TurfKeeper makes task management a breeze at Warrington Golf Club

An online software system is making the management of the golf course, from providing data on labour hours spent on each maintenance task to planning budgets, easier at Warrington Golf Club in Cheshire.

The TurfKeeper platform from Origin Amenity Solutions (OAS) has been praised for delivering new efficiencies to task allocation and stock management for the team at Warrington Golf Club. The more that course manager Ben Goodchild explores the cloud-based software, the more time-savings he finds – with holidays, consumables and labour-hours now all logged in double-quick time and reports available at the touch of a button.

Ben has held the role of course manager for the last three years and heads up the maintenance of the 18-hole James Braid designed site alongside a team of seven greenkeepers, technicians and mechanics. “I originally saw TurfKeeper demonstrated at an event in the States,” he explains, “so on my return, I spoke with Kevin Scarce of OAS and we quickly introduced it here at Warrington GC as a great way to allocate the jobs. We have a large TV on which we can project TurfKeeper so during our morning meeting we can all easily see and discuss the tasks for the day and week ahead.

Warrington GC

“While this in itself was a much more efficient way of working, it was clear that there was so much more we could potentially do with the software. It’s certainly one of those tools where the more you put in, the more you get out, so we’re now managing items like staff absence, orders, stock, machinery and budgets all through this one TurfKeeper platform.”

Driven by a desire for better information and knowledge to inform future decision making, TurfKeeper is the leading online software system to monitor and control all key areas of day-to-day operations. An integral part of turf operations around the world, new modules are being introduced regularly to reflect changing requirements and full data and reports are quickly and easily available to download – something Ben has found particularly useful.

Warrington GC

“One of the functions which has proved to be very enlightening is the greens report, which gives me a breakdown of labour hours spent on different course jobs such as divoting the fairways or looking after the bunkers,” he explains. “When you go to greens meetings and the condition of the bunkers is brought up, I can show them the numbers, which is critical in justifying why something is looking a certain way, or what is needed to raise the standard.”

Ben concludes, “What would have previously been documented in hundreds of ExCel spreadsheets is now all safely in one place not just for the team to access, but the general manager also has all of the information they want on the budget at their fingertips. When much of our job is getting more challenging, TurfKeeper is one tool that keeps things easy!”