For golf clubs in Kent, 2020 should have been a bumper year. With the 149th Open Championship set to be staged at Royal St George’s in Sandwich, local clubs were anticipating increased visitors and record revenues.

But following the announcement in April by The R&A that The Open Championship would be postponed until 2021, plans have needed to be put on hold for a year; bookings re-scheduled and contingency plans quickly put into action.

And with Prince’s Golf Club occupying land adjacent to Royal St George’s, general manager at Prince’s, Rob McGuirk, has probably been one of the busiest GM’s in the UK.

“The last few months with COVID have been a tough period for everyone, and I doubt there was a club in the country fully prepared for the restrictions and lockdown,” said McGuirk.

“With that said, we have done our best to remain optimistic and control what we can control, taking advice from the Government and following the regulations. All of our clients with bookings up until end of June were contacted and offered the opportunity to move later in the year or into 2021. This allowed us to maintain our bookings and keep those engagements going at Prince’s without losing the revenue.

“We had to furlough most of the management team apart from the course manager, which means we have been light on staff. Therefore, I have been out assisting cutting greens, which for me is a great change of scenery, and helping the sales team with enquiries and newsletters.

“We may not fully understand the impact of COVID until later in the year or even in a couple of years, however I’m confident that our members, guests and corporate clients will still value the proposition we can offer regardless of this tough time,” added McGuirk confidently.

“During the last couple of months, we have kept our members and visitors engaged by maintaining regular communications throughout the imposed lockdown. This includes sending weekly updates with any new information or simply some messages of comfort and some light-hearted entertainment.

“Our media partner, GMS, have been great in guiding us and ensuring that we send the right message as these times are not about sales but about keeping in contact and sending positive messages.

“We have continued to frequently post on our social media channels with updates on how we are coping with government guidelines and updates on the changes to the course over the winter, as well as competitions with prizes to keep our followers engaged.

“One of the best received initiatives we had was to send The R&A Level 1 Rules Exam out to our members, offering prizes to the best scores. We had a really good number of responses and it’s comforting to know that a fair proportion of the membership passed,” smiled McGuirk.

“Rather surprisingly, we have had a significant increase in membership enquiries over the past few weeks. This is a really great sign for the future outlook once the impact of coronavirus has passed and we have responded to all of these prospective new members.

“It’s been great to welcome our members back to play and enjoy the courses. Hopefully we will soon be able to so the same for visitor and guest golf when it is permissible.

“We do have a busy calendar of events booked in for the rest of the year, but it is difficult to say how long restricted golf will continue for and how this will affect the diary – certainly by the height of the summer into the autumn we would hope our open events and larger competitions can return.

“We have a very close relationship with Sandwich and the local area – it has always been important to us to retain this connection and serve the community with more than just our golf course.

“All our food that we serve in The Lodge is locally sourced and we have donated a lot of the produce to the local foodbanks in recent weeks. We are also standing behind Your Golf Travel’s campaign to offer fourballs to frontline workers. It’s our small way of showing appreciation for the work of key workers and the NHS, and we’re pleased to be supporting it.

“Obviously, an Open year is a very big thing for the area and for Prince’s in particular, however thankfully the impact won’t be lost for us, just delayed until 2021. Almost all the bookings that we had in the diary for that week have moved to the corresponding week in July next year which is a relief.

“We do have an empty week to fill now but as sad as it is to have to cancel The Open Championship, the safety of everyone involved in putting on an event of that scale is more important.

“The week of The Open in 2021 will still be a busy one with most of our Lodge and golf bookings having simply moved to the same slot next year,” explained McGuirk.

“A lot of the plans that we drew up for this year’s event will be easy to switch to the following year and we will take stock of the situation and look if there is anything new or different we can do.

“We will also host the Final Qualifying Series at the end of June next year, which in the past has always been a great couple of days and something to look forward to.

“It will very much depend on what the Government guidelines are when that week comes around, but we would like to do something in what would have been Open week. We will see what facilities we are able to operate, for example if the Lodge will be available to golfing guests.

“We have taken some tentative bookings for that week already and are looking at running an event with our neighbouring courses. This is a good idea in principle but at this stage we are not able to plan anything for definite. Once the lockdown exit strategy is more certain we will put a plan in place and potentially look to put together a special event.”

The last couple of years have been a significant time in the history of the club. Working with Martin Ebert and GolfLink Evolve, all 27 holes have been improved alongside the addition of two new signature sea-facing par 3s.

The works to the Dunes and Himalayas are now complete with the Shore almost finished. The remaining work is to tidy up around the par 3 that will no longer be in play, and to extend the dune that was constructed over the winter which will run alongside the 7th hole on the Shore Course.

“During this process it has been very important for us to embrace our environmental responsibilities,” added McGuirk, “which is why we have just recently retained our GEO Certified status for our continued sustainable focus during our period of works to the course.

“In the last few years we have increased our focus on sustainability, and this has led to taking on a few new initiatives as we look to factor the environmental impact into every decision we make.

“We have signed up for OCEANTEE and are proud to be partnering their movement to reduce the amount of plastic waste in golf. In addition to that, we are now exclusively using Frugal Cups as our paper coffee cups which are made from 96 per cent recycled paperboard and are genuinely recyclable.”