Page 38 - GBC summer English 2025

At the 2024 Golf Business Canada Conference & Trade Show, a record number of delegates submitted ideas in advance for
the Great Canadian Idea Share that showcased their best proven money-saving and
revenue-generating ideas. The top 10 semi-finalists were chosen and they presented
their ideas live during the event with delegates voting for their favourite ideas.
It was a competitive process with many creative and impressive ideas from members
across the country. The top 5 finalist ideas will be featured in the Golf Business Canada
magazine. Compliments of Tee-On Software, each of the 5 finalists received a gift card
from Home Hardware, with the winner walking away with a cool $5,000 gift card!
2024 Finalist Streamlining Inventory Management with ChatGPT: A Game-Changing Experience
James Presnail, Monaghan Golf Inc., BC
2024 Winner : Let’s Just Give It Away
Brad Halyk, The Greens at Renton, ON
Finalist : High School Community Outreach
Tom Doull, Morgan Creek Golf Course, BC
Finalist : Building Teams and Memories
Through a Unique Progressive Dinner Outing
Bryan Ewart, Osoyoos Golf Club, BC
Finalist : Streamlining Inventory
Management with ChatGPT
James Presnail, Monaghan Golf Inc., BC
Finalist : Staff Golf Scratch Card
Brian Schaal, Copper Point Golf Club, BC
For over 20 years, I have built a
reputation for generating uncon-
ventional, problem-solving ideas that
improve efficiency. However, from
2003 to 2022, I lacked the technical
skills to bring them to life, often
relying on developers that were both
costly and time-consuming.
That changed in 2022, when I
discovered ChatGPT. For someone
bursting with ideas but without a
coding background, it was a game-
changer, bridging the gap between
my vision and the technical execution,
and enabling me to build my own
solutions.
After a key manager left, leaving
a gap in inventory and retail
management, our president, Tom
Monaghan, expressed concerns about
the large inventory on hand and the
need for daily updates. Managers
were tasked with emailing inventory
reports, which Tom manually
consolidated into a spreadsheet, an
inefficient and tedious process.
During a call, I confidently stated,
“I’ll automate this—it’ll be easy.” I
had no idea how to accomplish it, but
I knew it was possible.
Using ChatGPT, I automated
inventory reporting across five golf
courses. Each day at 6 a.m., we receive
emails with attachments containing
inventory data. I asked ChatGPT to
write code that finds these emails,
downloads the attachments and saves
them to a Google Drive folder.
ChatGPT provided a Google Apps
Script that worked immediately.
With ChatGPT’s help, I refined
the system to standardize file formats,
extract inventory, calculate totals by
course and SKU category, and update
a master spreadsheet each morning.
I also used ChatGPT to create a
daily summary chart including total
inventory, day-over-day changes,
category breakdowns, and a light-
hearted joke for engagement.
This project exemplifies how
tools like ChatGPT empower idea-
driven individuals to build practical
solutions that meet operational needs,
in an efficient and cost-effective
manner.
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Golf Business Canada