“Core values I learnt from golf were perseverance. I have been fortunate to work in top financial companies and then join the business,” says Ariana Martin, Real Club De El Prat. Martin, a business management expert is using her business skills to work on the golf course management front. She has been in the golf industry since 2003.
Private clubs have been centres of community relationships and a nucleus to the rise of golf courses in the 1970s, 1980s. What’s changed since then is the ‘private club’ culture has diminished and exclusivity of clubs has been penalised. More and more golfers want their clubs to be friendly and promote the sport.
Real Club de Golf El Prat hosted the Spanish Open in 2015. It was founded in 1912, it’s historic and celebrates its heritage. “Our key value is our sporting past. We have hosted the Spanish Open. And what a wonderful experience that was,” Martin reckons.
At the beginning of the 1950s, a group of members of Real Club de Golf de Pedralbes, together with another club in Sant Cugat, embarked on an ambitious project to build a larger clubhouse of international standards on an estate located on the outskirts of Barcelona, between El Prat de Llobregat and the sea. The new club and its facilities were inaugurated at the end of 1955 as the continuity of Golf de Pedralbes, to which the staff and machinery were transferred. The Club kept its crest with the “Royal” status and the then-managing board with Alfonso Fabra Monteys as president.
