Leading health and safety specialists Gauntlet Golf Risk Management has published a timely guide to the potential dangers involved with running a golf club in the 21stcentury.
The company has published a white paper called ‘The Changing Face of Golf’, which is free-to-download for all those involved with golf club management and tournament hosting and organisation.
This in-depth document analyses why golf risk management is becoming ever more problematic within a rapidly evolving environment. It also highlights the health and safety issues that clubs need to address within the new contexts that they face.
“As any golf club committee will appreciate, clubs are at the coalface of the golf of sport, delivering a sporting experience undergoing rapid change,” says Gauntlet Golf Risk Management’s health and safety manager, Andrew Scott. “A fight for survival is leading many clubs to explore new revenue streams and engage in diversification programmes aimed at generating business for both course and clubhouse. Others are having to cut back on expenditure and take decisions on where to trim budgets. Either way, there are implications for health and safety and these are just two of many scenarios that we highlight in our paper.”
The Changing Face of Golf also explores the risks attached to new ‘breeds’ of golfer, interacting with the club in ways previously untested and with needs differing from those of other members. Rather than trying to apportion any blame for health and safety blackspots, the document explains how many clubs are struggling to communicate and manage health and safety within organisational structures manned solely by volunteers. It suggests helpful ways in which clubs can easily and cost-effectively address their legal responsibilities.
Gauntlet believes the paper is a must-read for all golf club management, as all clubs are required to ensure the health and safety of employees, volunteers, members, visitors, contractors and other members of the public. Failure to do so can result in them incurring heavy fines and may possibly also lead to criminal prosecution and civil liability claims.
“We believe our document will enable golf clubs to address the negatives within their own environment and arm themselves will positive strategies that will enable them to not just cope, but improve,” says Scott. “We have been told there is nothing else like it within the world of golf club management and hope that many clubs will take up its advice. We wish to see clubs and courses becoming more compliant in the coming months, whilst also increasing their own awareness of risk and the measures they simply must take to address it.”
Gauntlet Golf Risk Management has created a special package of e-learning courses for golf course managers and golf club committees. To find out more, call 0113 244 8686 or visit www.golfclubhealthandsafety.com.