PGA Master Professional John Mulgrew has enjoyed a long and varied career and this year he will step aside from his duties. The Scot, who will turn 80 in October, has played a crucial role with The PGA for a number of years, not least helping to create the PGA Director of Golf Programme in 2007.
“I managed to persuade The PGA to allow me and two other gentlemen, brothers Julian and Mansell Richards, to set up the programme. We put together a proposal to create the PGA Director of Golf Programme, and the main aims were to give PGA Professionals a means of developing their management skills and to provide those working in senior management roles with the opportunity to gain formal recognition for the management expertise they already possess and use,” explains the 79-year-old.
Mulgrew has been a PGA Professional for over 60 years, and now lives just outside Glasgow, but his first job was down in Worthing on the south coast in 1964.
“The funniest part about it was I that I didn't even tell my mother and father that I'd applied for a job. We didn’t have a phone in the house but I was asked to make a call down south and they told me that I had got the job.
“My father said that I couldn’t go all the way down there but my mother suggested that I couldn’t give up such a chance so I caught an overnight train to London and then on to Worthing. I couldn't believe the place, all those big houses.”
Mulgrew opened the first dedicated driving range in Scotland at the Normandy Hotel in Renfrew and, in 2010, he became one of a very select band when he was awarded Master Professional status.
Pictured: PGA Member John Mulgrew
Of the driving range he recalls: “We were very close to the river and some housing schemes and we lost an awful lot of golf balls. So eventually I just got them stamped with ‘Stolen from John Mulgrew’.”
In 1973, he would play with a 15-year-old Sandy Lyle in Open qualifying at Royal Troon: “I birdied the 1st but then four-putted the next. Sandy was hitting it 40 yards past me! The following year he would qualify at Lytham.
“I never considered myself a professional golfer. I was a golf professional. In other words, I wasn’t that good at playing but I was far better at helping out.”
The modest Mulgrew is rightfully proud of his achievements in setting up the PGA Director of Golf Programme.
“It always annoyed me because the Professional was the one person that knew everything about the golf club. They were very much involved in the running of the club but some places didn’t want to know about that. It annoyed me.
“So I helped to get The PGA to do our own programme. It took a few years to get the OK for doing it and, to begin with, we had maybe 20 to 30 Professionals just to see if they could come to do it and that worked out very well.
“I never considered myself a professional golfer. I was a golf professional. In other words, I wasn’t that good at playing but I was far better at helping out" - John Mulgrew
“In Scotland, most of the golf clubs are private golf clubs. But in England, for example, there could be so many different aspects of it. It could be all the different places where it's not simply a golf club and, countries like America, the PGA Director of Golf Programme is hugely beneficial."
“John has been instrumental in shaping the PGA Director of Golf Programme from the very beginning. His insight, commitment and passion for developing PGA Professionals have been invaluable, and the impact of his work will continue to be felt for many year," commenting Mark Skinner, PGA Head of Business & Management.
"We are immensely grateful for the dedication and care he has brought to the programme, and his long involvement reflects the genuine value he continued to add for the members taking part”.
Mulgrew has remained very much a part of the programme, becoming a long-term contributor, lecturer and marker. But, now, his unstinting efforts will come to a very well-earned close.
“I’ve been saying to The PGA for maybe the last 10 years, you won't be worrying me if you say it's about time for finishing. But they’ve just kept on saying, no, no, we need you for this, that and the next thing which was always very welcome.
“I'm a guy who wasn’t that good at playing but I always felt that I could understand people and help them and I used to say don't be afraid to give me a phone or whatever, I'll always be available,” he said.
With those solid foundations in place, the Director of Golf Programme continues to evolve, supported by an experienced team of assessors committed to upholding the standards John helped to establish.
The next cohort will begin their journey soon, with the next online induction day scheduled for Wednesday 18 March 2026
