What is it like being an ICL Scholar?

ICL Scholar Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes, deputy course manager at Scotscraig, was invited to attend Continue to Learn at BTME 2018 as an ICL Scholar. With applications opening for the 2019 edition of the scholarship, Michael talks us through what the experience was like.

The ICL scholarship was priceless as I’m at a golf club where they can’t afford to put all of the staff on Continue to Learn for a full week, due to the cost. That’s one of the main reasons I applied for the scholarship, because I knew the club couldn’t afford to send me to Harrogate. 

It was the first time I’d been to BTME in eight or nine years. Not because I haven’t been interested, but because I haven’t had the time and couldn’t afford to go down. When you add up the cost, including a hotel for the week, and therefore what ICL and BIGGA do for anyone in my position or the hundreds of golf clubs around the country, it’s just priceless. It benefits your career, just those two or three days, because you take so much away from it. 

The three seminars that I picked have benefitted me so much, especially the main workshop that I did with Lee Strutt which focussed upon budgeting in golf course management. 

Like Lee said, no course manager ever gets taught how to handle a budget, they just get given an amount of money and they have to teach themselves. So that workshop gave me a better understanding and it meant that when I came back, Chris Barnard, the course manager here at Scotscraig, has been able to get me involved with the budgeting process of running the golf course. That’s not just the overall budget for the greenstaff, but also breaking things down, like the sand and fertiliser budgets. If I was lucky enough to get a course manager position elsewhere, I’d certainly be in a stronger position because of that. 

I also did a workshop on chemical properties within the soil. That was something that I haven’t really dabbled in and it was quite intense. We looked at exchanges in the soil, that sort of stuff and I wanted to get a starting level of what’s involved with that. It’s something that really intrigued me and although it may not benefit me here right now, it may in the future.

The final seminar I did was with the STRI, looking at nature around golf courses. That was fantastic and obviously because I’ve been doing environmental work here, that was a no-brainer. But one thing that surprised me was hearing about the number of organisations I didn’t know about, the amount of trusts and volunteers who offer their time for nothing. Funding ideas. That workshop was fantastic and it has opened up a number of opportunities for me. I was also able to bring back some ideas which I have implemented into my three-year course development plan. There’s more resources now that I am able to tap into, which is going to benefit the course going forwards. 

ICL were great the whole time. They took us out for a meal on Tuesday night, which was a great networking opportunity. Obviously the scholarship was only in its second year, so they are constantly looking at ways to improve it. I’m sure it will be even better this time around. 

The application process was pretty straight forward. You filled in a survey about how you think it will benefit you and your golf club. The club was happy to support me as they are always encouraging us to push outselves forwards. Applying was a really simple process, and the career development opportunities it provided are priceless.