Ramside Hall bills itself as 'A Resort for Every Occasion’. Over the past 10 years, the award-winning hotel and 36-hole resort in Durham has invested over £30m with the development of a high-end spa, treehouses and improvements to the Cathedral Course.
A significant point of difference is The Pin, a new entertainment centre which incorporates a 43-bay Toptracer driving range, six-lane bowling alley, interactive games and a huge sports bar with curve-round screens and food.
There is even more to come, with a new floodlit short-game area now taking shape, and the focus is equally on providing members and guests with impeccable levels of service as well as offering an experience that will encourage plenty of repeat custom.
PGA Professional Phil Redpath has 15 years of experience and he has been at Ramside since 2019.
Here, he outlines some of the ways in which the resort strives to provide modern hospitality for members and visitors alike in a spirit of continual improvement.
Pictured: PGA Pro Phil Redpath
Getting the initial contact right
It's about mixing the right information with the experience. The process starts as soon as they book and can you get the information across? Visitors will be told what to expect when they arrive. We have lockers available and we have a driving range so make people aware when they book.
That's the modern way. It's not just when you arrive at the club. It's as soon as you make that booking, the process from that to the day and throughout, really.
Controlling the arrival process
It's coaching the customer from booking to when they arrive somewhere and they don't feel lost.
You can arrive at a golf club and there are rooms everywhere and you're not quite sure where you're going. It sounds straightforward but, if you can take that element out of it from the start, everyone just has a better experience.
Long term we will look at getting a concierge in. So, if you book a visiting party, you will have one point of contact for the whole time.
They will communicate with you before and they'll meet with your group on the day. We can direct them to their own room for the day, the locker room and any buggies that have been allocated. We're going to focus more on that one point of contact concierge in the coming season.
Making your clubhouse a flexible area
This is very much split into sections now. We've got The Pin, which is a Toptracer driving range and sports bar so we're seeing a lot of non-golfer traffic now coming in. So people who haven't really played the game are now mixing with golfers in the sports bar.
Then across the other side of the clubhouse, we've got a traditional spike bar which is currently being renovated. The new 18th hole finishes right outside the veranda of this new clubhouse bar so that will be great and then we have two or three separate function rooms off to the side.
If we have a busy Sunday, a group of guys can go into the sports bar and, if we have a golf trip who want to do a presentation, they can have a private room off by the 18th green and that is theirs for the day effectively.
The members will have the members' bar and so we're a lot more adaptable in the experience that we can give people.
Golf clubs can be full of so many different people, you've got parents with their kids who've just done junior coaching and you've got your members and it's all about finding the appropriate space for each of them.
Everyone can tailor their own experience to get what they want from it and that all goes back to that first email and asking the right questions.
• Phil will be sharing more tips with us in Part 2 – coming soon
