The Secretary’s office of the Golf Club is open every day from 08:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays off. From April to September it is open every day for longer. New summer opening times will be communicated in April.
For any enquiries or questions you can reach us over this phone number 0426.330124
From "Il mondo del Golf" (The world of golf) : Golf & Professions by Luca Barassi
Discovering the world of golf technicians
He is the core of the Secretary’s office after an overview on the various skills of Golf Technicians, secretaries and Green keepers, and after analysing the training programs, here is an explanation of the role of the Secretary within the club.
In the beginning there was the Captain. In the Anglo-Saxon golf tradition the Captain was the most important person in the Secretary’s office; his prestige was even greater than the one of the President. In those days the secretary of the golf club was the personal secretary of the Captain and the two of them used to orchestrate all the activities within the golf club, included the administrative, the social and sport ones.
Today, as yesterday, the Secretary is at the very heart of the club (which is often a sport club partnered with a real estate company). It is from the Secretary that many initiatives related to the management of the club, of its services and of the ROUTE take their source.
Its relationships are manifold and complex. The ownership of the club is represented by the Members assembly and by the board of directors (elected by the members). Its task is to set the goals to be achieved. The Board of directors is usually divided into two branches: The Sport Committee and the Technical Committee. It goes without saying that the Board of directors can appoint other committees with specific tasks but the two previously mentioned are always there. The administrative and managerial sides of a club are then assisted by the operational and organisational aspects which are looked after by employees and technicians such as:
The Green keeper or Superintendent: he is in charge of the maintenance of the ROUTE; the bar and restaurant manager and his staff, the Secretary’s office employees, the cleaning and maintenance staff of the club house, the person in charge of the pro-shop, the professionals and the caddie-master. In this respect the secretary plays a key role because he is the operational arm of the Board of Directors but he is also the speaking partner for all those people working in the club.
Put it that way it might sound limited but if you think it over, you’ll understand how skilled the secretary needs to be to cope with such manifold tasks. In order for him to co-operate successfully with the Green keeper, for example, he must have a smattering of agronomy; to run the Secretary’s office, he needs to know all the updated provisions on administrative matters; to manage the sport side of the business, he must master thoroughly the rules of golf and so on. Maybe in no other sport a single person is required to have so many skills and competences on so many different fields. Besides the technical specific skills, it’s his perfect relational skills and his rightness which make the best secretary out of a person. He needs to work actively with the Board of directors when carrying out its orders but he needs a certain level of determination and authority when choosing the best reference partners ever to fulfil the duties received by the Board. It’s not a question of merely carrying out the orders of the board of directors: this would only minimize the key role played by the secretary within the company.
Additionally, as every good boss, the Secretary shall be estimated and appreciated by his subordinate staff. He is the secretary himself who shall work in order to deserve esteem and trust from the people surrounding him. His decisions and his language mirror his ability to solve problems and to behave properly in every situation.
Worth being mentioned is also the relationship the Secretary has to his club members. There are over five hundred people with different backgrounds, education, character and culture the secretary has to deal with every day. He has to put the disputes among the members right and to work as an advisor when a player experiences hard times. The secretary has also to reproach the members who do not respect the rules.
To sum up, a good secretary must be good at listening to other people and at obeying; he has to be a leader, impartial, objective and technically skilled. At the same time a good amount of public relation along with professional skills are required in the golf environment.
Do you come to know a more eclectic job than this?
For further information: Italian Association of Golf Technicians
