Jun 18, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 13 segments
In this episode of the IGTM Discovery Podcast, Tom Irwin sits down with Will Hewitt from 59club to explore how data, customer feedback, and service excellence are shaping the future of golf and…
Will HewittGuestTom IrwinHostSo just give us your version, your elevator pitch for 59 Club for those listeners that don't know who you are and what you do.
59 Club was founded by an operator, Simon Wordsworth, who came out of the Belfry and was looking for an instrument to provide a really objective measurement of the performance of his team.
We're now operating in 42 countries using a model of, I guess, 10 59 Club businesses in different parts of the world.
Yes, we use mystery shopping and we use digital survey tools to gather an incredible level of detailed both objective and subjective data to provide to club managers and owners people who work in venues to help them identify if what they give to their members and guests is what they set out deliver and and biggest part of our business certainly in the uk and ireland these days is training so we will spend hundreds of days in venues working with frontline teams on developing their customer service developing their their sales etiquette so to speak um because we measure a huge number of touch points in venues and that can be anything from what happens when a a group booker phones a venue or emails a venue to try and book a group of 48 golfers in or a corporate golf day through to inquiring about membership of a gym or a golf venue through to a visitor experience, just a four ball, go into a venue, everything from the point of booking to the point they leave the club.
And if somebody has a guest journey that they want to measure, almost regardless of industry, we have the tools and the ability to do that.
In hotels, for example, there are plenty of mystery shopping companies We differ a little bit to some because we're not expert mystery shoppers.
We create what we believe is an industry-leading criteria that we measure against, and we use people who we believe are representative of the type of person who pays pounds, shillings, and pence to come and stay with you.
The training aspect, I think, is kind of, that's a real value add, isn't it? Because it's all very well saying to people, our research is telling us that these are the areas that you can improve your customer experience in.
But to then be able to give people the tools to improve that customer experience, I think is... uh is another level and you talked a bit about um about data and i think that's going to sort of form a big part of this conversation today i think what i'm hopeful we can kind of get across to listeners is that how people can use the feedback that comes from customer data and customer surveys and mystery shopping how they can actually then convert that into increased revenue and i think that's what everyone's trying to do at the end of the day isn't it that We want to be able to make more money more easily, I guess.
So just give us your version, your elevator pitch for 59 Club for those listeners that don't know who you are and what you do.
59 Club was founded by an operator, Simon Wordsworth, who came out of the Belfry and was looking for an instrument to provide a really objective measurement of the performance of his team.
We're now operating in 42 countries using a model of, I guess, 10 59 Club businesses in different parts of the world.
Yes, we use mystery shopping and we use digital survey tools to gather an incredible level of detailed both objective and subjective data to provide to club managers and owners people who work in venues to help them identify if what they give to their members and guests is what they set out deliver and and biggest part of our business certainly in the uk and ireland these days is training so we will spend hundreds of days in venues working with frontline teams on developing their customer service developing their their sales etiquette so to speak um because we measure a huge number of touch points in venues and that can be anything from what happens when a a group booker phones a venue or emails a venue to try and book a group of 48 golfers in or a corporate golf day through to inquiring about membership of a gym or a golf venue through to a visitor experience, just a four ball, go into a venue, everything from the point of booking to the point they leave the club.
And if somebody has a guest journey that they want to measure, almost regardless of industry, we have the tools and the ability to do that.
In hotels, for example, there are plenty of mystery shopping companies We differ a little bit to some because we're not expert mystery shoppers.
We create what we believe is an industry-leading criteria that we measure against, and we use people who we believe are representative of the type of person who pays pounds, shillings, and pence to come and stay with you.
The training aspect, I think, is kind of, that's a real value add, isn't it? Because it's all very well saying to people, our research is telling us that these are the areas that you can improve your customer experience in.
But to then be able to give people the tools to improve that customer experience, I think is... uh is another level and you talked a bit about um about data and i think that's going to sort of form a big part of this conversation today i think what i'm hopeful we can kind of get across to listeners is that how people can use the feedback that comes from customer data and customer surveys and mystery shopping how they can actually then convert that into increased revenue and i think that's what everyone's trying to do at the end of the day isn't it that We want to be able to make more money more easily, I guess.
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