The search is on for a new golf director at the Wanganui Golf Club with incumbent Norm Rapson resigning to take up a similar position at the Palmerston North Golf Club.
Rapson will finish with the club on July 19.
Graeme Meyers, chairman of the club's board, said during his20 months at Belmont, Rapson had achieved a great deal in setting up a new structure and making it work very well.
"His personal, golfing, and management skills have been an ideal mix in achieving so much and he's earned the respect of all who have dealt with him and has made many friends," Meyers said.
"The board's already started looking for a replacement who has the skills to build on the foundation has put in place."
Rapson said his move was to a large degree for family reasons but he was very sad to be leaving the Belmont position. Ironically he had applied for the Palmerston North post before coming to Whanganui from Nelson.
He'll have the role of general manager golf with a strong commercial element to it. While the green staff will report directly to him, his focus will be on sponsorship "and getting out there promoting the club".
He told the Chronicle that a similar role could evolve at Belmont but it needed a strong membership base for that to happen.
He said the challenge for the Wanganui Golf Club was to develop itself as a community asset and to do that it probably needed to have another sport based there rather than just being a golf club.
"It's about trying to create the place as a destination because there's nothing like that here in Whanganui. But the problem is every golf club's faced with an ageing population and those numbers are in decline. All these ideas take money and there's not enough of that around."
Under Rapson's watch the Belmont club has seen membership grow, picking up more than 100 new members last year and most of them were young.
"Most of the newcomers are in their 40s. We didn't cannabalise them from other clubs. Most of them have families but are now at an age when they have more time to play. About 40 per cent of them are playing on a regular basis which is really good."
He said another positive has been the increased use of the course. He said data from NZ Golf showed that the number of rounds being played at Belmont was more than 12 per cent up on last year while NZ golf overall was down 3.3 per cent.
"So we're bucking the trend which is good news. We've got 442 financial members including 35 juniors," he said.
