Met Office stated on 21st July 2026, “The heat will start rebuilding across parts of England and Wales this week, with temperatures possibly approaching 30°C in places by Friday”. The 2026 hot spell has pushed the UK and Ireland into repeated heat warnings. Here is what it means for the people who keep your club running, and the one document that decides whether you are actually protected.
Compliance is expected, but the clubs that stand out hold themselves to a higher standard than the minimum. Both start in the same place. If your club has a hot weather risk assessment, the real question is whether your team has read it. During a heatwave, an assessment sitting in a folder protects no one. What keeps grounds staff, kitchen staff and members safe is an assessment every relevant person has seen, understood and acknowledged. Taking control of it does more than tick a box. It shows your team you take their wellbeing seriously, and it shows members the club is being run to a standard they can trust.
Summer 2026 has made that point hard to ignore. Through July, Met Éireann issued repeated Status Yellow high temperature warnings across a dozen or more counties and a nationwide advisory for a prolonged hot spell, while the UK Health Security Agency and the Met Office ran heat health alerts across England. Warm, humid nights and a high UV index came with them.
For most businesses that means an uncomfortable few days. For a golf club, where a large part of the workforce is outdoors from first light, it is a genuine safety issue that leadership is expected to have planned for.
What counts as a heatwave in the UK and Ireland?
The two countries use different thresholds, and knowing yours helps you act before the warnings land rather than after.
How dangerous is extreme heat, really?
Heat is often underestimated because the harm is quiet. It rarely makes the news the way a storm does, yet the numbers are stark.
There have been 2,803 estimated excess deaths across England during the summer 2022 heat-periods, the highest figure since records for the Heatwave Plan began in 2004.
Source: UK Health Security Agency & Office for National Statistics
Across all ages in England and Wales, the ONS recorded 3,271 deaths above the five-year average that summer, a rise of 6.2 percent. 2022 was also the year the UK passed 40 degrees for the first time on record, reaching 40.3 degrees in Lincolnshire. The following summer, 2023, was linked to a further 2,295 heat-associated deaths.
At an individual level, the danger escalates fast. Heat stroke sets in when the core body temperature approaches 41 degrees, and it is a medical emergency that can lead to cardiac or respiratory failure. Warning signs can appear within minutes, which is why early recognition on the course matters so much.
A club is not a single indoor office with one thermostat. It is several very different working environments at once, and heat hits each of them differently.
Greenkeeping and grounds staff are outdoors for full shifts, often doing physical work and operating ride-on machinery that demands steady concentration. Heat erodes exactly that. Starters, marshals and pro shop staff can stand exposed for hours. Kitchen and F&B teams work in spaces that are already hot before the sun adds to them. And your members and visitors, many of them older, walk 18 holes in open sun carrying a personal risk of their own.
One club, one hot day, and the range of people relying on your planning is enormous. That is why leaving heat to common sense is not enough.
More than many managers assume. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, every UK employer must assess the risks to workers, and the HSE is clear that extreme heat is one of them. In June 2026 the HSE reminded employers that heat is a hazard to be managed like any other, whether staff are indoors or outdoors, adding that “last summer should have been a wake-up call for all employers.”
There is no legal maximum working temperature in either country. That sounds like freedom, but it is the opposite. It means the responsibility sits squarely with your club to assess the risk and control it. In Ireland, the same duty applies under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
So the assessment is expected. The question the Health and Safety Authority, HSE, an insurer or a solicitor will actually ask is sharper.
This is the heart of it. A hazard written down does not make anyone safer. What makes people safer is the assessment reaching the person on the mower, in the kitchen and at the first tee, and being turned into actions someone owns.
That is the gap most clubs have. The document exists. Whether the greenkeeping team that starts at 5am has actually acknowledged it this season is a different matter. When something goes wrong, that gap is exactly where liability lives.
As James Clear observes, teams tend to “fall to the level of their systems” rather than rise to their goals. A hot weather policy is the goal. The system is what keeps it live at 6am on the third day of a heatwave, when the manager is not watching. Having a standard is not the same as holding to one.
72% of UK and Ireland clubs admit at least some of their checks, audits, certificates or training are not always fully up to date. And only 30% can produce the evidence instantly when someone asks for it. Source: Obbi Club Safery and Compliance Survey, 2024/25.
None of these need a big budget. Most are drawn straight from HSE guidance and take an afternoon to put in place.
Do not assume last year’s sign-off still counts. Push the current version to every relevant role and confirm they have read it before the next hot shift.
Move the most physical grounds tasks to early morning or evening, and build in more frequent rest breaks in shade during peak heat.
Provide cool drinking water on the course and in work areas, and encourage frequent small amounts. Set up shaded rest points for staff who cannot come indoors.
Some protective clothing traps heat and raises the risk. Review what is genuinely needed, and let staff remove it as soon as the task is done.
Make sure staff can recognise heat exhaustion and heat stroke, know it is an emergency, and know who to call. Minutes matter.
Consider messaging on tee times, water availability at the halfway house, and clear guidance for older members playing in full sun.
Is there a maximum temperature staff can be asked to work in?
No. Neither UK nor Irish law sets a legal maximum working temperature. The duty on the employer is to assess the risk from heat and put reasonable controls in place, indoors and outdoors.
Does a golf club need a separate hot weather risk assessment?
If high temperatures could affect the health or safety of your staff, members or visitors, yes. HSE guidance treats heat as a hazard that must be assessed like any other, and a specific hot weather assessment is the clearest way to show you have done that.
What are the warning signs of heat stress and heat stroke?
Heat exhaustion shows as heavy sweating, dizziness, headache, cramps and nausea. Heat stroke is more serious, with hot dry skin, confusion, a rapid pulse and a core body temperature that can reach 41 degrees. Heat stroke is a medical emergency. Call 999 in the UK or 112 in Ireland.
How often should a hot weather risk assessment be reviewed?
At least once a year, again ahead of any forecast heatwave, and after any heat-related incident or near miss. Reviewing it is only half the job. The team also needs to re-acknowledge it so you know they have seen the current version.
Compliance is expected, your standards are what you build on top.
Meeting your legal duty in a heatwave is the beginning, not the finish line. The best clubs set their standard, see where they stand, and prove they hold it, so members feel the difference even on the hottest days.
This is where Obbi Club helps. Your hot weather risk assessment lives in one place, and every relevant staff member acknowledges it from their phone before a shift. If a hazard needs an action, that action is assigned and tracked. Training, checks and incidents all connect to the same record, so the same system that keeps you compliant lets you raise the bar, and the proof builds itself as your team works.
Smarter, Safer, Stronger Clubs.
Sources
Obbi Club, The Complete Platform for Operational Standards.
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