Commanding views across the Campsie Fells, Lenzie Golf Club offers a round of delightfully rural golf in the North East quarter of Glasgow.
Golfing in the great outdoors
Bustling for business amid a bevy of other golf venues clustered locally makes the drive for members an imperative for a private members club moving up to the next level of provision.
“Our mission is to move the club forward,” says Captain-elect Graham Dickie, “lift our heads up and provide the quality and style of service that members, and golfers in general, demand.”
Outdoors, the 18-hole parkland course presents players of all standards with challenging golf. Indoors at the nineteenth hole, clubhouse refurbishment is advancing apace.
The freshly refurbished lounge delivers a new level of comfort and the club also offers newly decorated private dining and meeting facilities, Graham reports, but it is within the changing rooms where the transition is most startling.
In the men’s locker room, the bank of cold steel has gone – replaced by warm, welcoming light oak golf lockers fit for the modern game, with its bigger golf bags and more powerful ‘weaponry` to attack the course.
“The room was badly in need of a revamp,” Graham explains. “The old steel lockers were mostly no longer fit for purpose, being unable to take a modern bag, and members were growing increasingly agitated that they could not fit their belongings and equipment in them.”
The committee tasked a team to take the project forward, with Lenzie’s resident PGA professional Jim McCallum and Graham spearheading the process of sourcing the right supplier for the job.
“We invited several quotes from local and national companies and chose Crown Sports Lockers to complete the work. We’d seen and liked their installation at Erskine Golf Club and felt that they had quickly understood our requirements.”
Getting that perfect look
Working closely with the club as the final designs emerged, Crown’s project manager Spencer Grimwood helped mould a more inspiring, functional locker room reflecting today’s game.
Less is more in Lenzie’s case and the existing tally of 360 steel lockers has shrunk to just over 220 quality wooden ones, with attractive shaker-style solid oak framed shaker-style doors and flush oak veneer centres, bench seating and wardrobe hanging space.
Before the project kicked off, the club canvassed members for their views about the plan to raise a £100 deposit on each new locker and increase annual rental fee from £15 to £40.
“We displayed a sample locker in the foyer to give members a clue to what to expect and the vast majority favoured the change,” recalls Graham. “Some baulked at the extra outlay but now they can see the full impact of the new facility, which opened in December, they are changing their minds.”
Guests always welcome
Catering for visitors are coin-operated holdall lockers, fitted with locks that take the new 12-sided £1 coin, due to come into circulation at the end of March 2017.
Complete with colour co-ordinated carpeting, and energy efficient lighting, the changes are breathing new life into a once-tired, uninviting aspect of the clubhouse. The final act will be to add movable bench seating and transfer the club noticeboard from the foyer.
Not to be outdone though, the lady members liked what they saw happening in the men’s changing room and specified some of Crown’s light oak golf bag lockers for themselves. “They are delighted with them,” states Graham.
With six or seven courses within a five-mile radius of Lenzie, competition for members will remain fierce, Graham notes, but the club is attracting new blood by developing an enticing package of membership options.
“As the numbers of paying members falls, we are focusing on the longer-term outlook, offering novice golfers tailored packages, which are working well, and reducing prices for 18-30 year-olds so that we retain more of our young members.”
Specialist catering helps Lenzie serve up varied cuisine for family events, engagement parties, christenings and wakes, as well as monthly food and wine tasting sessions.