Peter Berman – Owner and Director

Scratch Golf

	@ScratchGolfShop
	@PetetheGolfPro
	scratchgolfshop

What led you to becoming a PGA Professional?	Since my teens I have always had a strong desire to be involved in the game of golf. Obviously when you’re young, you have this idea of playing on tour but as time progressed I realised that my passion for coaching and golf retail would be the best avenues for me to excel in the sport. I joined the PGA in 2003 as an apprentice and the past 17 years have absolutely flown by.
How long have you been in your current position?	We opened Scratch Golf back in 2010. The business has grown so much in that time. We officially took over the Knysna Driving Range in 2015 and have done extensive work on improving the facilities over the past 5 years.
What does your job entail?	I have been very fortunate in my professional career. I was lucky enough to learn from one of the best mentors in the game, in Jeff Clause,  who taught me so much about business and personal relationships. I don’t have a job thankfully but rather an incredible opportunity to pursue my passion. On a daily basis I am running my retail store which includes merchandising, checking in of stock, customer engagements and club fittings. The other half of the day is spent mostly on our range where I have a wonderful data base of students from all over SA and the world. I coach a variety of skill levels and have been incredibly fortunate to work with several tour players and elite amateurs who’ve won many tournaments both here and abroad.
Do you have any environmental or sustainability goals that you have met and would like to share?	We run our businesses as eco conscious as possible. We recently opened an Eco car wash at our range that only uses captured rain water from our tanks and bio friendly cleaning products. On a personal level, I decided to turn vegetarian about 5 years ago and this was definitely the right decision for me.
Please give us a brief outline of the path you took to lead you to your current position	I joined the PGA Apprentice program in 2003 and qualified in 2006. In that time I have worked on the range as a teaching assistant, in a store as a club fitter and salesman and spent 4 years at a golf club running the pro shop, managing golf bookings and looking after members and guests. After all that I decided to open my own retail business in Knysna dedicated to having the widest range of golf products, best service and professional expertise. 10 years later our business has grown tremendously and we now have one of the best stocked shops in the country and an incredible practice facility. I currently employ 3 PGA Professionals who are the heartbeat of Scratch Golf and are doing amazing things inside the business.
Why do you feel that you would be a good candidate to win this award?	This is an incredibly tough question to answeras ultimately there are always a number of strong candidates. To me it’s not about what you’re doing in the game that separates you from the others, but more about the passion you have and the personal fulfillment you get from doing what you do. Like I said before, this game has been so good to me over the years and I’ve been so fortunate in my career so far.