A MAN took to the road yesterday in a last-ditch effort to save his budding golf gift voucher business.
Leo Hassett is hitchhiking from his home in Clonakilty, Co Cork, to Dublin, Galway, Limerick and back over two days, all while wearing a white golf caddy suit, carrying a giant gift voucher and giving a €50 voucher to anyone who stops to pick him up. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “Who knows what will happen if this doesn’t work – maybe I’ll end up on the dole?” A year ago he left his job as a hotel manager to start his business, The Golf Voucher Shop, which sells vouchers for playing on any course nationwide.
He opened the business shortly after Christmas, missing out on the best part of the year for gift-buying, and “right when the recession got really bad”, he said.
Father’s Day is his latest pitch.
Of Ireland’s 250,000 golfers, 80 per cent are men, Mr Hassett said. “Before the recession people were going absolutely crazy spending money, especially for gifts and stuff. Now consumers are putting a bit more thought into what they are buying.”