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In this episode of The AceCall.ai Podcast, we sit down with Daniel Beauregard, General Manager and COO of Cataraqui Golf & Country Club—a classic Stanley Thompson-designed gem in Kingston, Ontario.

Daniel’s path from executive chef to the corner office spans decades of hands-on leadership at respected clubs like Scarborough, Oshawa, and Meadowbrook.

Now at the helm of Cataraqui, he brings a humble, member-first philosophy with a modern eye toward operational efficiency, staff empowerment, and selective tech adoption.

In this conversation, Daniel shares:

✅ How ChatGPT is already saving hours in board prep and meeting minutes
✅ Why he wishes Jonas had AI search built in—and what that could unlock
✅ The candid truth about AI fears, staff hesitation, and member privacy
✅ A vision for a future where clubs know member preferences before they even speak
✅ How Tagmarshal and GG Golf are transforming tee sheet fairness and pace-of-play
✅ His practical approach to conflict resolution, delegation, and team-building
✅ Why walking the property is still his most important daily habit

Whether you’re leading a private club today or working your way toward the GM’s chair, this episode is packed with timeless insights, relatable challenges, and forward-looking perspectives on where club leadership is headed.

🎧 Listen now to hear how Daniel blends tradition with tech, and how you can apply his wisdom at your own club—especially as AI becomes a bigger part of the conversation.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe to The AceCall.ai Podcast for more expert interviews and insights at the intersection of hospitality, leadership, and A.I. in golf.

🔗 Available on Apple, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms

How Daniel Beauregard is Blending Tradition, Team Culture, and Emerging Tech to Lead One of Canada’s Most Storied Golf Clubs into the Future

In today’s fast-evolving club landscape, the ability to balance heritage, hospitality, and modern innovation is what separates great leaders from the rest.

And while he might not say this about himself, we can unapologetically say that Daniel Beauregard is one of those leaders.

Here are the key takeaways and best practices from our conversation with him that every private club GM can apply to their own operation.

The Power of Hands-On Leadership

Daniel's background is unique—starting in high-pressure hospitality environments, including the Sheraton Centre Toronto’s commissary kitchen, before rising through the ranks at Scarborough Golf and Country Club.

“Without your team, you're worth nothing,” Daniel emphasized. “I’m thrilled to have this group with me here, and we know there's still lots to do.”

At Cataraqui, Daniel walks the range, checks in on juniors, and pops into the pro shop—not to micromanage, but to stay visible and present.

His philosophy?

Leadership happens on the ground, not behind closed doors.

Best Practice:
Create daily or weekly routines that get you out of your office and into the club environment. Member touchpoints and team visibility build credibility and culture.

Embracing AI—Carefully, But Creatively

While Daniel doesn’t claim to be an AI expert, he’s well aware of the value it offers.

He uses ChatGPT regularly to write board reports, generate meeting minutes, and streamline communications.

“It’s saving me hours. Bullet-pointed, structured—it gives me the opportunity to frame things the way I want.”

He’s also keeping a close eye on where AI could be applied further, especially in integrating with tools like Jonas and GG Golf.

One dream use case?

Asking for member data (e.g. families with kids) and getting it back in seconds—not hours.

Best Practice:
Start with small, meaningful use cases. Meeting minutes and member communications are ideal entry points for AI in club environments. Look for repeatable admin tasks first.

On Privacy and Member Trust

Like many GMs, Daniel has concerns about data privacy, particularly around storing member information in AI platforms.

“Sometimes ChatGPT pulls in things from weeks ago. I didn’t ask it to do that.”

Although there are real benefits of LLMs having a "memory" and being able to recall content and context from previous prompts and projects, he’s right to be cautious too. Because member trust is paramount in private clubs.

However, there’s a balance to strike.

Not all data is sensitive, and clubs already operate with preference profiles across pro shops, F&B, and events.

Best Practice:
Segment your data. Define what’s “safe” for automation (like tee time preferences or shoe size) and what must remain private. Communicate transparently with members and staff.

Member Service: Imagine Knowing Every Preference Instantly

Daniel paints a compelling vision: a club where a staff member can pull up a member profile at the moment of interaction—showing wine preferences, allergies, last tee time, and past purchases.

“The next time someone punches in an order with dairy by mistake, it should alert the server: Mr. Elliott is lactose intolerant.”

This level of personalization is already happening in retail and hospitality.

Bringing it into clubs could significantly elevate the member experience—without being obtrusive.

Best Practice:
Start logging member preferences consistently. Even without AI, structured data entry in your POS and CRM systems lays the groundwork for personalization.

Tagmarshal, GG Golf, and the Quest for Fairness

One of Cataraqui’s most impressive upgrades is its use of GG Golf for tee sheet fairness and Tagmarshal for pace-of-play analytics.

GG Golf’s data-driven lottery system helps eliminate favoritism and builds member trust in the booking process.

“We used to get complaints about tee times. Now, it's rare. The system allocates fairly, and everyone knows the rules.”

With Tagmarshal, Daniel’s team can show members real-time pace data—cutting through emotion and speculation.

It’s helping them protect their course, plan future maintenance, and improve the member experience.

Best Practice:
If your tee sheet is still causing friction, consider a transparent, data-based lottery. Use pace tracking to reinforce standards—and show, not just tell.

Staffing, Culture, and Training the Team on AI

Daniel is honest: not every staff member is jumping on the AI bandwagon. Some are skeptical. Others are curious but cautious.

“Once we baptize them to it, it’ll be a good transition. But we’re not quite there yet.”

His team is experimenting with AI tools like ChatGPT for report generation, and they’ve adopted digital tools like QR codes to streamline food ordering.

The shift isn’t about pressure—it’s about planting seeds.

As he noted, younger generations will come with more fluency, and over time, expectations will evolve.

Best Practice:
Identify your early adopters. Empower them to test and share wins. Don’t force AI on everyone—build champions and let results speak for themselves.

Conflict Resolution, Boundaries, and Saying No (With Grace)

As every GM knows, the job isn’t just about systems—it’s also about people. Daniel shared his approach to complaints: reframe them as recommendations.

“First thing I say: I don’t think you have a complaint—I think you have a suggestion.”

He believes in transparency, empathy, and delegation.

When a member’s request isn’t feasible, he doesn’t deflect—he explains.

And when necessary, he empowers others to step in.

Best Practice:
Train your team to say no without friction. Create scripts and scenarios to role-play how to redirect, defer, or explain decisions constructively.

Operational Bottlenecks: Emails and Admin

When asked what he’d love AI to handle, Daniel was clear: emails.

“You turn your back and there’s 30 of them. Prioritization would be huge.”

This reflects a growing theme in GM circles—AI not just for writing, but for triaging. Sorting supplier messages, marketing emails, internal reminders—it’s all ripe for automation.

He also noted a gap in back-office support.

Without an executive assistant or F&B secretary, the admin load can overwhelm managers who should be member-facing.

Best Practice:
Use AI email tools like Gmail filters + ChatGPT summarizers to sort and prioritize messages. Delegate aggressively—and automate where possible.

Evaluating Tech Without Flash

Daniel’s team is careful not to introduce technology just for the sake of it. Every investment must earn its place by improving the member experience—even if the member never sees it.

“We always ask: what’s it going to do for us? But more importantly, how will it impact the members?”

Tech like Tagmarshal may live behind the scenes, but its impact on play and operations is real—and members feel the results, even if they don’t interact with the software directly.

Best Practice:
For every new tech consideration, ask:

• Will this reduce staff burden or improve member experience?

• Is this something members will see? If not, will they feel it?

Timeless Time Management: Walking the Range and Blocking Focus Time

Daniel ended the conversation with a reminder that in the chaos of operations, time triage is the real GM skill.

He balances structured “focus blocks” with non-negotiable routines like walking the range and checking in with juniors. He uses his calendar religiously and leaves space for surprise conversations with members.

“You won’t hear a member say: I love Daniel because he’s great at email. They remember if you showed up.”

Best Practice:
Audit your calendar weekly. Block time for visibility, reflection, and catch-up. Protect your energy so you can serve at your best.

Final Thoughts: Culture First, Always

Daniel’s greatest insight wasn’t about AI or software. It was this:

“Great people create great experiences.”

Whether you’re adopting new tech or refining old systems, it’s your people who make the difference.

His approach to leadership is rooted in humility, clarity, and consistency. And that, more than anything, is what makes his insights so valuable to the industry.

👣 Try This at Your Club

• Run a “What should we automate?” brainstorm with your team

• Use ChatGPT to summarize meeting transcripts or draft board updates

• Reframe complaints as “recommendations” in member conversations

• Schedule 2 non-negotiable walkabouts per week

• Start documenting member preferences in your POS—manually, if needed

• Evaluate every new tool based on member impact, not just cool factor

🎧 Want to hear the full conversation with Daniel?
Listen to the full episode:
From Chef to COO: Cataraqui’s Daniel Beauregard Shares Timeless Wisdom On Private Golf Club Leadership In The Modern Age

Available on Spotify, Apple, and all podcast platforms.

📞 And if you want to see what Voice AI can do for your operation, call +1 (866) 838-8581 to test our AceCall Receptionist and get your free copy of The Golf Club A.I. Amplifier™.

Podcast Episode Transcription

Clay (00:02)

Welcome to the AceCall.ai Podcast where we help golf club owners and managers win with AI. Owning and operating a club today is harder than ever. So we created Simple AI Solutions and a podcast to make it easier for you. I'm Clayton Elliott.

Brad (00:17)

And I'm Brad Milligan. Together, we bring a mix of entrepreneurial innovation and decades of golf club management experience to help you optimize your club, increase profitability and elevate the golfer experience. So let's dive in.

Today's guest is a leader whose journey through the private club world is as diverse as it is impressive, spanning kitchens, clubhouses and corner offices of some of Ontario's most respected clubs. Daniel Beauregard is the general manager and COO at Cataraqui Golf and Country Club, a classic Stanley Thompson designed course in Kingston, Ontario, known for its rich heritage and competitive spirit.

Since taking the reins in 2019, Daniel has brought steady leadership and a forward thinking approach to operations while honoring the club's storied traditions. Before Cataraqui, he served as GM at Meadowbrook Golf Club, one of Canada's most architecturally ambitious courses, and spent five years leading the Oshawa Golf and Curling Club, where he built a reputation for member focused service and team culture.

But Daniel's roots in the industry go even deeper. He spent 15 years at Scarborough Golf and Country Club, the iconic East End Toronto club that was the last place I called home, in fact, in the golf industry. There he held roles working up from executive chef to F &B manager to clubhouse manager, an extraordinary climb that speaks to his work ethic and all around operational mastery. And before entering the private club world, Daniel spent more than a decade at the Sheridan Centre Toronto, honing his craft in high pressure hospitality,

as executive sous chef of their massive commissary kitchen. Daniel brings a rare combination of culinary expertise, service excellence, and executive leadership. His hands-on, humble approach and commitment to team development have left a mark at every stop along the way. Daniel, we're honored to have you with us today. Welcome to the AceCall.ai Podcast.

Daniel Beauregard (02:08)

Thank you for having me.

Brad (02:11)

pleasure.

Clay (02:11)

you're most welcome. pleasure. But, all right, Daniel. So we're going to start by, we're going to dig into, you know, the AI territory. We normally get into that at the end of these episodes, but I wanted to start with it at the beginning this time and go deep before we pivot to some of the other topics I'd like to get us into, ⁓ you and Brad and myself, we had a great conversation for almost an hour and a half, if not more, ⁓ you know, before this call. And I wanted to kind of continue it where we left off, but also expand on it and keep talking about, you know, AI and private golf club management and operations. ⁓ You mentioned that, you know, you're not too, too, too deep into the AI, all the different AI tech yet, but you're using, you know, LLMs and chat GPT, you know, pretty often it's helping you cut a lot of time out of a repetitive and rote work. But you're also watching it all closely and thinking about, you know, where are the different tech and AI tools fit in at Cataraqui.

And you mentioned you guys are also implementing some cool new tech this season. So we'd love to ask you some questions about that too and dig into that if that's Awesome. So, you know, we'll start right there. How are you currently using AI or even just experimenting with it in your club operations? And are there any tools or any tools that you and your team are testing it already or using avidly already?

Daniel Beauregard (03:17)

Sure, glad to answer.

So I think the most common tool is ChatGDP. ⁓ came ⁓ about, I think, six or eight months ago. I was chatting with colleagues in the industry and using it to your benefit. ⁓ Writing documents, reviewing the documents, ⁓ making sure that the topic was staying in line with what was being written.

⁓ to now ⁓ we're doing a lot of our meetings, you know, through teams due to COVID that started off in 2020. And, you know, this whole interaction ⁓ never stops. So some people just potentially don't show up at your meetings and ⁓ want to stay home because it's, you know, a half an hour to get to the club. And we record our meetings, we get transcripts from

from teams and we review the transcript and help chat to the GP for creator minutes and it's so simple. ⁓ know, click of a button here and there and take a few minutes to review what is actual summary that you're looking to see. Bullet point format, structured well, give you an opportunity to frame it the way you want to as well. And it's been ⁓ a huge ⁓ success on my end. ⁓

specifically at board reports and so on.

Clay (05:08)

Yeah. And I think that's, if I had to take a, an informed guess based on all the conversations that we're having, that's where a lot of the early experimentation of where a lot of clubs are using it. it's beyond experimentation at this point. It's like,

Daniel Beauregard (05:23)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (05:27)

a core tool and they're using it consistently and getting the outputs they're looking for consistently and so that's a huge you know value add that people can do themselves with the tool you know in their own hands on their phone and everyone can get on board with that. To take it a step further if you could you know

Snap your fingers, you can wave a magic wand and have one process, one major process that you have at your club completely run itself with AI or automation that you're not currently doing. You what would that be? Where would you like to see that go? Where would you like to see the tech get to?

Daniel Beauregard (06:00)

Well, the perfect example

is yesterday I went over to my membership administrator and I explained to her, I need some information on our membership that are family structured, that have children, and the data kept on getting a little bit more complicated. And I said, how long would it take for you to bring that up? Well, I got to move few things around through our Jonas system and go through things. I'm sure I could.

you know, start tomorrow morning and get it through you by midday or something.

knowingly the speed of how AI works, just in how I'm using it. If it was integrated into Jonas and I could just record what I'm looking for, I would get it within a couple of minutes. The data would be there. It would save me so much time, less time, and on the administration's point and to focus on something else. AI has the ability to streamline a lot of the work that we're doing.

And I think that we haven't even scratched the surface of that. So it'll be interesting how we can start applying these tools at some point. That's a perfect example.

Clay (07:17)

Yeah, it's, all these little intermediary steps that add up and add up and add up and turn, you know, into minutes into hours. And then if you add them on top of all the other work people have a single task could take days to actually get completed from, you know, beginning to end. ⁓ because you're not, you're doing it in one sitting, which again, if it takes hours and hours and other things come up that are important, you got to pause on that, on that project, which is an important project, but not maybe not an urgent project.

Daniel Beauregard (07:19)

Thank you.

million.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (07:48)

and are an

urgent task and the urgent things keep coming up and coming up whenever they come up, you go to address them. But then you got to pivot your mind and your focus back to the important projects, important tasks and pick up where you left off. But some with these tools, you can get these done in minutes. Yeah, if there's direct integrations.

Daniel Beauregard (07:53)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (08:08)

Yeah, that's something we're excited about ⁓ is these integrations and ⁓ like you said, it could basically scrape Jonas or any other program. ⁓ And then you have a quick database of information that again, if you're doing it manually, it would take a long time to do, ⁓ which leads perfectly into the flip side of we're all very optimistic about what AI can do at our clubs. But with new tech, there's always going to be some hesitation. So what's your biggest hesitation or fear about bringing AI?

Clay (08:09)

Cool.

Brad (08:37)

into the club environment.

Daniel Beauregard (08:39)

Well, one is.

the lack of knowledge as it's starting to gain interest. When I was over at the conference CMA in Florida in February, I went through a couple of the sessions on AI and there were some concerns about privacy. At what level do you need to start getting concerned about? Whether it's membership details or the stuff that

you integrate into the system. When I go into CHEDGTP, it recognizes me. It knows what I spoke to two days ago. And it'll come back and it'll use the terms ⁓ on a regular basis. It'll recognize that I'm at the club. ⁓ Sometimes I put stuff in it that is missing some portion of what should be included. And it takes information that I've shared with it two or three weeks ago and puts it in there.

And I start asking myself, okay, why did you go there? I didn't ask you to do that. ⁓ So those are, I think the concern is the privacy aspect of it.

But yeah, if I could be reassured, then we'd be spending a lot of money on it.

Brad (09:58)

Yeah. Yeah.

Clay (10:06)

Have you turned off your, just to start at least, have you turned off the training in your Chachi PT account to keep it private?

Daniel Beauregard (10:15)

That's something I need to look at.

Clay (10:17)

Yeah, there's, a whole bunch of settings that when you dig in and start digging around in them, you can turn things off and you can turn off the training models. know, my concern at the highest level is some of these people running a lot of these tech companies and not just chat, GPT, Google, Facebook, ⁓ and the shareholders behind them and all these things. There's, questionable intentions and questionable emotives.

that some of these people have, because they have kind of God complexes in many ways.

Daniel Beauregard (10:50)

Mmm.

Clay (10:53)

but the same time, like we're using, use Gmail, which is a Google product. put everything in my G I see email, all types of stuff. People, you know, there's a standard footer I put in my emails, which is like sensitive information is shared in email. Make sure who you're sending this to. There's the outside threats, like who might get this outside of my organization, this privy information. So that's one level of threat, but then there's just using the software, like Facebook, people posting their entire life on Facebook and pictures of their

children and where they live. And there's all types of, they said nefarious actors outside of the software, just individual rogue people that want to use this stuff for bad, which is one threat. But then there's also just the, the, the technocratic people at the highest levels and what are their plans for a lot of this software and where they're going with it. ⁓ it's, it's a tool, but

Daniel Beauregard (11:45)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (11:46)

the wielder of the tool can be neutral or not neutral, or they can have, you know, motives that don't align with our motives. So it's the nature of the beast. It's the nature of the technology we're using. have to find a balance, each one of us personally, but then also the members, like you said, these clubs to talk to members and ask what their comfort levels are and what they are okay with, what are they not okay with. I imagine if a member gives some feedback on the club, how the club can be improved or ⁓

When do they like to play or certain details or they wouldn't mind so much going into chat GPT? Cause it's nothing revealing. It's nothing they wouldn't, they wouldn't want to keep private, but like, you know, their net worth or, know, like there's certain things that maybe clubs might have, maybe not yours, but other clubs, certain private clubs would know these details about their members that the members would not like being fed into the AI system. there's definitely, ⁓

Daniel Beauregard (12:39)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (12:44)

a responsibility and a diligence that each club can engage with their team, with their board, with their owners, with their members, and figure out what is that line that people are fine with up until that point, and then that's Anything beyond that point people are not comfortable with. So I think that's an important conversation everyone should be having with all their stakeholders, owners, managers, and staff.

Daniel Beauregard (13:04)

Absolutely, because

I think that when you take a look at everything that's electronics ⁓ or computer systems or servers, ⁓ when will it be the day that someone's going to hack chat GDP or any of the AI? That's something you need to be aware of. I'm not wishing it, but I'm just saying you need to recognize that that could be a

vulnerability.

Brad (13:38)

Yeah, definitely. Privacy ⁓ is one of the number one things people bring up when we're talking about ⁓ chat GPT and just AI in general, because there is a lot of sensitive information there. ⁓ Let's shift here to your staff. ⁓ How has your team responded to the idea of AI so far? Are they curious, skeptical, enthusiastic? What's that like with your ⁓ employees at the club?

Daniel Beauregard (14:03)

⁓

I think you've touched on a couple of words, Curious, ⁓ really cautious as well. ⁓ I know there's two or three of my employees that are using CHATGTP ⁓ for the purpose of restructuring some of our reports. And we talked about Pin Locator, it's a new program that we have now for our greens.

that we, I think we started out at earlier this year and I was talking to the superintendent this morning. said, AI influence? No, it's all programmed. And I said, it would be interesting to see if there would be an AI integration and how it would work. And we are very new at this, at the club. I think we're getting to the evolution of starting to look at technology.

⁓ while we were really focusing on making sure the operations in the last three years was getting back on track. ⁓ But there's a want to move forward while there is, I think, I would say there could be a handful of staff that, you know, I'm going to get this done by someone else and I used to do it myself and, you know, the resistance of it. But once I think you baptize them to it, it would be a good transition.

But we're not there. I wish we could be getting into AI much quicker than we are now.

Clay (15:43)

Yeah, I think it's like that with just tech adoption in general. Like I think about the internet, just for example, right? Like I remember.

I was a kid and I had my first cell phone was ⁓ analog phone. had no text messaging, even text messaging ability. Then text messaging came out and we were like, wow, text messaging. And then was just, everyone had a cell phone. Once everyone had a cell phone, was like, it was amazing. And email was around that time, but email on your cell phone was unheard of. It was not something you had those two things together. And, but at the time there were people at that time,

Daniel Beauregard (16:14)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (16:22)

who were so far advanced in the tech, because they were the early adopters, they were the builders, they were the engineers. And that phase of early adoption lasted years and years until it became more normal. Then the first smartphone came out and then everything kind of grew from there. So it's happening very fast. It's all moving very fast, but I think the tech is advancing faster than the people are in general. And then there's a younger generation who are being raised on it who

Daniel Beauregard (16:44)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (16:52)

especially the young people who don't yet have work or children or mortgages or responsibilities, they can spend hours and hours and hours a day just tinkering around, exploring, playing with it, learning its limits, its possibilities. But many people that have jobs and operations and companies, it was working. Everything was working before the tech came around. So there's not as much free time to spend learning it.

Daniel Beauregard (17:15)

Right.

Clay (17:21)

which people generally do on their, on their free time. It's not, it's not like you can pay someone 20 hours a week to just learn AI. All your, all your staff, you're paying them for the jobs they have to do. And then in their free time, when they go home, they have to learn it on their own. So it's not something you can really force employees to do is when they go home. listen, y'all have two hours of homework every night, five nights a week. We got to get in this AI thing. Some people may do it on their own will and volition, but other people are going to be like, nah, I'm tired. I'm going to go home and relax and put my feet up. Like on my work day, my work day is done. I'm going home.

Daniel Beauregard (17:24)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (17:51)

to

take care of myself and my family. which is totally, totally understandable, reasonable and expected that they would, that that would be normal. But so I think as it's going to happen that in the years ahead, there'll be a new kind of batch of people who come in and can be these specialists. and some people in house might take it on because they just are passionate about it. But then it's about, you know, finding those people, hiring those people, retaining those people and, ⁓

And ideally the user interfaces of these tech will continue to get easier, simpler, and the literacy and the fluency around using these tools. Cause a lot of them are used by prompts. A lot of them you tell it what you want and it gives you back what you want. And this is from music to...

to writing, to video, you can give a video prompts and image prompts and it can produce videos and images now. So yeah, it's really about becoming a fluent prompt engineer. And so I think that's anybody can get better at that. Anybody can do, I did a training earlier ⁓ last week for CMAQ on this, on using AI for beginners. And it was really about prompt engineering, prompt fluency and people understanding how to give instructions clearly so that they get back what they want in the desired outputs.

⁓ but let's, I'm going to pivot out to the financial side, talk a little bit of the financial side of AI. There's a lot of talk about AI and golf in general, ⁓ AI and dynamic pricing, ⁓ and then specifically dynamic pricing and public and semi-private clubs that are trying to stack their tee sheets, make as much money as they can on, you know, selling a tee times. But how do you think AI might ever play a role in how private clubs

like yours, price things for, you know, guest fees or memberships or even food and beverage items or merchandise items even.

Daniel Beauregard (19:37)

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, it's interesting question. When I was looking at t times.

We're different than the public courses. We know that we want to make sure that the pace of play is at a reasonable rate. So some of us will have nine minute t-times intervals, some will have 10. And I think that that portion of it is ⁓ going to be a lot more a structured process than having AI into it.

AI can actually take a look at data on specific months and weeks of the year and come up with a solution to say, hey, you could actually do instead, you if you were usually doing 10 and 11 minutes, because I know there's clubs that are out there that do that, and provoke them to take, you know, a nine minute interval. I like, I see it more from a merchandise point of view, sales interaction.

⁓ and having data a lot quicker. And I know that my pro every day comes in, takes a look at his sales, looks at the records of his sales, goes and search for that information. But if it was just a press of a button, that AI is already on top of it and can tell him, know, ⁓ here are the sizes of specific brands that you're selling the most or even what's coming out of your shop more than anything else.

There's a lot of information that could be coming out a lot quicker than the process that we're doing. ⁓ Similar to that membership search that I was talking about. Food and beverage is another item, In the food and beverage world and golf of private clubs, everything that we do is tagged to a member. Well, in the public, you're not. You're showing up and you make a sale of restriction balls or a puma shirt.

It's you're selling it to an entity. That's it. Right. The single interaction. A.I. could pick up, you know, Mr. Johnson, Lose his Puma shirts and their size large. And you could actually focus a lot more in making sure that those items are in place. You know how often he buys and what sort of golf balls he purchases at what point of the year he does that. So you can be ahead of the game. Right. It would even be

You know, when I take a look at what I would want to see from futuristic, when the member walks into the pro shop and you say, hey, Mr. Beauregard, how are you? AI is listening. And it's picking up on the screen and it's telling you when he played, what did he do yesterday, his score, all that kind of thing. So you can interact with that member at a high level. And that would be, to me, would be an awesome way to have AI interact within the private club.

Same with food beverage. think it's interesting while we hesitate on the privacy aspect of it, how much you would want to have it know more about who you're dealing with, specifically in private clubs. To me, that's the advantage of

Clay (23:06)

Yeah. And it's the pricing and the dynamic pricing. That's one aspect of it. But, ⁓ and you know, these things do affect the perception and profitability of the club and the brand of the club. ⁓ but that's only as good as the data behind it. And as you mentioned, like there's all these other aspects that.

Daniel Beauregard (23:12)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (23:26)

with that data, you can get better service and people are already used to, you go on Amazon and you buy a thing on Amazon. You have to be logged into Amazon to make a purchase. Well, guess what? Amazon's going to say, ⁓ people who bought that thing also like this thing. And you're going to get recommended another book. you bought that book. you'll like these books too. So there's already that in lot of the ways that we interact with the software that we make every

Daniel Beauregard (23:40)

Yes. Yes. Yes.

What?

Clay (23:54)

Some people purchase the majority of the things from Amazon now. So it's the data is already being collected by these large companies. It's just a matter of what do we want them to have? What do we not want them to have? ⁓ and I think again, you know, as myself, I come into the pro shop. If the new guy working at the desk knows I swing right versus swing left. I don't care. That's not like, ⁓

Reveal anything personal or private about me that I wouldn't want, you know, someone to know. It's like, there's a number of other things, or do I like Nike over, over titleists, or do I like this over that? Like these are like basic buying preferences that it's a waste of time to have to explain to someone, especially at a private club who should have these profiles of you. should know a little bit about you.

Daniel Beauregard (24:42)

Yes.

Clay (24:42)

And it's great if someone's been

there for five or 10 years, they know all about you. But if you have a new guy come in, he's got to get caught up. But if you had something, like you said on the screen, where as soon as the name is mentioned in its listing, like, Mr. Beauregard's in here. Here's what he likes, right? And the new guy can look and go, hey, Mr. Beauregard, I'm new here, thanks, my name's Clayton. But ⁓ I know you like this, so here, we just got these in, take a look. And you're like, cool.

Daniel Beauregard (24:56)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (25:08)

Now you just get, get to business and then you get on the field, you get into the green and you get on with the rest of day. You don't have to spend all this time getting the new guy up to speed with your preferences and you know what you want. So, you know, yes. Yeah, please.

Daniel Beauregard (25:21)

In food and beverage, sorry to cut you off, in food

and beverage, you have to input member preference in the backend with regards to...

AI, if AI was connected to our front of the house system, it would be able to identify when Mr. Elliot, how often Mr. Elliot was there, and what the server punched in, could have said, as an example.

Punch in an omelet and no cheese, right? Allergic to cheese or not dairy, whatever criteria was required to be put into the chip to go into the kitchen, lactose intolerant or whatever. The next time somebody goes in and punches in an order for Mr. Elliott's and accidentally,

punches in something that's got lactose, it should pop up, That's that kind of technology that you would say, boy, ⁓ you would save so much on the stakes, right? Potentially, right? And I think that that's the value of it when I look at it from a futuristic point of view. And how can we advance faster with we do? And of course, and for those companies to understand that they should allow AI to be participating within their product.

Clay (26:34)

Yep, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's the pattern, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Daniel Beauregard (26:53)

How do you get them in?

Clay (26:58)

Yep. And, and just, and I won't go down this rabbit hole just so people know, this is something I'm going to talk about a lot more. I'm going to write about this. think it's one of the most amazing breakthroughs in technology and no one knows about it. And the big guys are not talking about it. Chat GPT is not discussing this. Meta is not discussed as no one is discussing this, but I read an article by, ⁓ I guess I don't know how to define them, but they are.

Brad (26:59)

Yeah.

Clay (27:28)

advocates for the right to compute. Compute is like what they call is the technical term for computational power. And so ChachiPT has this giant brain. It's got hundreds of billions, if not trillions of parameters that it's referencing in every search. for the most, but that that that's for everyone in the world to search for anything anyone could search for. For clubs.

And for individual users right down to your computer, you can download a version on your computer of deep seek from China. Now people are like, it's China. It's like, I don't know. I think everyone should be doing this. think chat GPT and meta and Google, the fact they're not allowing this and not encouraging this and teaching people it's possible. I think is not cool. I think it's, rather deceptive, but I don't need to know about chemical engineering for my use of chat GPT. I don't need to know about, ⁓

geopolitical legal contracts for my use of Chai GPT. I just need to know what I'm using it for. That's what I need to know. And so for that, you only need to have, ⁓ say, 8 billion parameters. Now, it's a fraction of what the large language models use and operate under. People can download locally on their computer a large language model that is a smaller scaled down version of the AI. So example, a golf course.

a private golf course, only needs to know food and beverage, greens and agronomy, a pro shop, training, ⁓ tournaments, events. There's, there's a very limited amount of uses for these things in a club because of this, you can get it so, focused and working on such a specific scale that

it can have all this information, but store it locally in your site, like on, your computers, in your, on your course, like in your club and not be stored in the, the, in the large brain somewhere else. It's, it's, it's, it's like, it's hard to kind of wrap our heads around what that actually means, the implications of it, but it's, we could technically have a kind of closed private AI system on our computers.

Daniel Beauregard (29:32)

Thank

Right.

Clay (29:53)

Just like, just like I'm working on a word document on my computer, it's not available. It's not, it's not out there. No one knows about it. It's local on my computer and that's possible right now with these certain applications in AI. So I think that's something that people need to know more about as possible and need to kind of start pushing back saying, this is what I want. I don't want that whole bigger thing. That's

Daniel Beauregard (29:56)

you

Clay (30:13)

that's a giant brain I'm feeding. just need my local use of it for my purposes. I, but that's for another conversation, but it's very cool. It's a very, it's very good brain. I just learned about it like two weeks ago and I was like, wow, why, why aren't they talking about that? Why doesn't.

Why doesn't anybody else talk about that? But these guys that are like the AI, the architects and the engineers and the guys who are understanding how it's built, who don't necessarily work for these larger, you know, trillion dollar companies, $500 billion companies, they're the ones talking about it, but these big guys are not talking about it.

It's very interesting. But we won't digress. We'll keep rolling.

Brad (30:48)

Yeah, that's great stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I love that use case, Daniel, just in terms of getting your member profiles, right? Learning more about your member. And that's such valuable information. If AI could do that is get all of that information congruent in the system and then have that information available at your fingertips. ⁓

you know, especially with training new staff. It's like Clay said, if you have somebody who's been there for a decade, you would hope that they would know 99 % of the members and know their preferences and what they like. But when you have new staff coming in, those moments and learning about your members takes quite a bit of time. It's not this instantaneous process where, you know, all of a sudden I know everything about every single member. It takes time, especially if, you know,

Daniel Beauregard (31:26)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (31:41)

⁓ let's say a staff member isn't as outgoing and engaging as somebody who is that that engaging individual is going to learn a heck of a lot of information about members playing golf with them and interacting with them. So I think that's a tremendous use case for it is creating these member profiles in your, your systems that are readily available. And like you said, if somebody walks into the shop, it can recognize them and then bring up all that information that's going to level up a service tremendously.

Daniel Beauregard (31:51)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (32:11)

⁓ we talked, we, spoke. Yeah, go ahead.

Daniel Beauregard (32:14)

I see it,

you know, right now the staff picks up the phone, makes the reservations, puts it on a pad. Paper. If it was connected like an iPad, right, if it was connected to the system, in the moment that you put the person's name in there, the reservation of 230, whatever time frame is, the technology of AI should be able to even give you kind of a little bit of a warning system or advanced

details of the member. ⁓ he likes this chardonnay, you know, this year and from this region. And it goes on and on with the details of that, right? So you know already in the reservations portfolio that it's telling you every single thing that the member loves. And if there was any allergies or anything of this nature, it would be in front of you, right? So when you have the opportunity to engage with that client or the member at the table,

Brad (33:07)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Daniel Beauregard (33:12)

you know, you're way ahead of them before they even start ordering and it makes it a lot more of a personalized service.

I think there's, boy, the more we talk about it, can't wait to start building that engineering process. ⁓

Brad (33:29)

Yeah, yeah.

And I would even take it to the next level saying ⁓ it could scan their car license plate as they're coming onto the property. Right? It could scan and say, right, he's on the prop. Yeah. And then it raises up. First of all, you'll know who's not who's not supposed to be there. ⁓ Because I know when I was when I was at Scarborough ⁓ for a while there, was members cars were getting stolen out of the lot.

Daniel Beauregard (33:40)

to your security system.

you

Brad (33:56)

Right. So and we eventually had to put an attendant there who was who was checking in, who was coming to the actual property and that that got rid of the whole process. And there, know, how Scarborough's there's cameras everywhere there. But these these guys were rolling up so quickly and stealing cars there. So something like that, it could be used for security and as well as getting that member profile in front of your staff. Maybe, you know, Mr. Johnson likes to have a coffee ready for him when he comes, you know, ⁓ into the bistro or something like that. So

Daniel Beauregard (34:08)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (34:26)

You could have that ready for him the way he likes it as he arrives without him even asking. It's just like, we know he's on the property, he likes this, and then get it ready for him. ⁓ So yeah, there's so many level ups you can do with your interactions with your high-end clients and customers, I think that is really where this is gonna go at private clubs.

Yeah, so when we spoke previously, you talked a bit about Tag Martial and how you guys are rolling that out this season. So I wanted to touch on a part of club management and course operations that's already seen a lot of innovation in recent years, which is maintenance and agronomy. Can you tell us a bit about how you guys are using Tag Martial and what role you think new tech and AI will play in golf course maintenance over the coming years, pace of play? Is that an area you're watching closely?

Daniel Beauregard (34:53)

Yeah.

Yeah, from both golf operations and golf course, ⁓ we engage with it because it has a couple of components that is very ⁓ useful for both departments. One, we know we want to make sure that we put those parameters out there when we need to with regards to usage of the golf course. And we also...

noticed that Tag Marshall is also recording where everybody is actually on the golf course on a regular basis. And because we're new at this this year, we want to kind of evaluate where should we focus on the golf course next year from a maintenance point of view, more than specific areas of the club. Right now, you know, it's

Pin locator is telling us where to put it because it just reminds it from a code where it was yesterday. But if it was able to have AI technology and watch the traffic around that specific area and then implement a more aggressive change of where pins are being placed, I think that it would help so much more the

maintenance of the agronomy of the golf course for the long term. But we can't wait to see some of the data that we're picking up this year. To pace the play, we know exactly who are the ones on a regular basis that we need to keep an eye on. not only that we know that, but we need to prove it to them. So the system is there as a guarantee to say, look, we're not making this up. Look at your cart, right?

It has helped us in a couple of instances where people were complaining about speed of play. Meanwhile, folks that they were complaining about were 20 minutes ahead of play. ⁓ that kind of technology, Cataraqui has been waiting to have for quite some time while other clubs have been engaging it for several years. ⁓ it is an integration of technology in front of the members.

to understand that we need to continue on bringing more and AI is the next step. ⁓ And they will understand what that is all about. And there reasons why we're doing it. But we do certainly see an advantage for us in potentially cost reductions and in agronomy.

Brad (38:04)

Yeah, ⁓ it's a very good point about just all this data that you're gathering because you know how it is at a private club. There's a lot of opinions. So people have tons of opinions, but when it's, you can actually take all of that data and bring it to them in a board meeting and say, here's what's actually happening. I know you have a lot of opinions and that's great. We're going to listen to you all day long, but here's what's actually happening at the club. Here's the pace of play. Here are the slow people, here are the fast people. And then you can actually take that data and figure out.

Is there a way to actually increase pace of play or is it exactly where we want it? And do some members need to be spoken to about their slow play? ⁓ You know, can we create some tee times maybe for the rabbits I like to call them, the people who like to play in three hours and they're basically dripping sweat by the time they're done golfing. I'm like, that can't be very fun. But you know, know those guys who are just trying to play as fast as possible. They don't really care what they shoot. Maybe they have to go to work after. So.

Daniel Beauregard (38:38)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (39:02)

really getting all of this data and then having it in a database and then being able to show it to your members. think that's so empowering about AI and what it can do in the future for golf.

Daniel Beauregard (39:10)

Yeah,

absolutely, absolutely.

Clay (39:16)

Cool. Let's talk this pivot and just kind of continue the conversation, but branch into something that we're very passionate about here at AceCall.ai and that's AI and customer service. And one of the big pain points when Brad and I were initially even thinking of this idea and before we even really started the company, we were just talking about pain and recurring pains, persistent pains.

cost of pains, the implications of pains and what, were they? And, know, one of the ones that we hear constantly coming up in all of our conversations with owners and managers, every club type, private, public, semi-private, it's missed calls, especially during, you know, peak hours or after hours. Uh, and then in the after hours, you got to call people back, you got to fault voicemails, all things like that. So, you know, your club specifically.

What are your thoughts on using Voice AI to replace voicemail, to reduce missed calls, and to reduce response times?

Daniel Beauregard (40:18)

Yeah, I think ⁓ the number one operation that needs to have that is golf. Although there's two people in a golf shop with two phones and potentially the pro in his office with his own, there's never enough people to answer the calls. And it's great to know that when you make a call, it tells you you're calling number two or number three.

But you just don't know who's on the other line. Is it just one person? Is there three people that are answering phones? ⁓ And I appreciate that information being shared. But I think that that is one of the one of the area. think it's it needs better improvements. And I would be perfectly for that because that person is made maybe just checking on the tee time and that I may be hooked up to the tee sheet and just listening to

to whatever that question is and to direct a member, oh yeah, we do have a tee time at 2.30 for you, would you like for me to book it for you? And it does it and it helps as well, the Gulf operation understand the data that was done not too long ago, right, with a warning system. I'm not quite sure if that is going to be the next step, but I believe that we need to have a lot more help.

in the area that you're in. We decided last year that ⁓ I couldn't ⁓ sustain a receptionist anymore. The receptionist was working in an open environment ⁓ with earphones. And I'm not quite sure, but that's not the type of receptionist you want to see. ⁓ So we looked at the operations and looked at how much of the work that could be ⁓ dispersed amongst the team. ⁓ And now it's...

It's automated, but automated to press one for sales, press two for the pro shop, and that kind of thing. It's not helping you to answer any of the questions that are part of that call or being directed more to what the person is actually trying to get through. So I think that there's a huge benefit for that. And we are certainly are thinking about it.

As slow as it can be, I can't imagine ⁓ talking to you guys. How do we fit that into our operations as we're trying to get a grasp of technology that we've never had? We've put QR codes instead of common cards in our billfolds. We have QR codes now at two holes before the halfway so people can order their food through a QR code process.

⁓ We're probably the dinosaurs of using QR codes. know I was in airports in Europe using QR codes on how their experience was just being at the airport. Washrooms, right? ⁓ So yeah, we're behind time, but I think it's time for us to start really seriously looking at it and putting it into play and to get more.

to be more efficient in customer satisfaction levels higher if we ever need to.

Clay (43:50)

Cool. Yeah. And that's personally, when, know, I have to make phone calls when I get those IVRs, that's what they're called. It's those decision trees press one for this person, two for this person, three for this person. Sometimes those work great. They were good enough, but it's just like how a pager worked good enough.

before a cell phone came out. But then once the cell phone was out side by side with the pager, the pager was obsolete very quickly. It's like that with voicemail and with IVR. Those things worked great for decades. And you know, if you keep them, they'll still perform the function they're supposed to do. But people are getting used to things happening quicker. The expectations are increasing with the consumer.

⁓ experience across, you know, every industry, across every service, across every company. And so it is getting to the point where someone just wants to call. They want someone to answer. They want something that they can speak and go back and forth with to build an answer, answer their questions, take the order, ⁓ take the message. They want to cut out those two or three or four or five steps or those 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds. ⁓ and especially when you go through those, those IVR chains and then you try to get to the person you're

trying to call and you still don't get them, you just get their voicemail. And then you leave a voicemail and then they don't call you back for half an hour, an hour.

end of the day, the next day. If it's at the end of the day, you might get a call back till the next day. But with this offer that we have, you know, it can transcribe the conversation. It can take this, the summary points, send it to the relevant parties instantaneously. And if it is something that can be addressed quickly or right away, ⁓ people can get callbacks. Response times can go from, you know, hours or days down to minutes or even seconds, depending on the call, the nature of the call. So

yeah, it's very, it's very exciting. We're excited about it. It's, our, it's our, it's our tool and it's, what we, we believe is going to add a lot of value to all clubs depending on how they need it for their specific operation. ⁓ but yeah, it's it's a very exciting use case. just, you know, the voice AI software just came out like six, seven months ago, eight months ago. It wasn't even really a thing.

It hadn't even, it wasn't even a possibility yet. So yeah, we're very excited where it's going to go. ⁓ but you know, even, even beyond call handling, but still on customer service, how do you think AI could help your staff focus on more high touch service by taking care of the repetitive stuff? Like what's the most time consuming, low value work that you and or your staff do that you'd love to automate or streamline or have AI take care of?

What comes to mind first?

Daniel Beauregard (46:35)

That's a good...

Well, I'd have to ask that question to the team. I think that...

serious.

emails is the number one item. ⁓ You turn your back and you got 30 of them. Prioritization. Could AI prioritize on the email? It's not that we don't want to hear from the Chamber of Commerce. It's not that we don't want to hear from Flagstik or, know, ⁓ Score Golf or anything like that, but those are the types of emails that in our industry we get. ⁓

And then you got to filter through if it would be nice to get that all organized and get that done, that'd be awesome. The response time to people and suppliers and stuff like that, I think it's, to me, where the team would want it to be a little bit more efficient. That's a good question to ask the team at the management meeting. What it is that's really bothering them that could make another, what would simplify your day?

⁓ And because ⁓ I'm not a micromanagement style of a GM, ⁓ you bring a good question today that it's about time I should be asking them. ⁓ As we are looking at improving on technology.

⁓ members, know, members coming into your office when you're doing your work, trying to get doing your work. And that's your role. You need to provide that service to those individuals that need attention. you know, it's a lot, it's important to them. And I know if you're the pro, ⁓ that pro shop gets a lot of activities in and out. ⁓

I'm sure that one or two of them are going like this to see if he's in his office so they can pop in. ⁓ What sort of work is he doing that could be minimized by AI that he could spend more time with people? Because that's the role of a pro. You need to interact with your people and then on top of that setting up your tournaments and making sure your merchandise stuff is on track. And I understand the challenge.

But, you know, general managers, golf pros, superintendents, we're preachers. Most of the time we got to be out there and, you know, carry the baby and, you know, have a wonderful day and how do you minimize their work? And then the more I'm talking about it, I'm going back to the emails that are associated to...

to the work that we do and the demand that we have in getting people's attention. So that's where I would be first. It would be the incoming stuff that is important to the membership.

Brad (49:52)

Yeah, yeah, great, point, Sir Daniel. I think that's kind of where we are in ⁓ this venture is that we have so much tech that we have in golf ⁓ in program form where you have to interact with it constantly.

with your mouse and your keyboard. And I think what AI can do is kind of step in and take a lot of that and automate it, obviously. So that's the exciting part of this, is freeing up your time, like you mentioned, to be member-facing, guest-facing, staff-facing, ⁓ you know, to be the face of the golf club, not be hidden away in the basement on a computer.

for eight hours of your shift and then eventually coming up for air and not even knowing that it's raining outside. You you're just kind of down there and you're grinding away and you're like, well, I haven't been outside. And I remember doing that when I'd be running tournaments. I'd have to take 15 minutes, go outside, speak to some members, talk to staff, and then go back down. And you know how labor intensive it can be for a, you know, a men's two-day invitational or something like that. You really have to hammer down all of these things on your computer. ⁓ So, you know,

Daniel Beauregard (50:49)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad (50:56)

Even though I was doing that, it would have been so nice to have my email inbox being automated to some extent so I could check it and just send. So things like that. These are tools that are readily available now. With all the AI and tech talk, is obviously cool and exciting, it's important to remember that private golf clubs are not supposed to be some space age, high tech place with over the top technology shoved in people's faces and down their throats. So let's talk about something you mentioned that's important, which is bringing in tech.

Daniel Beauregard (51:08)

you.

Brad (51:26)

without making a big show of it. How do you evaluate whether a technology is worth introducing, especially when members may never notice it directly or appreciate it?

Daniel Beauregard (51:36)

Yeah, well, you know, it started off with Tag Marshall and ⁓ Pinlocator.

Management sits and stares over it. What's our best approach? Why are we taking this on? Will it affect our members? How will it affect our members? we went, our biggest challenge is when we went with Tag Marshall and then we started talking about tariffs. We didn't have the system in place yet. Now we're going, oh, we're spending, you're spending money buying stuff in the States and.

So there's a lot more of influential, you know, the members are looking at you, you know, over the fence and evaluating your processes while your main focus is to try to continuously elevate the membership service. So that was the number one focus every single time when we talk about bringing technology in. What's it going to do for us? But at the end of the day, it's how is it going to impact?

Is it something that it's going to be beneficial or is just going to be detrimental to their experience? And once we've done that ⁓ and convinced ourselves that it's more for our

both sides and not necessarily always equal with regards to the benefits. ⁓ If we can have it more on the membership side, it's an easier decision process, much easier. But those are the steps that we take. We want to make sure that it's all about membership experience before tech comes even to be a bonus.

Brad (53:23)

Yeah, yeah. And that's definitely the most important thing is what is the member experience? How are they noticing value at their club? Are they noticing something new that's coming in that is adding value to the club or is it taking away from it? So that's always an interesting topic to delve into. So those are all great points, Daniel. Let's pivot now and talk about the T-sheet directly. Always a hot topic at private clubs, public clubs. It's a...

something that will never go away. How do you currently manage tea time fairness at Kataraqui?

Daniel Beauregard (53:57)

So COVID created the issue. I don't think we had issues in the past. Prior to COVID, tee time was seven and a half minutes at Cataraqui. The guys were always playing in their pockets of time. we were Jonas integrated. We moved it to 15 minutes and then down to the time frame that we are today.

And we were still having issues. People were trying to book their tea time at 10 o'clock in the morning and they wouldn't get it tea time until 3, 34 o'clock in the afternoon. So we moved with Gigi Golf. And I'm not saying it was promoting their company, but it's helped us alleviate a lot of our pressure. It has been enabled to allocate failure to each of our members when they were trying to book a tea time.

And we got back to old tradition at Cataraqui when they used to give ballots. Their ballots used to be within a two hour period and we were trying it from a technology wise, time booking system, within the one hour period. So we decided to do a two hour period, ⁓ let Gigi golf based on data that we put in. So we said seniors need a specific level of waiting system, then the intermediates and so on.

and then let the system mix everything up, take the data and put everyone in the right place. We have so little disruption. Maybe once or twice in the season, someone will be outside that two hour period. We have not reduced access to the tea Monday to Friday. We are sometimes 200 rounds. We started off with

29,000, 30,000 rounds in 2019. And now we're doing, last year we did 34,000 rounds. Weekends are starting to be a little bit more, less of a pressure, but the rounds played is just so demanding. People want to still continue on playing golf. And it's great news for us. And I don't know if it's about.

conditioning of the golf course or them having more time ⁓ but that T-time reservation system of GG Golf has certainly helped and I was talking to the superintendent because we were saying you know how is AI integrated in some of the programs we're using and I would understand that there is a level of it that has to be within GG Golf that no one has ever thought of but what if you

What if you forced it to think more about that kind of thing? ⁓ And when the member likes to play and others and other manage that, it's very difficult and AI could simplify it for us. Not necessarily give you the all, you know, the best solution moving forward, but at least to help out because I know every morning it doesn't matter whether the T-time reservation system has taken the ballot.

for the eight days from now, they still need to look at the T-sheet and look at the requests from people and trying to move them around. AI could do a lot better time saving because I think they spent at least a half an hour to an hour in the morning just focusing on a T-sheet that there's potentially 200 people who's trying to play golf.

Brad (57:40)

Yeah, yeah, it's the the t-sheet it can be it can be the bane of your existence if it's not handled properly and ⁓ And it and it can really members don't want to be known as as a slow player ⁓ you know or or

Daniel Beauregard (57:43)

Thank

Mm-hmm. All right.

Brad (57:57)

somebody who's, you know, constantly too quick or anything like that. There's a very fine balancing act there and it can lead to a lot of conflict. I think that's a good ⁓ place here to kind of shift and say, ⁓ you know, let's talk about managing conflict. It's part of the job and how one handles it says a lot about their leadership. What's your general approach to conflict resolution at the member level and what systems or support structures do you have in place to handle complaints?

Daniel Beauregard (58:15)

you

Systems, I don't think there's anything that's strategically organized. Somebody has a complaint. ⁓

first thing they say, have a complaint. And I said, no, I think you have a recommendation. I think you have a suggestion. I try to minimize that to beginning tone of the approach. ⁓ Complaints, Sharon, we were used to hearing that many years ago. And when I started working over at Oshawa, my whole mindset changed because I was in the front of the house a lot at

Scarborough and now it was kind of, it's almost like you got the red phone on your desk and when it rings it's going to be someone who wants to have a good chat with you or your emails. I've always asked that question to a GM before. What's your emails look like? And now that I know what they look like, I think that it's understanding that members will always have an opinion on something. They will translate their opinion as being a complaint or you thinking that's a complaint.

and I try as much as possible to warm them up and say, I think I really want to hear what you guys say. And if I can really help with the issue, I'll do the best that I can. I'll lead you to the right person, or even let me handle it from here. I embrace complaints as being recommended, suggestions, and it works a lot better.

If I go back 25 years ago, I may not be thinking that way. Being young blood in a white jacket in a kitchen, pressure to pull so many meals out. somebody didn't like their French fry. I could just imagine what people think about chefs in the past. But at the end of the day, there was a stress level that we went through. And gradually, as I experienced front of the house, again, more stress because you're dealing with a whole 200, 300 clients, members a day.

⁓ with their own preference and so on to a level of why don't we just listen for a little bit. What is it that we did and never thought about before we implemented something, right? So that's my approach. But there is no system in place. If I was, you then I need to look at and, you we agreed on this.

If something comes through, I'll look at it and if it belongs to the pro, it'll go to the pro and the pro can answer it. But I will not step over their toes, whether it's the superintendent. We do analyze the email. So the more that I talk about, the more potentially there is a system. Someone's complaining about golf course conditioning. Superintendent and I look at each other from an email's perspective.

You know, here's where I think the response is going to be. And we just agree upon it and let the right person deliver the message.

Brad (1:01:38)

Yeah.

That's a very good approach, Daniel. I really like that. You get more refined over the years of working at private clubs and you start to see everything. I remember when I first started off in the industry and I was a young go-getter pro, one of my difficulties was saying no. Somebody would ask me, I'd literally be walking out of the shop with my bag over my shoulder ready to go home and they'd say, do you mind re-gripping my clubs right now? And I'd be like, yeah, no problem.

No problem. We'll go for it, right? And it really, it took a lot of my time and eventually I did have to learn to say no because I was spending, you know, 65, 70 hours at the club every single week ⁓ just thinking that this was getting me somewhere, but it wasn't, you know? So it is tough to say no to members. Sometimes their ideas are well-meaning, but just not feasible. How do you say no in a way that still feels like a yes to members?

And what's your approach when members bring ideas that just aren't realistic?

Daniel Beauregard (1:02:42)

tried to be transparent. You... It took me...

took a course, ⁓ I didn't take it for too long.

Part of it, there's reasons why.

Part of it was I was never honest with myself. And people just need to know why. Why are you going to say no? Or why you don't have the time? And the last thing you want to do is try to make excuses. Just be transparent. if there's a way that you could do it, like in your position when you talk about re-gripping, if I was the guy that

you know, that's got the nine to five shift and somebody comes in at 10 minute to five and he's rushing out because he's got to go and pick up his kids or something like that.

If that individual is approached and clearly needs to say, can't do it for you, there needs to be that story. And the story is the transparency of it. You know what? I would love to take care of this. Today, I'm stuck on time. Do you mind if I take care of it first thing in the morning for you? When's your next tea time? Create that additional story that they need to hear that you're going to be on top of it and not to find out it's,

Two weeks ago I came to see you and you never got back to be about gripping my clubs. I think that's the important aspect of it. And I've watched our pro, the first year he was here, where a member came over and complained about something in front of me, like almost insulted him. And take a deep breath, listen carefully to what was said, and if you're gonna say something.

be very transparent about it. And he did exactly that. When the member left, because he couldn't say anything else, I looked at him and said, you couldn't have done this any better than you did today. And it was about being truthful to the answer that you gave back that may have sounded like a complaint. ⁓ Sometimes you have to deal with it, that it's actually coming in, know, loud.

No one's coming over to provide you a recommendation screaming at you.

And there's a level of tolerance. To me, if somebody would come into my office, which I have not seen someone do that for several years, with a tone, I just tell them, I'm sorry, I can't communicate that way. So either we talk about this an hour from now, or you want to write things down to me, and then I can get back at you. Because we're human, and it's very, very hard to not be defensive and protect who you are.

It's, yeah, that's where my, how I see things. It's not always 100 % successful. But I'm just saying, it's the approach. Start with point A first and see how you manage to get to B.

Brad (1:05:52)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, I learned this, ⁓ it took me a few years, but it's don't take anything personally. There's dude, you know, you never know where this person is necessarily coming from. They might've had a terrible day at work. ⁓ They could be going through a divorce. You don't really know what's going on with them. So when they come into the shop and they're irate about something, they're just looking for the first person to tell.

this problem to and to complain about ⁓ if it's something where they just want to feel heard and it is if they are coming in like you said with with some sort of you know I hate using the term energy but some sort of energy that's that's off or they're you know they're they're being aggressive or they're you can tell there's a heightened ⁓ sense of anxiety it's it's just getting them to the point where they can have a conversation with you and calming them down ⁓ and then

Daniel Beauregard (1:06:29)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad (1:06:55)

turning that no into a yes, it's like in my situation where I wanted to, you know, go home and then I said, yeah, and I'll re-grip the clubs. It's like, well, there's somebody else at this point in time who could likely re-grip these clubs in the golf shop. So I could have said, you know, I'm heading home. Why don't we go into the golf shop and I'll find somebody else, know, ⁓ know, Jimmy's here and he's great at re-gripping clubs. And then Jimmy can do it that night. Right. So there, there was a way without me having to sacrifice, you know, my own time.

Daniel Beauregard (1:06:56)

Not knowing it yet, but in my situation, I wanted to go.

Brad (1:07:24)

my own life, but still get that member, ⁓ you know, what they were looking for, and then have another staff member take care of it. And that's empowering your staff to do things as well. So ⁓ what do you think most members misunderstand about why some things can't happen?

Daniel Beauregard (1:07:42)

boy, I have an example, I'm not going to mention the club.

I had to make a decision in changing leadership in one specific area of operation.

which was managing the number one asset of the club. And I remember I'm at the board meeting and one board member just belched, how can you even think of doing that? You have not even had two years under your belt at this place. Members are not gonna tolerate that. And I wasn't budging. I just...

knew I did all that I could to lead and explain and energize the individual. ⁓ Great person. It just wasn't a good fit for this club. And to a point that there could be 80 or 90 people in one room without notice, trying to overrule the decision of

of what the GM did. ⁓ Stay the course if you believe that what you want is best for the operations. Sometimes you need to put your head in the guillotine and you hope that you'll be able to get out of it. ⁓ No one's always going to be 100 % behind you in whatever you do. And I realized it was 10%. And I had some great people who

⁓ supported me, interviewed me a couple of times making sure that this was the right thing to do. And today, today is, know, when I see that operations moving at that club, ⁓ it's the best thing that the members could have asked for.

And no one's going to be at the front of your office on a regular basis to thank you for all of that. And it's, you don't want to always look for a gratification. Gratification comes from, if the club has been quiet all year, I mean, must have done something right. And it's putting the right people in the right places. But at the end of the day, I hope I answered your question that I may not have gone over to the side of.

where my head is at, I think that's, I'll leave it at that as far as where I'm at.

Brad (1:10:31)

Yeah, that's very valuable information.

Daniel Beauregard (1:10:32)

Either

the complaints are coming in or you're doing something that you're going to be enticing people to complain. ⁓ So decision making is not always solutions. Decision making is also creating potential ripple within the operations and how loud do you want that to be? ⁓ Because at the end of the day you have to answer that, whatever the outcome is.

Clay (1:11:03)

Yeah, no, those are great points. And there's a saying in like marketing and sales is that people will complain. I forget exactly, but it's there's seven times more likely to complain than they are to leave a compliment.

Daniel Beauregard (1:11:19)

Right.

Clay (1:11:20)

So for every one person that says that was a great experience, there's probably hundreds of people who had that great experience. They're just less likely to state it because people, they expect what they expect. They have their expectations and when their expectations are met or maybe slightly exceeded.

Daniel Beauregard (1:11:27)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:11:36)

If they're met, people are just like, yeah, that's what I paid for. got what I paid for. Why should I praise you? You did your job. Bravo. Right. But it's when they fall short of expectations, they're way more likely to complain. And it's like pain, pain commands attention. always say, it's like, if you're walking on a rug, you don't pay attention to the rug. You don't thank the rug for being soft under your feet. It's doing what it's supposed to do. It's a rug under your feet. But if you step on a thumb tack, you're immediately you're, you're, you're down looking for that thumb tack. You're like, what was that? Step on something sharp because it commands your attention. The pain commands attention.

Daniel Beauregard (1:11:40)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:12:06)

attention. And when people are experiencing pain, they now want someone to fix it. They want someone to address it. They want something to be done about it. That's when you hear about people. Right. And so the, there's an intermediary thing, which again, I think our software does a good job of, which is the encouraging productive, proactive feedback.

Daniel Beauregard (1:12:16)

Yeah.

Clay (1:12:26)

which is it may be a complaint or maybe a step or two before it becomes a complaint where it's a suggestion. Like you said, it's a recommendation. It's an idea. It's a, it's an insight. It's, it's data, right? And if people can be encouraged to provide those staff, management members, ⁓ everybody.

has a hand in that and you, and you train them, you explain to them, listen, we may not act on this right away. This might not be an urgent priority that we bring to the top of the list just cause you said so, but we still want to know. We still want to hear about it. We still would like to have it, you know, added to our database where then we will make sense of everything. We will sift through everything. We will bring the, as the cream rises to the top. So whatever the cream is, when you whip it up, you stir it. The cream comes to the top. Then you can make that

the value. That's the stuff we want to, we want to get and, know, but that takes time. And this is where the software can help. And so this, this perfectly kind of transitions to the last segment I wanted to kind of touch on. And, ⁓ it's, it's, it's something that every GM can relate to and something that everyone struggles with is productivity and time.

Right? Time is money and it's the one resource. It's the truest finite resource. have no excess time. We have 24 hours in a day. We all have seven days in a week. We all have eight hours in a work day. And since we're already over the hour here, I'm going to whip through these questions a little more efficiently, but you know, what are your non-negotiable routines that keep you productive personally?

Daniel Beauregard (1:13:56)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:14:06)

normal routines. Cool.

Daniel Beauregard (1:14:06)

I be out there. I gotta be out there.

Sometimes, I'll walk the driving range. I gotta walk the driving range. I gotta go and see a couple of people. I gotta talk to the kids, the juniors. How's it going? How's everything? There's a cataract way as a couple of high level competitors here. Ashton McCullough, Bode.

competing with Ontario. ⁓ There's a handful of kids here that you want to know where they're going, their next step. So that part of it needs to be the outreach to go and walk in the budding green. To say, I haven't gone out there yet. I walk into a pro shop, the pro will say, what are you here for? I just come over to say hi, just come over and see the team.

Look, we changed something two years ago. We were at, I was at the CMAC ⁓ conference out west. Did I just lose you?

Clay (1:15:23)

Now we're

Daniel Beauregard (1:15:24)

Okay, somehow I don't see you on my screen. I must have touched something. ⁓ Anyways, if you can still see me, that's great. ⁓ And it was to create, to create something that, what we believe in. So my outreach to go out there and always make sure that you talk to the members. The employees are your assets. So we came up with,

Brad (1:15:29)

We're still here.

Daniel Beauregard (1:15:54)

Great people create great experiences. So we came up with that last year. And then, how do I get my team to try to elevate some of my time that I need to be out there and to do a little bit more of that? And we had no value, so we decided that respect, integrity, teamwork, and excellence was gonna be part of our way of life. Because missions and visions for corporations could be so broad.

you know, couple of the words that were there and created this that was more in line for the operations. And I gave each and every employee a card like this. And I said, I'm going to ask you questions throughout the season about this. And as much as we senior managers want to be out there at touching points and being with our members, as I said earlier, and spending more time on that, we want them to do the same. But I have to walk the talk.

So there is that timeline that I need to be out there and do exactly what this is all about and try to listen. Sometimes those complaints might come in just, hey, you know, I wanted to chat with you about something and now it's becoming more of a open concept dialogue. Hey, you know, he's approachable. You can have a conversation with him. So it alleviates a little bit, you know, that approach that we talked earlier about that could have been a complaint. ⁓ But that's...

I think that that's what I think is taking a lot of my time that I need to do and then come back and deal with the rest.

Brad (1:17:33)

Yeah, you know time triage is is sorry go ahead Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, no, no, no, no, you're good. You're good,

Daniel Beauregard (1:17:35)

I hope that answers your question. I hope it answers your question. If I didn't, please tell me.

Clay (1:17:44)

does know

that that's bang on. It's a routine and it keeps you on your ⁓ staying focused on the highest priority because like we're talking about the office can pull you right into the computer, the emails, the voicemails, you know, like, these are urgent. need to, I need to get on these things. You're like, nah, I can't, I, I, this is a non-negotiable routine that keeps me focused on the primary, the primary,

Daniel Beauregard (1:18:07)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:18:13)

thing we're doing here, is member satisfaction, touch points, face to face.

that's what people want. Right. They, don't, they're not going to be like, man, I love Daniel and his staff so much. always on their emails working so hard. It's such a great experience. No, they're like, no, man. Like I don't benefit directly from that. I want to hear you want to speak to you want to shake your hand. I want you to, you know, tell me I did a good job on, like you said, the young guys who are out there working so hard training so hard, they take it very seriously. could be their entire career and they get a window of opportunity to, make that the case for

Daniel Beauregard (1:18:28)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:18:51)

themselves in life and if they're doing it in earnest ⁓

the recognition, the praise, the acknowledgement, the encouragement coming from their elders, their seniors, their coaches, their counselors, their mentors, their advisors. It's priceless for them. And it is one of things that keeps them coming back, but it keeps them talking positively about the club. keeps them engaged and committed, telling their parents, telling their family and so on. so it just, yeah, it's priceless and it is a high value thing. you know, time triage, it's half the job, you know, some weeks.

Daniel Beauregard (1:18:58)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:19:25)

How do you prioritize and manage your time when everything feels urgent at times?

Daniel Beauregard (1:19:30)

Well, ⁓ as much as I spoke about reaching out to the team and all that, there's still, ever so often, you've got to grab that golf cart and go and say hi to the guys on the golf course. You're back in. ⁓ There are some times on my calendar that I have associated to focus time. ⁓ And that's when I need to close the door and do my work. ⁓

Making sure that I am at least you know two or three days ahead of myself With regards to what's happening sometimes. It's not always easy to do because I don't have a membership salesperson, so I'm that person also right ⁓ There and I think there is There's a lot that is out there that could get you to differ from your schedule But making sure that you got your calendar up

set up properly, make sure you don't over do yourself in meetings and plan accordingly to not have five different committee meetings in a week is you know who's going to take care of the reporting aspect of it. I don't have an assistant secretary anymore, right? So those things that we rely on AI to do for me, as I mentioned earlier, but those are, you know, I need these, I've set up these processes to help me move forward.

AI has been a portion of it. And as we are on the call talking about AI, I think there's going to be more of that coming up ⁓ to be able to deal with that. ⁓ And staying focused on what we need to deal with over time. I think it's important. My calendar will come over and remind me, don't forget that three days from now, you have this meeting to go through.

It's nice when you can have focus time dedicated specifically to your day.

Brad (1:21:35)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Sorry, go ahead, Clay.

Clay (1:21:35)

And then so,

no, I'm just going to say in the last time question, just, know, if you had 10 more hours per week freed up, what would you use them for? In addition to more face time with members, let's say. Or would you put 10 more hours right back into the members with more time with members?

Daniel Beauregard (1:21:55)

Yeah, to the members. There are days I walk in the lounge and I'm going, okay, so I spoke to you about, you know, what are the things that I'd like to do, but I can't touch every day, every single touch points of the club. And I'm going, boy, I haven't talked to these people, you know, for at least three weeks. should have, you they're there. I reach every Wednesday, right? And I can't plan every Wednesday at one o'clock because they finish, you know, their eight o'clock tea time. They're just having lunch.

to go out there because my schedule might not allow me to do that all the time. I would love to have an AI assistant to remind me of these things. More time with the members, absolutely. We're being asked to do a lot more data, KPIs and all that kind of things in the past. I never saw that. I always felt, you well, the business is doing well. You're in the black and not red. Everyone's happy.

move along, ⁓ those days still doesn't stand that way. You need to come over and take a look at your data and where's your NPS score and what's your membership like. We're talking about that a lot more now.

Clay (1:23:11)

Cool. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Time, time. It's a, what there's a saying you can have something you can have. can be cheap. It can be quick or can be easy, but it can't be all three. If it's cheap and quick, it's not easy. If it's cheap and easy, it's not quick or yeah. And then if it's

Daniel Beauregard (1:23:11)

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Clay (1:23:33)

quick and easy. It's not cheap or something like that. You can't have all three and it's the balancing of those based on your business, your priorities, your customer, your product, whatever, but it's pretty universal. I haven't found one thing where it doesn't apply like that, but yeah, thanks.

Daniel Beauregard (1:23:38)

Thank

Another person on

a podcast might say 10 more hours on family time.

Right? Could be the total different from what I just said.

Brad (1:24:01)

Yeah, yes. So Daniel, ⁓ thanks so much for joining us today. It's clear that what you're building at Cataraqui isn't just about systems or facilities. It's also about culture. Your ability to combine tradition, member service, and forward-thinking leadership is something every GM listening can take a page from. So thanks for joining us today and sharing all you shared. This is going to be a very helpful episode for many of our listeners.

Daniel Beauregard (1:24:02)

Yeah. ⁓

Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. It was awesome.

Clay (1:24:30)

Yeah, thank you, Daniel. And I totally agree from how you're revamping your communication roles and pushing tech like Tag Marshall and the AI. If you're not actively using it everywhere, you're open for it and you're watching it and you're ready to bring it in if and when it makes sense for you and your members and your staff. So you're showing personally.

what it's like to lead, not just with innovation, with a mind for innovation, but also intention and integrity to what you're doing there. So we really appreciate you sharing so candidly and openly about your wins and the challenges and what you're learning along the way. And we look forward to future conversations. So thanks again.

Daniel Beauregard (1:25:10)

Thank you so

much and remember although it sounded all great, we need a team and without that team we're worth nothing. I'm thrilled to have this group with me here and we know there's lots to do.

Clay (1:25:27)

And that's what, know, we don't want to understate how important that is. And I don't think anybody listening, ⁓ under values their team or has, ⁓

Daniel Beauregard (1:25:34)

Absolutely.

Clay (1:25:39)

takes them for granted because you guys who have the boots in the ground, general roles in your clubs, you know better than anybody how important everything you're doing and everything you're talking about doing can't be done without a great team. And again, kudos to you and everyone listening if you have a great team, because I imagine they didn't get there by accident and they're not staying there by accident. you know, there's no I in team as they say. But thanks and thanks to everyone listening for joining us today. If you got value from this conversation,

Daniel Beauregard (1:26:04)

That's right. ⁓

Clay (1:26:09)

We'd love it if you subscribe to our show to be notified when we do release future episodes or trying to get at least one out a week, if not two a week, but at least one a week and share it with your colleagues, share it with your industry peers on LinkedIn. We really appreciate that. And if you are feeling

generous, please leave us an honest review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this so that others can see that this is a ⁓ show worth listening to. Our goal is to get to a hundred reviews by the end of the summer on Spotify and or Apple, which would be great. And we'd to like really appreciate your help. So that's all for today. Thanks for tuning in again to the AceCall.ai Podcast where we help golf club owners and managers win with AI. I'm Clayton Elliott.

Brad (1:26:56)

and I'm Brad Milligan.

Clay (1:26:58)

and we'll see you next time.