“How can we create a golf society that is different from all others, one that will appeal to golfers of varying ability, and to those that either live here on the Costa del Sol or just regularly visit the area”... this was the question on the minds of Barry Gill and Paul Allies at the end of 2009.

I  know, let’s make it free membership, give fantastic prizes, and play all of the courses on the Coast over the next five years,” was the unlikely, yet seemingly non feasible, answer. The reality, however, as Golf in the Sun enters its sixth year is that these objectives have not only been realised, but they have supplemented all three of these desires with many other unlikely surprises during the first five years.

How had this been possible? we asked Barry.

“Well let’s start with the free membership situation,” he explains. “The idea at the time was to create a database of golfers as quickly as possible. Putting an annual fee in the way, as some other societies do, would have hampered the speed of this process considerably. Five years on and our original membership of 40 has grown to over 1,800 at today’s date, and we continue to enrol new members regularly with various new member initiatives.”

So why is it so important to have such a big database of golfers?

The reason is very simple. The bigger the database, the more likely we are of putting together a shotgun start on every golf day. This is very important for us, so that all of the players return for the 19th hole prize giving pretty much simultaneously. This has worked very well for us over the years.

But surely, even with a smaller database than 1,800, you should have no problem getting 72 players to play on each golf day?

I agree it sounds like a very small percentage that actually play, but the reality is that, whilst we do have a regular contingent who live here and join us for most golf days, a large percentage of the players just want to join us when they happen to be here. Unfortunately the majority of these members are back in their homelands for many of our golf dates. So, in effect, we have to have a large database so that on any given golf day there are enough here to join us. This is especially relevant in the summer months when many have returned home!

Okay, that explains the reason for free membership, but how can you afford to give such fantastic prizes? We understand that you give prizes to the value of over €800 at each golf day?

That is correct. Sponsorship is the key to the great prizes we are always able to offer on our golf days. This was difficult at first as we had to sell ourselves and our longer term plans to try and convince good sponsors that supporting us would be beneficial for them in the long term also. Now it is a little easier as, with a strong database that is growing substantially year on year, sponsors are more comfortable that their profile is being presented to a warm market, together with other strong brand names, via our website, regular broadcast emailing, social media and local publications.

Sounds like a successful formula. How have the golf clubs responded to Golf in the Sun?

Over the years we have built up strong relationships with most clubs on the Coast and have played the majority including Valderrama, Las Brisas, Aloha and Finca Cortesín. In fact the only reason we have not spread our wings further is generally because certain golf clubs have their members’ competition days on a Saturday, which is our preferred playing day, so a shotgun start is just not possible.

Okay, so the early dreams have been reached. Is there any other way that you differ from other golf societies?

We always look for different initiatives throughout the year. On two occasions we have held €10,000 putting competitions, at our final golf day in 2012 we offered a €50,000 Audi car for a hole-in-one, and the top player of each year has always won fantastic stay and play prizes. In the last four years these have been long all-inclusive weekends at The K Club, Celtic Manor, the wonderful Finca Cortesín Hotel, and last year’s winner won a week at Iberostar’s Son Antem Resort, in Mallorca.

Our prize in 2015, however, will be even better as we have teamed up with the Iberostar Hotel and Resort Group, who are sponsoring our “Iberostar Race to Mexico League”. This year’s top player will win an all-inclusive trip to the five-star Iberostar Paraiso Maya Hotel, near Cancun and the idyllic island of Cozumel, in Mexico. Not a bad prize! So we feel we have come a long way in five short years.  We have also been delighted to be able to offer our members great value stay and play trips in 2015 to the beautiful Costa de la Luz, with trips to Sancti Petri, Montenmedio and Montecastillo planned in the coming months.

Another aspect of our society over the years has been our support of Ciudad de los Niños, the Málaga children’s orphanage. Apart from asking our players on each golf day to contribute to our charity sweep, our final golf day of each year is dedicated entirely to raising as much money as possible for this very worthwhile charity. We hope to add further funds in 2015 to the €25,000 that we have already raised so far.

So what next for Golf in the Sun?

Hopefully we will continue to provide good value for money golf experiences for all of our members. This has always been our main objective. We thank our members for their loyalty and support over the years but always appreciate that if we do not sustain this value for money approach then we cannot expect this support to continue indefinitely. That is it in a nutshell.

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