Golfing guru sets out to increase fold

Jamie McIsaac could be described as something of a golfing evangelist.
The Masterton club pro has fostered a passion for the game even before he developed pimples.
Now he wants others to see the light and convert so they too can spend their Sunday mornings paying homage to the fairways and bunkers of the region's hallowed courses.
He's certainly putting the effort into making that dream become a reality and these days is a familiar face on the greens from Castlepoint to Featherston as he clocks up the hours and miles on what he considers his mission "to create positive golf experiences" in the Wairarapa.
"Anyone can be good at golf with the right attitude and instruction, but like any kind of sport you've got to set goals," he says.
Hot on the heels of an incredibly successful ProAm run jointly by Eketahuna and Masterton golf clubs, which attracted 37 teams, and the growing popularity of the annual Holden Scramble tournament where the Wairarapa event was the biggest local event in New Zealand McIsaac is hungry for more and is clearly taking his own advice to do so.
McIsaac is playing good golf as well, recently equalling the Featherston course record and coming 5th in the Wairarapa ProAm - the best placing for a club pro and a more than respectable achievement for someone who spends most of his time helping other people's games rather than his own.
"I'm not into sitting in the shop," he says.
"I still love playing the competitive golf and I'm committed to learning myself - I'm constantly retraining too."
So is he a good teacher to others?
The reply from McIsaac is a confident "Yes", listing patience and encouragement as the two golden virtues in getting someone to perform the perfect swing to improve their game.
"People learn differently, so you've just got to find the way they learn best and it's motivating for me when I see people improve or someone comes and tells me that they've just played their best round."
The NZPGA qualified pro did his own hard yards as an apprentice at Wellington's Manor Park under then New Zealand coach Mal Tongue.
During the time earning his spurs the apprentice worked for five years as the Wellington junior development officer - establishing the Michael Campbell Junior Classic ? a coveted event for up and coming young golfers, before which no tournament was on a par.
After a year commuting between Wellington and Masterton a full time position at the Masterton club came up and McIsaac along with partner Bronwyn Cooper moved to Greytown to start afresh.
It was then that the pro felt he had the freedom to develop his coaching into something more directed at the bigger picture.
"We always had the pro shop for equipment and repairs, but we saw that the demand was definitely there to develop other club services which were not just for Masterton."
But coaching up to five lessons a day, running the pro shop, golf clinics and doing repairs while trying to get around as much of the region as possible as a one-man band were all beginning to take their toll - so it was decided that Bronwyn would come on board full time to help develop the coaching and repairs business into a company that dealt with everything to do with golf.
"We think of it as me working on the business while Jamie works in it," Bronwyn says.
"Bron brought structure to the business," McIsaac adds.
"A lot of pros fail in business because to become a pro you have to live and breathe golf, and while they know the game they don't know how to structure a business plan. "Having lots of ideas is useless unless someone is driving them, so now Bron has the whip."
One of the first things the pair did was to take on local pro Jimmy Napier to help with the coaching load so McIsaac was free to develop other aspects of the business - particularly junior golf.
"The focus now is very much on schools.
"Traditionally golf has been viewed as an old person's sport, but it's changing and with players like Tiger Woods around golf is now seen as much cooler.
"We are planning a programme now to run introductory golf courses in schools so in time they'll go into clubs."
Add this to the free junior clinics run on a Sunday for the 100 younger members of the Masterton club, and the junior players are well catered for.
A hard-core group of "range rats" who loiter at the course gleaning advice and know how whenever they can are added testimony to that.
But supporting all clients is a high priority if the success of the business is to be ensured, says Bronwyn.
"We're small fry, but we can compete because we promote the service part of it too.
"When someone buys a product we have a vested interest in their success so we want to be able to support them."
The future is looking rosy for McIsaac who has just been elected to the NZPGA board, New Zealand's governing body for professional golf.
It is a position the pro was elected to by his peers, illustrating the respect he has earned in his profession - a reflection McIsaac says of his passion for what he does.
"I'm lucky I've had something I've been really passionate about since I was nine-years-old, and I'm in a job where the majority of people I deal with are in a good frame of mind because it's their recreation time.
"I'll always be involved with golf because it's a sport for life? that's the beauty of it. If I was a professional rugby player I'd be finished by the time I was 35.
"But it's also challenging, you're not given a good game of golf, you have to earn it and there's no such thing as an easy round; but any one can play a golf shot that's as good as any professional's in the world.
"People can say 'that shot was as good as Tiger Wood's', and that's why it's so addictive, because you're always striving for that next big shot."