Spend any length of time talking to Gordon Goldie and it’s impossible not to be struck by his infectious passion for golf. “I’m still in love with it,” says the Troon born and raised PGA Professional, who is now 78 years young.
This summer, the evergreen entrepreneur celebrated the half-century anniversary of his Chingford Golf Range business where he is invariably at work first thing every morning mowing the greens. “I’m in and out during the day and keeping everybody on their toes!” says Goldie.
“Such was the novelty that it was successful. I did not think about the money; I just wanted the customer to come along and hit a bucket of balls and say how wonderful it was that he could hit 100 balls and didn’t have to pick them up. Any money that I made, I put it back into new mats, new balls or the development of the driving range. My enthusiasm was the catalyst that made me go forward.”
They were colourful times for Goldie who had to rub along with his fellow tenants at the rugby club. There were a fair few challenges, not least at weekends.
At the heart of his business are fellow PGA Professionals Michael Perry and Ross Spurgeon, both of whom are long-term coaches at Chingford Golf Range. From the outset, 50 years ago, his team has featured – and nurtured – PGA Pros. Goldie also keeps his hand in with a spot of coaching for long-term contacts and friends. Back in the day he even made his own video ‘Gordon Goldie’s Armchair Golf Lesson’ at a time when such media was thin on the ground. “I said to myself I should be able to give my customers, the people I’m coaching, something tangible,” he says of his foray into filming. “It was so good that I converted it to DVD 20 years later and the content is excellent!”
Goldie lets nothing get in the way of his involvement in all aspects of golf. He has an enduring and strong involvement with the Essex PGA, whom he serves as its president. Gordon still plays at West Essex Golf Club - one of their longest-standing members - and his competitive credentials remain impressive. “I was runner-up in the Super-60s in 2012 and won the Superb 70s in 2016,” he says. To this day he still competes and teed up at Formby Hall in the latest edition of the PGA Super 60s.
“My objective would be to introduce more and more to the game of golf so that they can enjoy what I’ve enjoyed in my career. From growing up with hickory shafts in Troon in 1954 when I was eight years of age, to the wonderful places that I have visited not only in Scotland, but in Great Britain, Europe, America and South Africa. I’ve been all over the world with golf…”
He employed a top architect to design a new two-tier facility with accompanying reception areas. By 2006, he had secured a new long-term lease – and a sizeable loan to support his vision for the future. Nowadays, the memory of his 60-year-old self’s boldness is enough to make him shudder. But at that time, he could hardly forecast that within two years the banks would be feeling the pinch resulting from a global economic downturn. “The bank asked me to exit my account with them,” says Goldie. Which meant he ended up having to sell his house and use substantial equity to address his loan situation.