The Manor (Kingstone) Golf Club on the rural outskirts of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire began golfing life in 1991, originally conceived as a nine-hole course on farming land owned by a local family. Soon extended to 18 in 1994, the Bathew family have continued to make progress and improvements over the years in establishing one of the regions friendliest places to play golf. A society friendly venue with a strong membership and a growing social and event side too.
They don’t stand still here and when funds are available, investment is ploughed straight back into the attractive golf course, 19th hole and practice facilities.
Of late The Manor has invested in three fairway cutting robots for the greenkeeping team (more on that in a future feature), six new buggies with GPS Technology and this brand-new indoor swing room powered by Trackman IO for indoor lessons, events and custom fitting. It was time for us to catch up on their activities and who better to talk to than another new arrival, as the pro-shop team has changed too.
As you can see via the video above, the new Manor GC Head Professional is Max Marshall, a 31-year-old born and raised in neighbouring Derbyshire. Max came into golf relatively late in his teenage years following a wrist injury playing football that ended his career as a promising young cricketer. Once recovered, what were mere flirtations with golf with his family in earlier years turned into something far more frequent, soon becoming his main passion. He’s indebted to Ashbourne Golf Club for being the club that made him realise his potential and turn his career plans around.
“There was a good junior section at the time, probably at least 20 or 30 lads around my age and younger than me that were playing really decent, so they really, really inspired me to reach a good standard. It just all took off from there, I was just playing every day.”
Max had a place reserved for him studying business at Nottingham University but was already doing hours in the Ashbourne pro shop and when the professional at the time , offered him full time with the option of studying for his PGA qualification, uni took a back seat.
“Being honest at, the time I didn’t know I could do a degree in golf with the PGA, I was just concentrating on being around the club and trying lower my handicap as much as possible. So I took that opportunity to make a start on full-time golfing.”
Less than a year later in 2014, Max moved south to help a mate flat sharing in London and took a role teaching golf for the first time at the all-new Top Golf facility near the O2, at the time the first one of its kind in the UK. Max got himself in at the beginning of something special.
“From 2015/16 once word got out it just sky-rocketed, thousands of golfers through the door every day, Callaway soon took it over and TopGolf went international. I kind of got a bit lucky with that appointment.”
Max learned a lot about business during that spell and how to encourage young players and families into golf, experiences he hopes will stand him in good stead to bring just that to The Manor.
Unfortunately, and as it transpired for many, Covid came along and disrupted the momentum, Max who had thankfully achieved his PGA badge at this stage eventually finding himself back in the East Midlands again via a number of golf and non-golf roles.
He kept his hand in with coaching roles and also played competitively pretty successfully too with the Derbyshire PGA, until a chance meeting last summer brought him over to rural Staffordshire.
“I was doing some Saturday morning coaching with the youngsters at (Royal) Whiston Hall GC (Staffs) with Ken there who knows The Manor owner Sarah. She’d mentioned to him that the club were looking for a new pro, so I got in touch with her a couple of days later. At that point a full-time pro role hadn’t interested me because I wasn’t mad on the retail side of it all, hadn’t really enjoyed that part in the past. But coming here and talking to them and seeing just what a busy club it is just opened my eyes to the full potential of it and I realised also that in time I can set up a successful retail side to it as well. Here, there’s a lot of traffic through the door.”
There’s already lots for Max and his assistant Jamie to get their teeth into as well as the shop. Major changes are ongoing at the club, getting the booking system changed from Handicap Master to ClubV1 is a new process to learn and educate the members with for starters. That’s going hand in hand with the new younger team getting to know all of the Manor’s many members too and seeing how each section is organised. Max promises to get all of that out of the way before in his own words, “I go swanning off playing again!”
More of that later but what about another very new and attractive proposition at the club that a new pro and his staff can utilise?
The Manor’s indoor swing studio and Trackman IO powered Sim was opened last summer, club members and their pals have helped to make it a busy opening period and the current conditions we’re enduring (January) only goes to emphasise it’s usefulness during poor weather spells. A vital extra component to the golf club and Max hasn’t wasted a moment so far in realising it’s potential, especially to the area’s young golfers.
“We hosted a free indoor golf day for the juniors to have a try in late November. That went really well, we had 20 + here and from that we’re hoping to build a base of 25-30 juniors at the club by this summer coming. Hope to create a good friendship base from that so they all want to play and practice together and when they’re a little older they’ll have the bug like I did at Ashbourne and just want to come over and play every day here.”
The ladies section at the club is fairly well established so it’s been a case of meet and greet as many as possible, play a few holes and gather feedback. But it’s still an area of further emphasis required as the club sees it. The social side of ladies golf and the togetherness through group coaching is crucial to maintain a good section so Max has been busy here too.
“We’ve set up some group sessions, got quite a few interested and they’re dead keen to get going. It’s just a case of building the relationships again with a fresh team, it’s been good to see a few ladies coming over from other local clubs to have lesson packages with me, it’ll take time to build the sort of numbers here we want but it’s been a good start.”
Yet Max still wants to continue his playing career as much as possible, although it’s a little on the backburner right now as he sets things up at the club, the competitive fire he has always had still burns bright.
“I’m realistic with it, I mean Staffordshire is different to Derbyshire, the level is a little higher here. There are good players to compete with everywhere of course but not quite the same quantity, more established and better courses in Staffs so it feels like I’m going up a level here. Without practice it’ll be tough, last year was the most I’ve ever practiced and got me the best results I’ve ever had so obviously there’s a correlation there.
With what we’re building here with the coaching and the lesson diary filling up we’ll obviously be getting busier come March and April and finding the time to head off for four days to compete in something that might leave me coming home empty handed, it’s never an easy call.”
Midlands Golfer will be publishing an up to date Manor course review later this year, focussing on the many improvements made to the layout in recent times. Until then, here’s our review from a little while ago for a reminder of the charming nature of what they have here.
