal. I like data and I like KPI’s in order to make really good, sound, strategic long-term decisions based upon trend. In the last 18 months a great deal of this information and history has proved worthless when trying to deal with the challenges that COVID has forced upon us.”

Nevertheless, Woburn appears in good health and in good hands with O’Malley at the helm. However, now into his 15th year there, he continues to ensure that the entire team are focused and feel motivated to seek innovation and continual improvement.

The former tournament golf wannabe concluding: “I wouldn’t want to do anything else for a living, and I still feel I want to be doing the role at Woburn for some time to come.”