After Carnoustie Golf Links’ CBA (Courier Business Awards) win last year, it is giving back to its local community in more ways than one.
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Carnoustie Golf Links is a globally recognised golf venue that’s among the few in the UK to have hosted the Open Championship. In fact, it has hosted the prestigious event eight times since 1931, with the most recent time being in 2018 when Italian Francesco Molinari took home the Claret Jug.
It manages three golf courses, including the Carnoustie Championship Course which attracts golf tourists from all over the globe.
Home to ‘Golf’s Greatest Test’, this course was voted the Best Golf Course in the World in 2019.
Michael Wells, Carnoustie Golf Links’ chief executive, says: “Our Championship Course stands alone in terms of the test of the strategic elements of golf – the way it’s designed, the way it challenges you.”
Recognition at 2023 Courier Business Awards
Last year, Carnoustie Golf Links triumphed at the Courier Business Awards (CBA). It was named Business of the Year and also won in the Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality category.
Michael says: “Golf doesn’t always get recognised for its contribution as a tourism business. Yet it contributes as much as £400 million to the Scottish economy every year. So, we were really pleased because the award helped demonstrate that golf does have a big part to play in that.
“And from a local perspective, we feel that we’ve got a huge amount that we can deliver to the local economy by being an Open Championship venue that is the region’s window to the world in terms of a marketing platform, but also the perpetual golf tourism which it drives to the region.
“So it was a nice way for golf to be recognised as good for Courier country.”
For Michael, it was his team’s ‘laser focus’ that ultimately made them bag the recognition.
He explains: “We have quite an aggressive growth strategy on one hand. But on the other, we check and measure ourselves ethically and morally against how we’re delivering the customer experience, what we do for our charity and how we tackle our sustainability aims.
“We focused on the ideas that delivered the biggest outcomes and achievements. I think we did that very well.”
Looking to the future
Carnoustie Golf Links will be hosting the Senior Open in July then the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in October.
After a period of fast growth, the business is recalibrating to be able to deliver its targets in the next five years.
Michael explains: “We want to make sure the people, processes and systems are absolutely dialled in to enable us to have a solid platform to deliver our growth targets, in terms of putting as much as we can back into the local community, whether that’s via charitable donations or a being an incubator for employment in the region.
“All of these things can stimulate that transformational change that we’re looking to deliver for our local community.”
Carnoustie Golf Links’ charity work
Since becoming a charity in 2014, it has donated more than £400,000 to local good causes in and around the Carnoustie area.
Michael points out: “It’s extremely important for us to make Carnoustie Golf Links as a business as successful as it possibly can be in order that we can create more benefit for local charities and organisations.”
As part of its Community Benefits Programme, Carnoustie Golf Links provides a public putting green as well as its five-hole development course called The Nestie which is free for everyone to use.
It also has what is possibly the UK’s biggest golf development academy ‘The Carnoustie Craws’.
Michael explains: “We pay for local kids to have free memberships in local golf clubs. We give them tuition and coaching right through to our elite amateur Carnoustie Craws who we support with coaching, kits and equipment. We also pay for their entry into various golf tournaments throughout the year.
“We’re very proud that we have this complete golf development programme from the grassroots to the elite level.”
Message to local businesses
It’s in this community spirit that Michael urges other businesses to join this year’s Courier Business Awards.
He points out: “Dundee and the surrounding areas – Angus and Fife – we have a really unique business family. It’s not as big as Glasgow and Edinburgh. I think that’s an advantage because it means we all know each other.
“I really wanted to foster that sense of a business family community. That’s why I wanted Carnoustie Golf Links to be part of the Courier Business Awards, to help and support it in whatever way we can and learn from everybody else.
“It opens up so many conversations, friendships and business pathways for you to follow up on and use your local business community as much as you can. This is a great way to do that.”
Put your business in the spotlight and celebrate your achievements with us this year at the Courier Business Awards.
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