Woodroffe takes on The Oaks

The PGA in England (South)’s 2014 coach of the year, Jon Woodroffe, is aiming to turn The Oaks Golf Centre into a finishing school for newcomers to the sport.

Woodroffe, who will continue to work one day a week at the World of Golf in New Malden, explained: “We are having tremendous success at the World of Golf with our free Learn to Play Golf package of six one hour golf lessons, getting around 1,200 more people every year into the game. But what we lacked was a suitably beginner friendly course of our own to take the people we have been teaching on the range, onto the course itself and to take them from thereon.

“The Oaks has got exactly what we need with a good 18-hole course, a nine-hole par-three course and a 16 bay driving range. It’s the perfect place to develop beginners into golfers, and fulfil the World of Golf CEO Grant Wright’s idea to take complete beginners all the way to accomplished golfers in a seamless journey with our arm round them all the way.”

His former Central London Golf Centre colleague Gary Clements is joining Woodroffe at The Oaks.

“He’s brilliant with juniors,” Woodroffe said. “We also want to make all new golfers of any age feel completely at ease, but to do that we know we have to counter and overcome a lot of negative perceptions about golf.”

Having worked with so many beginners at New Malden, Woodroffe is in a far better position to appreciate what this actually means. He explained: “Exclusive, expensive, unfriendly, unwelcoming – these are the words which well describe many people’s perceptions who have never thought about taking up golf.”

“If they make the first step, and the free golf lessons will still be a big part of helping them to do that, then we have to get them to see golf in a very different way. The social aspects are absolutely key to this, so we’re developing all sorts of ideas to boost the usual golf teaching packages.

“I started in 1981 and have never had an opportunity quite like this one, so for me it’s very exciting to build on all the years of successful experience of getting thousands of people into golf, and take the whole thing up a level at The Oaks.”