Over the last few months, “I have had two people come and tell me that I have saved the lives of their loved ones, but all I did was introduce them to golf”, says Tim Kelland who is the current New Member Ambassador at Pontypridd Golf Club.
Tim, who has just retired after over 40 years working as an accountant at NHS Wales, believes that sport is the answer to how we address the huge challenges facing the NHS today. Tim is urging the key decision-makers to look at sport as a serious solution to help protect our NHS, and recommends shifting public money into sport, even if this means reducing spend on the NHS.
Tim explains: “The NHS has become a victim of its own success. New drugs and technologies are now keeping many people alive today who just a few years ago would not have survived, and many of these patients consume vast amounts of money. This, together with an aging population, is undoubtedly going to mean things are going to get a lot worse unless we take preventative action, and simply throwing more money directly at the NHS will not be suffice.”
The NHS continues to be at breaking point. Diabetes, obesity and mental health are huge contributing factors, but Tim believes with resources targeted more effectively we can reduce the pressure the patients with these conditions are placing on the NHS.
Tim says: “I am sure that if we were to spend more money on prevention, we would spend less on treating people and get a much better return for our investment.”
Tim believes that the key public sector decision-makers need to examine in more detail the effectiveness of the current public sector funding allocations.
Tim added: “In a health context we need to understand what allocations are having the greatest positive impact on the health of our populations and ensure resources are targeted appropriately. This may even mean shifting of financial resource away from the NHS to other public sector departments.”
Around fifteen years ago Tim experienced a significantly challenging mental health experience due to a serious bout of clinical depression which debilitated him for nearly a year. Despite many years of medication and numerous mental health interventions from the NHS, Tim asserts that it was golf that made him well: “Walking round a golf course concentrating on the game gave me four hours respite from the dark place that I was in, mixing with playing companions and the physical challenge of our golf course got me out of my black hole and massively helped my recovery.”
In his professional role, Tim has witnessed the significant growth in antidepressant spend, experienced by NHS Wales over the last few decades, and questions whether this spend has delivered the best health outcome for those patients. Tim suggests that sport offers a far more cost-effective alternative for many of these patients which should be considered.
Tim was so convinced that sport is the solution to the challenges facing the NHS that last year he offered to become the New Member Ambassador at Pontypridd Golf Club. Through several initiatives that were introduced, the club has seen an increase in the number of people playing with, many reporting positive improvements to their health, including two who have fed-back that golf has been “lifesaving”.
Tim says: “As I drive through the villages of south Wales, I see sporting facilities not being used. Many of these, particularly golf courses, lie idle most of the time, with many experiencing significant financial challenges as a result, so getting more people to play is a win for all.”
With the support of Wales Golf, in 2025 Pontypridd Golf Club will be introducing two new specific programmes, one aimed at women new to golf which will be held during the evenings, and a second one being men new and returning to golf which will be held on afternoons. As well as introducing participants to golf, Tim will be looking at ways to formally capture the impact of the programmes on the health and wellbeing of the participants, which he hopes will help evidence his case and will hopefully help lead to the spread and scaling of this sort of intervention across Wales.
Wales Golf has already been embarking on delivering programmes to introduce golf to a wider audience, but Tim believes much more resource needs to be allocated to ensure greater participation in all sporting activities.
More information about the new to golf initiatives can be found on the Wales Golf website or by contacting Tim at timkelland@live.com.
