Profile: Police officer and golf club rescuer, Colm McCabe
23rd January, 2012 by Jenny Yu
Brothers Liam and Colm McCabe have a long association with golf courses, having started out with construction projects as part of a high-end landscaping business in their native Ireland in the 1990s.
In 2002, the opportunity arose to tender for the management of a struggling club that was situated adjacent to a notorious housing estate. Liam and Colm took out a 10-year contract and turned the fortunes of Rathbane Golf Club around.
“We invested heavily in the facility and set up a junior programme which helped address the social issues in the area – golfers had been suffering from anti-social behaviour linked to local youths,” Colm explained.
Now the club has 800 members, including 260 juniors.
The brothers’ company, Mack Golf, then focused on growing in Ireland, taking charge of six facilities. However, it was not a particularly satisfying process, as Colm explained: “In the Irish market, management contracts are usually for one to two years, which is not long enough to invest in the future, so we started looking further afield.”
The first course in England to come under Mack Golf’s management was Play Golf Heaton Park in Manchester, and on the strength of its success, the brothers moved their business centre to the UK.
“We saw the market as more forward thinking, with the opportunity for leases of 40 years, so there is more time to make real progress 
and long-term investment,” Colm explained.
Junior golf became the focus of the expanding business: “The age profile of golf continues to increase so I realised we had to look at new ways of getting young people into the sport. Golf needs to be more family friendly – most golfers can’t justify spending four or five hours away from their family at the weekend. We also have to get rid of the ‘exclusive’ reputation that golf has, and a change of attitude from golfers themselves is needed.”
Colm sees golf as a focus for youth programmes: “First, we need to get children to experience golf. Then the programme can be used to teach life skills, not just the sport itself, but its values such as being courteous and sportsmanlike.”
Working in conjunction with Mack Golf is First Tee Manchester, a youth programme pioneered in Britain at Heaton Park that fits in with this ethos. It originated in the USA with the concept of extracting life skills from golf and incorporating them into a fun programme. Colm sits on its board.
Due to this, in 2010 Jack Nicklaus gave a masterclass at Heaton Park, and Paula Cremer has also visited, both attracting considerable publicity. The Lord Mayor of Manchester even supported a special needs’ golf day there. “Stars of that magnitude would not normally visit a municipal golf centre, so it was quite a coup,” said Colm.
Working alongside school sports’ partnerships and the Empowering Youth Foundation, First Tee Manchester offers a structured learning curriculum which builds on golf’s traditions and values, and aims to make them part of the youngsters’ lives.
Six of Mack Golf’s 10 venues in the UK now have junior academies where over 110 children ranging from seven to 16 years of age are taking part in a programme designed to encourage juniors into the game through fun activities.
“It is proving a great challenge to gain universal support for these programmes from the UK golf establishment,” Colm admitted, adding: “But the company will continue to teach life skills to children through the medium of golf. No-one else in the UK is doing what we do. Some see us as competition; we see this as a healthy situation for the game, for the industry and for sport.”
Mack Golf has also forged partnerships with local authorities which allows it to contact the school sports’ partnerships.
The focus on youth has had a dramatic impact, with some 3,000 children taking part in programmes at Heaton Park. Membership, golf and competitions are all supplied free of charge.
“There are plenty of volunteers who want to get children involved with golf, but they can be shackled by all the bureaucracy. As a company we can justify the resources needed to deal with it as it is an investment in the future,” said Colm.
Ladies’ golf is another area for development, with Mack Golf looking at incentives for ladies to join clubs and get involved.
“Sometimes controversially, we are seeking to redress established imbalances relating to female participation. This has to be carefully managed and tied in with our existing business,” Colm commented.
The company, which hopes to double its business, has also focused on the nomadic golfer. Mack Golf has created a ‘virtual club’ for 
non-affiliated golfers which makes the most of available tee times, allowing them to get the latest course information and to book online. “If a course is not busy on a Saturday for example, we can communicate this fact to members – they like to be out on course when it is less busy. We can also promote special offers, competitions and so on online. The fact that everyone is not doing this reflects how much golf is behind the leisure industry in terms of data capture and loyalty cards, and we want to be at the forefront of this.”
Top of the list are golfers who like to play at different courses; loyalty cards allow Mack Golf to reach out and target them as customers.
“To grow our business, we have to offer something different, more acceptable and more affordable. Our courses are close to large centres of population and offer excellent value for money – if you are flexible you can play a round of golf for just £2.”
Golfers with an existing membership of any club are now being offered a season ticket to play any of Mack Golf’s courses for £100 for the first year. “Business breeds business – I want to see the car park full and to sell every tee time. But we won’t upsell – we’re not Ryanair!
“And the focus at the clubs is very much on the golf,” Colm pointed out. “Our members want to play golf on a good course and get value for money. We have our own agronomist, who is a company director, and our background in golf course development means that the courses are top quality. And although the clubs have suitable off-course facilities, the clubhouse is not always the main attraction.”
As the next generation of golfers comes through the youth programme, continuing accessibility to the sport will be crucial in keeping their loyalty against other sports and activities.
“We see our focus on the youth as crucial to the future of golf, so we’re prepared to invest heavily and for the long term, although we obviously do get spin off business from it,” he said.
And the brothers’ passion for the community spills over into their private time. Colm, through volunteering, has become chief officer for North Wales Police Special Constabulary, while Liam has served two terms as chairman of the Irish Mountain Rescue Association.
With so much energy and commitment, they look set to continue to raise eyebrows amongst golf’s traditionalists, but matched only by the smiles they raise from youngsters who have had their lives turned around by golf.
