Scottish Golf is now in positive place, says chair Eleanor Cannon

As the “Beast from the East” gripped the country 12 months ago, Scottish Golf was hit with its own cold blast. One of the men’s Area associations mounted a legal challenge against the governing body when the bad weather scuppered an initial attempt to stage its annual general meeting. Then, when it did go ahead, a proposal to increase the affiliation fee paid by golf club members was rejected.
Eleanor Cannon is up for re-election as Chair of Scottish Golf. Picture: John Devlin.Eleanor Cannon is up for re-election as Chair of Scottish Golf. Picture: John Devlin.
Eleanor Cannon is up for re-election as Chair of Scottish Golf. Picture: John Devlin.

At the same time as job cuts were being predicted as a consequence of that decision, claims of sexism towards the chair, Eleanor Cannon, were made, while another board member, Malcolm Robertson, said people involved in the no vote should be “ashamed at their behaviour” towards her.

It was a dark hour for Scottish Golf, yet a year on – a bit like the contrast in the weather earlier in the week, in fact – the clouds have been replaced by sunshine. A second vote on the affiliation fee was passed in October following the intervention of a group calling itself “The Requisionists”, raising an additional £500,000 for the governing body.

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Using that, Scottish Golf is currently in the early stages of rolling out a new digital platform which is aimed primarily at helping member clubs maximise their revenue potential in the ongoing fight with declining membership and part of green fees from nomadic golfers going to third parties.

“It was a particularly tough period,” admitted Cannon, reflecting on that meeting at Dalmahoy this time last year, in an exclusive interview with The Scotsman. “But we have all dug in and we are in a much more positive place as a result of that. It is unbelievably rewarding and there have been lots of things that have led to that. Good people from the Areas and Counties, for instance, stepped forward (under the guise of The Reqisionists) after the initial vote and I have so much admiration for them doing that because they put their heads above the parapet. That’s the thing that turned everything around.

“The general meeting (where the £3.25 increase in the affiliation fee was passed) was extraordinary. To see the tears and joy, the applause and hugs among the Areas and Counties people when the vote came through was fantastic.”

Having steered the unified body through “turbulent” waters, Cannon is staying on at the helm. She is up for re-election on Sunday and insists resigning was never an option 12 months ago. “A second term wasn’t in my head then, but I knew I wouldn’t resign because I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do,” she said.

Referring to Andrew McKinlay having been appointed as chief executive and Iain Forsyth taking up a role to explore commercial opportunities, she added: “I was determined that I was going to get everyone in place then I was going to consider my position, but I wasn’t going to walk away.

“When ‘The Requisionists’ came forward, I was asked if the vote was ‘yes’ would I stay in the chair because there needed to be some responsibility for the money we wanted to bring in through the proposal to increase the affiliation fee. Part of me was thinking, ‘maybe everything that has happened has made me not the best person to do this’. Maybe the three of us (fellow board members Robertson and Stewart Darling) needed to say ‘our work is done’. We had a long chat about that and, while Malcolm is no longer on the board, Stewart is staying because he has the digital experience and for me I believe it is the right thing to do.”

Having filled in as chief execuive first time around, Cannon is happy be an “archetypal chair” in her second term. “In terms of what I want to see when I hang up my responsibilties, my dream is that clubs are seeing income because of the digital solution and there is a pot of money that is being re-invested into the clubs that are struggling,” she said.

“If we have a pot of money that we can distribute against criteria to do with inclusivity, diversity and the future, that would be great. It wouldn’t matter what size the pot is. The very fact it is there and growing is a legacy I would feel delighted about.”