Page 50 - GBC spring 2016

Delegates of the 2015 Golf Business Canada Conference & Trade Show exchanged proven rev- enue boosting or expense manage- ment ideas from their facility at The 2015 Great Idea Debate.
Armed with their best ideas from this past season, each group selected their best idea and presented it on stage to Donald Tru-dope, who was
looking for his next Vice President. Thesuccessfulcandidatewasjudged by all the delegates in attendance, based on the most creative and in- novative proven idea.
Presented by Kubota Canada, the GreatIdeaDebateisoneofthemost highly regarded and beneficial com- ponents of the annual Golf Business Canada Conference & Trade Show.
The 1st place winner was given an opportunity to choose the Kubota tractor, mower, or utility vehicle of their choice. The selected Kubota vehicle will be delivered to the winning club, and will be theirs for one full season. Kubota also provided the top four winners with generous gift baskets.
The top ideas will be presented in upcoming issues of Golf Business Canada magazine.
4th Place Idea
Cost Savings By Changing To A Zamboni Fairway Cut Brian Schaal, Copper Point Golf Club, Invermere, BC
In 2015, we introduced a Zamboni cut to all the fairways, with the goal of saving time, fuel, and cost of repairs to the equipment, in comparison to the traditional diagonal/width lines cut.
After one year, the Zamboni style of cut reduces the amount of time it takes to cut fairways, reduces fuel consumption, and repairs on equipment. With the diagonal/width cut, every time the machinery approaches the second cut (rough), the reels have to be lifted, the machine has to be turned around and the reels lowered to continue the cut.
With the Zamboni cut, the reels never leave the fairway, we start in the middle of the fairway and do a clean-up lap at the end! The operator drives the machine along the length of the fairway, mowing strips from the tee to the green and from the green to the tee.
As golfers stand on the tee looking toward the green, they see long strips of light and dark turf defining the middle of the fairway, light strips on one side, and dark strips on the other side. To provide the highest level of playability we change the direction of the mowing pattern with each mowing so the grass blades remain as upright as possible.
In one year we have saved 270 hours in labour, over $2,000 in fuel and reduced our repairs to equipment by 10%.
With one year under our belt and the staff more familiar with the new maintenance practice we are excited to see what the savings will be in year two!
Golf Business Canada
Left to right:
• Cari Lynn Reid, 3rd Place Winner
• James Cronk, aka Donald Tru-dope,
Host of the Great Idea Debate
• Brian Schaal, 4th Place Winner
• Chris McNicol, 1st Place Winner
• Jill Kleovoulos, Marketing Specialist-
Residential Products & Online Media
at Kubota Corporation
• Eric Kirkpatrick, 2nd Place Winner
presented by
50Golf Business Canada