Golf media brand National Club Golfer has revealed a new staffing structure and the launch of two new websites.
Tom Irwin has returned as Director of NCG, having spent a period working with Sports Publications’ other brands. Irwin, who is an AGW member with over a decade of experience in golf media, is overseeing all of NCG’s content and commercial operations going forward.
“In the last four years I have worked on some exciting projects and watched golf media change course dramatically,” said Irwin, who co-owns Sports Publications with Dan Murphy. “I return to a digital-first NCG in exceptionally strong shape. Our commitment to delivering content to the core golfer that is unavailable elsewhere remains as strong as ever. This is an exciting period for publishing as international barriers for growth disappear and monetisation opportunities are created.”
Alongside Irwin, NCG’s content operation is headed up by Steve Carroll, who manages a team of three journalists working on Club and Tour, and Hannah Holden, who is responsible for a team of four working on Equipment and Instruction, as well as her own YouTube channel.
Commercially, digital and print direct buys are now overseen by Tom Bullough, with programmatic and advertising operations delivered through a fast-developing partnership with world-leading sports network Snack Media.
“We have made big changes this year,” said Irwin. “We have entered into a partnership with Snack Media, invested heavily in search expertise, launched a new platform to accelerate our affiliate revenues, doubled down on Hannah’s growing profile and recruited new content creators.
“But perhaps the biggest change we have made is to outsource the production of our print title, NCG magazine, to our sister agency 18players.com, meaning our content creators are able to focus 100 per cent of their time on our digital output.
“We have already seen the impact of these changes with online users growing by 60 per cent in the first half of 2023 and revenues following suit. Crucially, this traffic growth has come in areas where we believe we are creating unique content – not least in equipment where the team have already produced over 350 unique, product-in-hand, written reviews,” said Irwin.
The new platform for nationalclubgolfer.com is now live. It is designed to deliver on NCG’s commitment to growing search traffic globally.
“Our road map for the next 12 months will see us create a US-specific iteration of NCG, a market where we have already seen significant user growth,” added Irwin. “The growth of our NCG Top 100s Tour continues apace with over 80 events in 2023 and almost 100 planned for 2024 both in the UK and overseas. Our NCG Top 100s course rankings remain a massive focus for us and the tour gives this vertical a commercial avenue.”
A Beta-brand new Top 100s site – top100.nationalclubgolfer.com– enables users to easily find Top 100 golf courses via the parameters that matter most – quality and location. The next six months will see this site move out of Beta, allow for user interaction, and intertwine the user experience of NCG Top 100s Tour customers and their NCG Top 100s course ranking content.
NCG is currently recruiting for a Reviews Manager to oversee written reviews on nationalclubgolfer.com and a Video Editor to work on the Hannah Holden NCG YouTube channel. To learn more, and for any other enquiries, email t.irwin@nationalclubgolfer.com.