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VIRGIN sand golfer Steven Gerrish will take over as new Head Golf Professional of Awali Golf Club next Tuesday and is looking forward to the challenge.
He is aiming to inspire the next generation of golfers and help the current crop improve their game with some timely lessons and helpful advice.
The single 26-year-old British expat, who arrives on the island with an impressive array of golfing trophies, said: “I am a very passionate golf coach and work extremely hard on all areas of the business. I hope to bring to Awali a first-class teaching service and, most importantly, improve my clients’ golf games.
“My personal aim is to be known as the ‘go-to golf coach’ in Bahrain. I am very professional in the way I teach golf and I have career goals in place that I want to achieve whilst I am working at Awali Golf Club. I want to maintain and add to the incredible history of the club and help introduce potential members to it.”
Gerrish, from Gloucestershire, started playing the beautiful game at the age of 13, and lived a few miles from Painswick Golf Club. “I started as a junior there and won numerous trophies, in fact, I won three trophies in a week once.
“The highlight was winning the Order of Merit Trophy – you win this by being the most consistent player over a golf season and I managed to take five trophies.”
He turned professional at the age of 18, off a 4 handicap. His professional highlight has been coming fourth in the Titleist & Footjoy competition at Weston-super-mare Golf Club, as well as achieving several Top 10 and Top 20 finishes.
Although he has never been to Bahrain, or the Middle East before, he had no doubts about applying for the Awali position advertised on the British PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) website.
“As soon as I saw the position posted I knew I wanted it,” said Gerrish. “It has always been a goal of mine to work abroad.”
He emailed his CV to former club captain Andy Ace McAlpine and an interview was set up. “Luckily enough Andy was in the UK in June, so we met up for a round of golf and Andy told me about Awali Golf Club and the great history it has. After talking to Andy I knew that Awali was the right move for me.”
A week later he was contacted by this year’s captain Steve Brown and offered the job which he was ‘thrilled’ to accept. “I’ve never played sand golf but I’m very much looking forward to sampling it,” Gerrish, who will be living in Juffair, said.
He replaces popular professional golfer and GulfWeekly columnist Matt Chalmers who has left Bahrain to take up the challenge of helping the Chinese to master the game.
After two ‘very happy’ years as head PGA professional at Awali where he learned to play as a schoolboy, he has moved to Beijing to assume the role of Senior Instructor at Bayhood Number 9 Golf Club’s PGA Academy.
