PGA News

The PGA has renewed its partnership with leading golf accessory brand Asbri Golf for another three years, thus reinforcing a long-standing relationship that began with the company’s sponsorship of The PGA’s Welsh National Championship in 2013.

Under the new agreement, Asbri Golf will shift its focus from tournament sponsorship to providing wider commercial support and branded accessory solutions for the Association’s Members and PGA branded properties. As part of this renewed partnership, Members will continue to benefit from exclusive own-use discounts on Asbri’s personalised PGA Member luggage range, alongside several in-season offers and promotions.

Additionally, Asbri Golf has played a key role in the development and launch of the newly unveiled PGA Shop, an exclusive online store offering high-quality, customisable merchandise for the Association’s Members. Through this initiative, Members can purchase premium accessories such as headcovers, umbrellas, and luggage manufactured by Asbri Golf.

Established in 2003 and based in Caerphilly, south Wales, Asbri Golf has earned a reputation as a premier logo accessory brand, specialising in custom and crested golf accessories. Operating across 34 global markets, including the USA, Canada, Australia, Korea, and the Middle East, the company continues to expand its reach while maintaining strong roots in the UK and Europe.

The company’s sales and marketing director Paul Williams said: “We have had a fantastic relationship with The PGA since our first sponsorship of the PGA Welsh National Tournament in 2013. Over the last 12 years, we have been proud to support The PGA as Title Sponsors, Official Suppliers, and now Commercial Partners. PGA Members are the heart and soul of our business, and we’re committed to reinvesting in them. With The PGA restructuring and launching exciting new initiatives, renewing this partnership was an easy decision.”

Eryl Williams, Asbri Golf managing director, echoed those sentiments. “Working with The PGA, the biggest brand in golf, is invaluable to us,” he said. “With over 1,000 PGA Members as customers, our continued investment over the next three years will support various initiatives that benefit the wider PGA community. We’re deeply grateful to our PGA customers for their loyalty and support.”

Asbri Golf will also continue its strong support of The PGA Tournament Team, providing each of the PGA Regions with on-course branding and gifts.

Duncan Rougvie, head of commercial at The PGA added: “Asbri Golf has been a valued partner of The PGA for over a decade. This renewal directly benefits our Members by providing valuable commercial support, exclusive discounts and tournament contributions that enhance the experience, ensuring our Members receive tangible value and support.”

 

PGA agrees tournament partnership with The QHotels Collection

The PGA has significant step forward in delivering top-tier tournament experiences and benefits for its Members by agreeing a partnership with The QHotels Collection, the UK’s largest premier golf resort owner and operator. 

With seven resorts across the UK, boasting 11 championship courses, The QHotels Collection has firmly established itself as a leading destination for golf. From hosting high-profile tournaments at Slaley Hall Hotel, Spa and Golf Resort, to investing in cutting-edge driving range technology at multiple locations.

As part of the agreement, PGA Tournaments will be hosted at The QHotels Collection venues from 2026, ensuring events take place at some of the country’s top championship courses, including Forest Pines and the aforementioned Slaley Hall.

Beyond hosting PGA tournaments, The QHotels Collection investment will also contribute to the financial sustainability of PGA events including supporting prize funds – a commitment aligned with the commercial aspect of The Associations’ five-year tournament strategy.

Keith Pickard, Golf, Health Club & Spa director at The QHotels Collection and PGA Member, commented: “We are incredibly excited to partner with The PGA. This collaboration marks a significant step forward for golf in the UK, reinforcing our commitment to investing in the game’s future. By working together, we are creating more opportunities for players, professionals, and enthusiasts alike, ensuring that golf continues to grow and thrive across the country.” 

As part of its long-term vision, The QHotels Collection will also play a key role in grassroots golf, employing and supporting numerous PGA Members across its resorts. This provides vital opportunities for PGA Professionals to grow the game through coaching, club management, and event activation, ensuring golf continues to thrive from the ground up.

Duncan Rougvie, head of commercial at The PGA commented: “Our partnership with The QHotels Collection is a testament to our commitment to elevating tournament golf and delivering enhanced playing opportunities for PGA Members. As we have communicated previously, our wider tournament strategy is a long-term project, but this agreement is a huge step forward, providing value for our Members both in the short and long term.”

   

Master Professional Mankert’s venture is flying high

The roar of the gigantic rocket grabs the attention as you prepare to tee off at Leicester Golf Centre. Nearby, UFOs emit a piercing screech as smoke drifts into the air. It’s golf, but not as most of us know it.

This is just one part of Anders Mankert’s extraordinary, expanding kingdom at the Midlands’ club – a world without barriers when it comes to playing golf. “I have no rules at all” is Mankert’s simple mission statement.

Mankert has recently earned PGA Master Professional status and in doing so joined an elite 65-strong band that includes the late John Jacobs, Pete Cowen and Denis Pugh. His elevation to his professions’ highest level is matched by that of golf centre, however. Less than a decade ago, the site once known as Oadby Golf Club had long been out of use. Cut greens had become piles of thistles, and waist-high grass swamped what had once been shaped fairways. “The place was completely abandoned,” recalled Mankert.

Fast forward less than eight years, and the landscape has been completely transformed. The woodland golf course has been revived and is enjoyed by many; a ‘spectacular’ 16-bay Toptracer range is regularly filled with every type of golfer; and last but not least is Mankert’s latest baby: a space-themed adventure golf course designed to thrill and captivate players.

The whole site is a triumph: a shining beacon of creativity and endless hours of hard graft. And what makes Mankert’s masterpiece all the more amazing is the circumstances in which the whole project came about.

In the years prior to the launch of Leicester Golf Centre, Swedish-born Mankert had served as the Head Professional at nearby Cosby Golf Club, often working seven days a week and at times having to back himself along the way.

“When I came in, I refurbished the pro shop and I built a studio,” said Mankert. “All of a sudden, we’d got a thriving business and were pulling in people for lessons from all over the country.”

Recognition for the long hours and the quality of his service came from The PGA when he attained Fellow status. There was also an England Golf Lifetime Achievement Award.

But facing challenging circumstances at Cosby, Mankert began exploring new opportunities, and the beginning of a new chapter began when he met with the board of Leicester Racecourse to discuss its adjacent land that had once been home to Oadby Golf Club.  Up against more established companies, he tendered for the opportunity to breathe new life into the overgrown and neglected site.

“I just thought to myself, I’m all in here. I’m going to try and get my own place and I’m never going to have to work for a golf club committee ever again. It was a bit of a David versus Goliath situation – it genuinely was. I actually got to the final two,” he said.

Mankert brought ideas and passion in spades, but industry machinery and know-how – not to mention significant finance – were other important factors in the decision-making process. In the end, the racecourse told Mankert that they loved what he brought to the table but plumped for a company that already owned other golf courses.

That could have been the end of it, but a few months later and curiosity got the better of Mankert. He decided to look in at Oadby, where a lack of activity was immediately evident. “There hadn’t been a spade put in the ground,” he revealed. Acting on the spur of the moment, he called the racecourse. His suspicions were soon confirmed that very little was happening to revive Oadby as a

golf club. Not many more words were spoken before the voice at the other end of the phone asked: “I don’t suppose there’s a chance you’d be interested in a conversation again, would you?”

Mankert barely paused to answer, and the following morning he was back in front of the racecourse board.

“I stood and told them exactly what I was going to do; I told them exactly what I wasn’t going to do,” he said. “I made not one promise that I couldn’t deliver. Everything I promised them, I knew I could deliver. I was just straight – and that’s the easiest way to do business.”

Negotiations progressed positively, with both parties keen to make it happen. But behind the scenes, Mankert was scrambling as hard as he could to put the necessary finances in place.

“Anything of value had to go,” he recalled. “I literally sold everything I had including my car and even my watch.”

He was also prepared to risk the roof over his own head. As part of the deal, Mankert offered the family house as a personal guarantee against the lease he hoped to take on.

“Everybody I spoke to advised me not To do it – but I did it,” he said. But thanks to the thoughtfulness of the board at Leicester Racecourse, the agreement did not end up factoring In Mankert’s home. He was told the racecourse was not in the business of putting people under undue pressure, and, for them, it was important that the reference to the house be struck out.

“That’s the people I’m dealing with,” said an eternally grateful Mankert. “They’ve been above board, straight down the line, transparent from the beginning.”

With hands duly shaken at a crunch meeting, he informed Cosby of his change of career plans but was able to continue working at the club during 2018, dividing his time between there and Oadby for much of that year. At Oadby, his first objectives were to try to find the golf course among the undergrowth and to get going with a bells-and-whistles driving range.

“I was teaching at Cosby from seven in the morning till 12,” he said. “I would then drive to Oadby and jump on the mower. So would my dad, so would my wife – and we would mow from 12 till five. Then I would change back into a golf shirt, go to Cosby and teach there until eight o’clock. And I would repeat that seven days a week.”

By October 2018, Mankert was able to leave Cosby and throw open the doors at Leicester Golf Centre. The Toptracer range was the initial offering; by the following spring, the golf course that Mankert had been “quietly bringing back to life” was available to play. And right from the start of the business, he offered an open-arms approach to all who wanted to use the available facilities.

“I created a golf centre without rules,” he said. “There’s no dress code. If they want to play in football shirts, I don’t care. If you’ve got two guys and they’ve got one golf bag, crack on and have a good game.

“It’s supposed to be something everybody is enjoying. Some of these rules that we’ve had to adhere to are nonsensical, and I just thought I’m going to do away with it all. I’ve tried to build a place that I would like to visit myself. There is no barrier to golf at all at our place. I even provided free clubs for people to come and use the range if they didn’t have their own equipment. There was no reason why

you wouldn’t come and have a go at the game.”

With his own studio for fitting and coaching, Mankert soon had a full diary to juggle alongside running a blossoming business. But everything he had put blood, sweat and toil into was threatened in spring 2020 when the government ordered the first lockdown

in response to the Covid pandemic. For Mankert, being forced to stop trading was “a complete nightmare”.

He said: “Unlike your typical members’ clubs, where you would have the safety net of subscription fees coming in, we had nothing. We had to sit down and work out how long we could survive. And I remember it was the following September – that was our deadline. That’s how long we had in terms of finance left to exist.”

And yet he still refused – literally – to let the grass grow under his feet.

“Me, my 75-year-old dad and my wife carried on mowing the golf course, raking bunkers. Somebody had to, we had no staff to do it,” he said.

Somehow, during lockdown, he also found a way to commission an overhaul of the greens. With a now-or-never mindset, Mankert had the surfaces dug up and re-laid with purpose-grown turf.

“The people, when they returned, could not believe the fact that the greens were now beautiful whereas they were pretty poor when we’d shut down,” he said.

Mankert has constantly sought to upgrade everything. Along with the on-course improvements and the ever-evolving, state-of-the-art range complex, he has built an outdoor seating area with a canopy roof and turned the old golf shop into a café. Pride in his creation is understandable.

“It’s a fantastic facility and it is busy – one of the busiest in the country. It’s ridiculous, partly because of the location, but also standards are everything to me. Our standards are very, very high. The golf balls on the driving range have to be clean, and I mean squeaky clean, when they come out. The mats have to be right, the tables wiped. It is attention to detail,” he said.

One aspect that Mankert does not mention is own endless drive. Talk to him for five minutes and his enthusiasm for the place is like a force field. Often, he can be found pottering around the place admiring its animatronics or some other aspect of the space-themed project he dreamt up.

“There’s nothing like it,” he said. “Certainly not in the UK, possibly Europe. I love going in, it doesn’t really feel like work. I walk around and chat to customers, just saying good morning to people, seeing how they’re getting on and making sure they’re having a good time.

“That’s not a job. It took an awful lot to get to this point, but it’s a great fun place to be.”

Not that Mankert is ready to sit back and start taking things easy. This is a man with new galaxies to explore. “I’m only 51,” he said. “We’re just getting going here now!”