INTERVIEW: Rich Morel - GM, Carrying Place Golf & Country Club - His Crisis To Comeback Story As A New GM, Building Member Loyalty, And How AI Is Changing The Game

❓Don't use Spotify? Find us on all other podcast players here

📞 Want to start tinkering with A.I. at your golf club?

Call +1 (866) 838-8581 to claim your FREE copy of The Golf Club A.I. Amplifier™, a short, high-value guide designed to help you maximize your productivity with ChatGPT—whether you’re brand new to it or already using AI.

Just let our AI Receptionist know that's what you are calling for and we will send it over to you right away.

Welcome to another episode of The AceCall.ai Podcast, where we help golf club managers win with AI!

In today’s episode, we’re sitting down with Rich Morel, General Manager of Carrying Place Golf & Country Club, to explore what it takes to turn around a struggling golf club—and how disciplined leadership, smart systems, and personal connection can transform a club’s future.

Rich took the reins at Carrying Place when it was teetering on financial collapse. Under his leadership, the club not only survived—but thrived.

He shares the exact approach he used to stabilize operations, create a culture of accountability, and build a loyal, growing membership base.

We also dive into Rich’s playbook for improving profitability in traditionally challenging areas like Food & Beverage, why most clubs underestimate their revenue leaks, and how AI is about to reshape club operations forever.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

✅ How to lead a club out of crisis with clarity and control
✅ The biggest revenue leaks golf clubs face—and how to plug them
✅ How to create deeper member loyalty by focusing on what makes your club unique
✅ Why most clubs lose money in F&B (and what Rich did differently)
✅ How AI can save time, improve service, and support lean teams
✅ What it takes to build a team culture that consistently wins

Whether you're facing financial challenges, team struggles, or are just looking to future-proof your club—this episode is packed with insights you can implement today.

📞 Want to supercharge your club operations with Voice AI? Call us at +1 (866) 838-8581 to learn how our Voice AI-powered solutions can boost engagement, reduce missed calls, and help you run a tighter, more responsive club.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe to The AceCall.ai Podcast for more expert insights on growing and scaling your business!

🔗 Listen on Apple, Google, and all other podcast players here: https://acecall.ai/podcast

🔊 Listen Now and Take Your Club to the Next Level!

Follow Carrying Place on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carryingplacegolf/

#GolfPodcast #GolfClubManagement #GolfLeadership #GolfBusiness #GolfOperations #AIForGolf #VoiceAI #GolfTech

From Crisis to Comeback: How Carrying Place Golf Club Turned the Corner Under Rich Morel’s Leadership

What does it take to lead a private golf club from the brink of collapse to becoming a model of financial health and member loyalty?

That’s the question we explore in our latest episode of The AceCall.ai Podcast, featuring Rich Morel, General Manager of Carrying Place Golf and Country Club.

And if you’re a golf club manager navigating rising costs, labor shortages, or just looking to future-proof your operation—you’ll want to tune in.

When Rich stepped into his role, Carrying Place was facing financial instability that would have made many experienced GMs think twice.

But instead of walking away, Rich leaned in.

His first moves?

Transparency, clarity, and structure.

He implemented immediate cost controls, restructured how the club measured success, and rallied his team around a shared mission of improvement.

But the story doesn’t stop at a financial turnaround.

Rich also shared how he tackled one of the most challenging and overlooked revenue leaks in club operations: Food & Beverage.

While many clubs accept that F&B will run at a loss, Rich brought in systems—monthly inventory checks, strict wage-to-revenue monitoring, and detailed event budgeting—that turned it into a manageable, even profitable, department.

Another big takeaway from the episode: Member loyalty starts with knowing who you are and who you serve.

Rich emphasized that clubs who try to be all things to all people dilute their value.

Instead, Carrying Place doubled down on its strengths and worked to build deeper personal connections with members—something Rich believes creates loyalty that lasts for decades.

And of course, we had to talk about AI.

Rich sees AI as one of the biggest untapped advantages for modern club managers.

From content creation to meeting transcription to automating communication, he believes these tools will give clubs a critical edge in solving labor shortages and increasing operational efficiency.

He also shared where he sees the “quick wins” with AI: areas like marketing, communication, and member service—tasks that can easily be streamlined with tools like ChatGPT and Voice AI.

His advice to GMs who haven’t explored AI yet? Start small.

Use AI to take one recurring task off your plate, and see what it unlocks in terms of time and focus.

Whether you're leading a turnaround, looking to tighten up your F&B department, or simply trying to elevate your club's member experience—this episode is packed with real-world tactics and leadership insight you can apply immediately.

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Clay (00:57)

Welcome to the Ace Call AI podcast where we help golf club managers win with AI. Managing a golf 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 (01:12)

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, we're thrilled to have with us a distinguished leader in the golf industry, Rich Morrell. Rich is the general manager at Carrying Place Golf and Country Club, bringing a wealth of experience in club management and a proven track record of financial turnarounds.

With a career spanning over two decades in the golf industry, Rich Morale has established himself as a transformative leader known for his strategic vision and operational excellence. As the general manager of Carrying Place Golf and Country Club in King, Ontario, Rich has been instrumental in revitalizing the club's financial health and enhancing member satisfaction. Rich's journey in golf management includes notable positions such as head golf professional at Deer Ridge Golf Club in Kitchener, Ontario.

and golf professional roles at various esteemed clubs. In 2017, while the head professional at Deer Ridge, he helped them achieve the AGM best of the best award, distinguishing it as one of the top 10 golf shops globally. His dedication to the industry is evident through his active involvement with the PGA of Canada, where he holds the Class A executive professional designation. Throughout his career, has garnered numerous accolades, including

the PGA of Ontario Retailer of the Year award in both 2015 and 2024. Under his leadership, Carrying Place Golf and Country Club received the prestigious AGM Platinum Award, multiple times recognizing it among the top 100 golf shops worldwide. Beyond his managerial roles, has contributed to the academic sphere as a professor at Humber College's Professional Golf Management Program from 2019 to 2022.

He also served on the board of advisors for Georgian colleges, bachelor of business golf management program between 2010 and 2019. His commitment to education and mentorship underscores his dedication to advancing the golf industry. Richard's expertise encompasses golf operations, management and leadership. His innovative yet prudent approach to club management, particularly in crisis situations and financial restructuring has set a benchmark in the industry.

whether others know it or not. We are excited to delve into his hard earned insights and experiences today and also hear what he has to say about AI and how he sees it shaping the future of the golf industry. Rich, welcome to the show.

Rich Morel (03:49)

Thanks so much, Brad. I appreciate the very kind introduction. It reminds me that I'm older than I feel sometimes, I suppose. Been around a long time.

Brad (03:58)

All good. Yeah, we're really happy to have you with us. Before we delve into our discussion, could you share a bit about your background and journey in the golf industry that may have something I may have missed in my intro?

Rich Morel (04:09)

I think you covered it quite well, but I basic background is probably similar to most golf professionals or those that work in the industry and that started playing the game, loved it. I was a pretty decent athlete as a kid and golf was really just a way to kind of extend that. And then it became a way to skip classes where I could participate on as many sports teams as I could. Golf became part of that while I was in high school. And then a buddy mine at the time that played junior golf with had gotten into the PGM program.

Durham College and realized that there was a way to turn something that I enjoyed doing for fun into a career. So I followed that path after working at the local Muni where I grew up playing golf, know, would trade picking golf balls on the range for a free membership. Worked out great and then turned it into a career and worked my way through the industry, which you kind of touched on quite a bit. But that's kind of the background and how I got into it. And then I've kind of worked my way up from back shop to assistant pro to head pro to GM and kind of everything in between.

Brad (05:08)

Awesome, yeah, kind of the classic line there where you start, you know, as a kid picking balls and work your way up. So yeah, it's an awesome career.

Rich Morel (05:18)

Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm fortunate to have learned from some great people along the way and found different areas of the business that kind of I gravitated to. And yeah, I've kind of carved out my own little niche along the way and been very fortunate to work with some great people and learn from some great mentors.

Clay (05:37)

That's very cool. it's very impressive and inspiring to hear stories that when people turn something they love, something they're passionate about into their career, what's the saying? If you love what you do or if you do it for free, you won't work a day in your life kind of a thing.

people play golf, pay to play golf, right? And so all of a sudden you're getting paid now to, I imagine you get some good play in, but you also get to facilitate others' experience and watch people growing up in it from the juniors to the seniors to the pros and people that just do it as a hobby. I'm getting into it myself and I look forward to getting better at it so I can just at least catch up and keep up with guys like yourselves. But I guess we'll start the discussion here.

kind of at your most recent role and position at Carrying Place and discussing that, when you arrive there, as we discussed the financials, the outlook was not great from what I recall from our conversation. So it was the kind of situation that you would, you know, it would make many GMs pause and really reconsider taking it on. But you stepped in, you rolled up your sleeves and you executed an amazing turnaround and club comeback. Can you take us back?

to that moment when you were committing and then shortly after you jumped in and realized exactly what it was, what were some of your most, your first critical moves that you made and how did you start rebuilding and navigating that process? And then any obstacles in the way, if you can outline any obstacles that really you had to overcome to get the numbers working and getting them in line again.

Rich Morel (07:07)

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, and kind of as you touched on before, certainly in the industry, because I love love being around golf, you know, it's an environment where people are coming to have fun every day. And ultimately, our job is just to make it more enjoyable for them, whether that be them playing with their spouse or playing with kids or playing with buddies. So it's fun to come to work in that environment and try to just create that enjoyable experience for people no matter how they're using it. That being said, when I made that transition to carrying place, were some challenging days and it's not all, you know,

rainbows and puppies and ice cream. There's challenges along the way too. And so it was an interesting transition. So I made the change initially to become the head golf professional at Caron Place. And what ended up happening was a week into the job, the general manager who hired me retired. Didn't know why he was, know, upper in age, but thought he still had a couple more years left was my assumption when I took the job. And then at that point, know, a week in, trying to figure out

up from down and give it some thought and realize, know, I think I can take that role on. It's something that's of interest. And previously, what your my time at Dear Ridge, the general manager role had changed twice and fortunate to work with some great people, but it changes things quite a bit for you. And often when the GM comes in, they may bring their own team. So not knowing what my future would look like if I didn't put my hand up and feeling like I felt like I could do the role reasonably well or.

probably a little delusional at the time, but enough confidence in myself to take on the task. Put my hand up and told the board that, you know, this is something I think I can manage. They ultimately went out to the market and brought in five other people, I believe it was, to interview along with myself. And ultimately, I guess in my one week of tenure, I managed to inspire enough confidence that they hired me as the GM, which is exciting, right? So a year in, this was now seven years ago, so I'm in early 30s at the point, to take on a GM job at a private club is...

pretty rare at that point. So I was excited to take that on. As I started to get into the books and something as simple as signing checks and looking at the bank balance to see where we're at, quickly realized the club had overextended its line of credit that was there. There was no money left. There was HST of a couple hundred thousand that had to be paid. And when I turned to the lady that was working as the administration manager, I was like, where's this gonna come from? I'm certainly not a CPA or accounting background.

But I can tell you one plus one equals two and there's no one or one here. So what are we going to do? And quickly found out the whole the club was in. And not to point fingers at anybody else previous. It is what it is. The club, think, primarily got in that position by overextending itself on clubhouse rebuild. Went way over budget and no real contingency plans to dig out of that. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger. And I think the board at the time may not have had.

full line of sight on exactly where the club was at. So when I started digging in with the lady who was in the administration role, I started to realize just how bad it was. But at that point, there was no consideration for turning back or moving back to the other job. It was more, how do we figure this out and how do we get through it? So first step at that point, unfortunately, was to bring it to the board and say, here's what I'm looking at. You guys have a finance committee with much more experience than I have on the financial side.

But this is what I'm seeing. if I'm wrong, somebody please tell me and nobody could. So it was clear that, you we were onto something not in most positive light, but that it had to be dealt with. So given where we were at, this would have been, I'm trying to think, early April to early, or late April to early May of 2019. There wasn't enough time at that point to see.

Clay (10:58)

So this is almost

two years into the position?

Rich Morel (11:01)

No, this is two weeks in the position, a couple of months. Yeah, yeah. So a couple of weeks in a position to kind of figure out where this is at. And then where we're at into the golf season, there was no way to turn around fast enough before the club would have been out of money since they'd already used their line of credit. So the only option that was really available was a membership assessment. So here I am probably about a month and a half into the season, new guy, former head pro standing up in front of an entire membership because everybody comes up to that meeting.

Clay (11:02)

Sorry, my apology, two weeks in, thank you.

Rich Morel (11:29)

to tell them we needed, it was roughly $1,800 per member, which at that time was meaningful compared to the amount of dues they were paying. And know, and who am I to tell them this? You know, where was the last guy and what happened here? And why didn't the board tell them and all these things? So it was, as you can imagine, everybody came out to that meeting and it's the first one that I had really even run as a town hall. So interesting process to go through to kind of stand up there, take the bullets. And at the end of the day, it certainly wouldn't change it. think it...

developed a lot of confidence from the membership in myself and you you dive into the deep end and figure it out. there's a lot of a lot of kind of figuring out as we went because not only do have to come up with an assessment, but I've got to figure out, what's the attrition rate going to be when I put this out there? Because not everybody is going to pay. How then are we going to sell memberships after this? Because one of the biggest challenges the club was facing is there were less than 50 % capacity. So there's a lot of unsold memberships, which we could have benefited from. But how are we going to do that? Obviously, that news is going to get out in the marketplace.

who's going to want to join a club if they feel like it might not be around in 12 months or 24 months. So the first big one was the assessment, standing in front of the membership to make them aware, get their confidence and the board's confidence and the finance committee's confidence and the management team to say, you know, we're not, you know, packing up and leaving too, because they could have easily done that and found other positions. So that was the first of the major hurdles is getting the team and membership on board and board of directors. And subsequent to that, the then

board, five of the seven members resigned. Largely, think they felt some heat from the membership in terms of not that it was their fault or their responsibility, but regardless, they were the ones still left standing there. So five of the seven step off the board. All of those individuals, but one were part of the hiring committee that hired me. So now I've got all new people essentially on the board that I'm reporting to. And then three months later, the new president came in, had a stroke. So within the span of

eight months I had worked with three different presidents and had gone through an assessment. Some things that most GMs may never see in their career and I've seen this in months on the job. I smile thinking back at it now because of how far we've come but it was an interesting process to go through.

Clay (13:40)

You got thrown in the deep end. The definition of the deep end.

Rich Morel (13:42)

Throwing the deep end real quick.

That's it. And you're going to figure out whether you sink or swim real quick. And we did. So fortunately, we come up with a plan, came out the other side and happy to say the club right now with the biggest concern is yesterday, how much are we going to put into an investment? So, you know, we've got idle cash sitting there. What are we going to put into a GIC and how are we going to make use of this? And what are the capital projects we're going to take on this year? It's a complete 360 from where it was.

But it was an interesting process to go through and as I said something had never changed because it's giving me so much credibility within the membership and within the management team too, right? I was the head pro that turned into a GM. Obviously, everybody else is gonna think, you know, is this guy capable of doing it? But when you're able to turn something around that quick and certainly wasn't just me, right? It was the entire team that plays a huge role in making that happen and getting the buy-in from everybody. But when we were able to do that as a team, the membership has been nothing but supportive in my...

now seventh year, which has been a lot of fun.

Clay (14:44)

That's awesome. That's very cool. like, so beyond the initial triage work that, know, stopping the bleeding and hemorrhaging and, know, getting some fresh blood transfusions in, you know, like what did you do over the months and even the years following to create that sustainability and that growth and what were your long-term mid and long-term strategies?

What did you implement to ensure that stable financial health moving forward? How quickly did the turnaround happen?

Rich Morel (15:15)

Yeah, great question.

So initially was the assessment, right, which helped to dig out of the whole of the line of credit they were in and try to kind of get that back on the right path and give us a little bit of runway was really the intent is give me a little bit of time to turn the ship around. I can't turn around on a dime. It's the business is too big to just do that. So that was the first critical decision that we had to do and and ran for with and had to sell the board on that. Obviously, it's again, I'm some new guy coming in. Why are they going to listen to me? So

Fortunately, get the board on side doesn't require a membership vote. It's we're doing this. So it's either you're on side or you're leaving make your decision. But here's what we're doing and why figuring out the attrition rate in terms of what I figured that was going to look like making sure the management team was that on side and then it's looking at the business. it's again, it's revenues and expenses. It's not overly complex, but it's still a matter of where are the holes and at that point it was food and beverage as it is at most clubs in terms of losing money, but the club

Usually when a food and beverage department loses money, I'd say it's often a decision in the sense that it's offset by due somewhere else. So you're bringing the money in to offset that you've made that decision. That's the case. The club in this scenario hadn't planned for that. So they were losing a little over $200,000 a year, which on that time was only a $3 million budget. So it was pretty significant to the bottom line and they had no way to stop it. And part of the challenge is they had four staff members employed 12 months of the year.

but we're only really open six months. it required some difficult decisions in terms of reducing headcount and not a fun position to be in. it's again, when you're the decisions are literally life and death of the business. It's what had to happen in order to get the business, you know, right sized for where they were at that particular time. reducing headcount, there's streamlining operations. There's until this day, it's the management team does a lot with a little.

Everybody takes on a little bit more than their, I would say their counterparts at a similar club. know, me as GM, I also sell all the memberships. That's not always the case. Our administration manager also manages all the different vendors that come in for repairs and those types of things. Trying to think of who else. Our executive chef is also director of food and beverage. So manages the front house and back house. So the way we've done it is we've continued down that path. And what we've tried to do is make sure that we compensate everybody more than fairly.

for the job they have and I'd rather pay everybody a little bit more to do a little bit more and it's worked out quite well for us. Not everybody would probably love that but it works well for Carry in Place, works well with the team that we have and it's kind of put us on a solid foundation to where as I said before the biggest focus now is you know we've got a lot of excess cash and how are we using that to make the facility better, to make the experience better and those were some of the big issues I suppose we kind of dealt with early on.

As I said, the issues have changed now. They're still big, but they're just a little bit more enjoyable.

Clay (18:14)

Very cool. Yeah. And I love how you approach that. It's, it is about cutting costs when you're trying to get financial control again, but it's not just about cutting costs. It's about, you know, building systems and a culture that reinforce, you know, financial discipline and

And that's what helps, you know, get all the different, expenditures under control and, get back in the black and then have that be just part of the culture. Like we don't just throw money around here, willy nilly. like you mentioned before you came into it, with a construction job that didn't go on budget and construction is one of those.

essentials of the modern world, but it's very nebulous as far as projected costs versus actual costs. And it's like that across sectors and across industries, right? And it all depends on which, who you're hiring and what season it is and yada, yada, yada, and what, what's the economy like and all this other stuff. that's not your, you, you came in, you inherited that when you came in. So that was kind of your starting place. So again, you know, hat tip to you for, for getting that under control. So.

Yeah, that's very cool. I'd like to talk to finances with you a bunch, but I want to keep it rolling here, but it's a very impressive, very impressive what you're able to accomplish there and kudos to your whole team and really had tipped your whole team as well. Like you said, you led the charge, but there's no I in team and it couldn't have been done without everybody on your team.

Rich Morel (19:40)

I appreciate that. I said,

very much so. It takes a whole team effort, right? I may have kind of steered the ship, but they need to go and execute right each of the department heads. So and they all did. And like I said, there was a lot of long days and hard hours from all of them. And this is not just me, the whole team had to kind of roll up their sleeves and buy in and, and trust that, if we grind through this, we will get out the other side. But yeah, it was certainly not easy at times. And, and as you said, it's not just about cutting costs, because you know,

no point to somebody join a private club and say I want to join the most efficient private club, right? You still need to deliver a member experience along the way of all this that is conducive to what people are paying and that they're seeing value from. So you can't just cut all the costs so that all of a the business is profitable, but you now have an experience that has gone completely by the wayside. So yeah, on the other side of that, we didn't really talk about much was the membership sales side of things where we had gone from

200 rough numbers here, 250 members. had about 20 that didn't want to pay the assessment and left. So we're down to 230. We had a max of 500 within our bylaws. So we ended up selling those other 270 over the course of about two and a half years, sold them all to fill the membership. we now manage expenses a lot tighter and then have a full bucket to pull the revenue from. Obviously it makes the business a lot more sustainable.

Brad (21:09)

Definitely. think that's a perfect time to pivot to like, you you have, you've acquired your members. A lot of clubs struggle with member retention. What have you learned about keeping members for life or as long as possible and creating that sense of belonging that keeps them renewing year after year?

Rich Morel (21:26)

Yeah, a great question. Member retention is such a huge piece. I think it starts with staff retention, to be honest, if you can retain a lot of the same key people. It is like a small family at a private club in particular, right? They like to get to know the staff. A perfect example is our superintendent just had his first baby just over the winter and the ladies section of membership bound together and got him a gift and the board got him a gift. And there's just that human element that you don't always see. And so

When it is that family, it's nice to have the same people there for multiple years where they can kind of make those connections, become comfortable with, you know, director of operations or the executive chef. So I think it starts there and making sure the team is happy that they're set up for success. If they are, kind of bleeds into the member experience and they feel that good or bad. And then on the member side, I think there's a couple of pieces that kind of jumped to mind with that conversation. would be value proposition, I think is important to everybody, no matter what level you're at, whether you're at

you know, an entry level private club or the best of the best in terms of quality, everybody still wants value for money, right? Whether that's 5,000 a year or 50,000 a year makes no difference. But there needs to be that value. And I think we do a great job in terms of what people get for what they pay for would be hard to duplicate somewhere else. So I think that's an important one. And then because of the success we've had, we built in a program to allow us to, to reinvest in the facility. So capital upgrades.

So anything from we did redid bunkers a couple of years ago to a short game facility, to a practice facility, to cart path paving, to TVs, you name it, we've done, we do about 20 projects a year. And with that, it's done within the context of their annual fees. So they're not paying out of pocket for these things, but they're seeing the facility continue to upgrade every year, continue to get better while their fees are staying relatively consistent. So I think with those things together, that staff connectivity,

The connectivity amongst the membership as they get to know each other more and seeing the facility improve under reasonable fees, it becomes a pretty enticing value proposition. And then as I said, they get to know each other a little bit more as well too. So that member to member, whether it be through events or through connections through staff, just all those things together create an environment that's worked out quite well for us.

Brad (23:44)

Yeah, very, very good points. The, see that at all the best clubs is that you're, if you have a really good core group of staff, it really radiates to the membership. And it is like, you touched on it. like a little family and that culture. Cause like such a big buzzword is culture buzz term is culture in golf, right? It's like, it's figuring out what your culture is at your club. And most private clubs, they.

You know, I've been to a bunch down in Florida. It's like they have staff down there that have been there 30, 40 years and they don't go anywhere. And every, and they, they remember you when you come back, like they'll actually remember your name, especially at some of those clubs where, you know, they, they might only have 50 rounds a day. It's a very like quiet club and they'll remember you and remember what you ordered last time. And like, that's, that's extremely valuable to have at your club, but also invaluable. It's like, you can't really, you can't pay for that. Right. It's like this, this whole,

Rich Morel (24:36)

Yeah.

Brad (24:39)

this whole shift that has to happen if you don't have that at your club and that can take years to build up. So it's great that your staff hung in there with you, you know, over all of those transitions and your members. And then it does help to, you know, maintain that membership when you have all of those things line up there.

Rich Morel (24:56)

You're 100 % right. And you would have seen that during your time in the industry too at the facilities you worked out. But that family feel is so important. And I can tell you, you know, our front of house manager could tell you, I'd say our top 100 members who are there on a regular basis. She can tell you all their favorite drinks. She'll have it ready for them when they walk in. We've got a starter who's been there for 23 years. So he's seen people that were juniors that are now full golf members has seen that whole transition. It was everything about their family. And even those that have been there for

two, three to five years, even I would fall into that bucket. The amount you get to know somebody by having these conversations and by making the effort, a lot of us come from similar backgrounds that I've taken from other places, and just that willingness to learn and to go the extra mile and to try to make the effort goes such a long way. And those connections and knowing people's preferences, it just makes it feel a little bit more personal than going to play.

a public golf course. That's not a knock at them whatsoever. They just can't do some of the things that we can. And there's things we've got in place now that allow us to take from where we are now and elevate it even further, which I'm excited about.

Brad (26:05)

That's great. Yeah, I mean, it's also about you're building loyalty right over time you're building so much loyalty and your staff and your membership and You want to get them to that point where they feel like they can't leave right? Like they're like, where am I gonna go after like I love it here so much if I if I maybe I'll go try this place But you know, I've seen members do that. They've like they've been like something rattled them They didn't like something that happened on the property that's gonna happen everywhere you go. So they're like I'm out of here I'm taking my ball and I'm going

I'm going across the street. So they go play somewhere else for half a season and then they realize it was pretty good over there and they come back and I'm sorry, okay, I'll behave. So you have those scenarios and they come back and then you pretty much have a member for life after that, especially when you welcome them back and you're like, it's okay, come on back, we're happy to see you and everything's all good. So building that loyalty I think is massive.

Rich Morel (27:00)

Very much so. It's like going, know, the whole idea of cheers the TV show back in the day where everybody knows your name, but to walk in and somebody knows that you like a half wet half dry towel on the driver's side. They know you're a smoker. So there's an ashtray there. They know you've got a physical limitation. So there's the handicap flag on your cart. You walk in and Heather our lead service there and she's got your rum and coke ready to go. She's greeting you by name. She knows your wife and your kids by name. All those things like you just don't get that everywhere. So when you have it

a team of people, and we're fortunate we've got a whole team that have kind of bought into the concept and they get that feel and touch point, whether it's in the golf department, whether it's in food and beverage, whether it's on the golf course with our superintendent or his staff. It's tough to replicate that. So to your point, they usually don't want to leave. And in my seven years, the only time people have sold, fortunately, is usually life circumstances, either they're at the age where they're not able to play physically as much as they'd like.

They're moving somewhere else because of retirement or life circumstances. But I can count maybe one or two that have left because it wasn't quite what they expected of every member over last seven years. So pretty cool to see people stick around and want to be there and almost feel bad if they have to sell. It's kind of the environment we hope to create. They want to be there forever in a day.

Clay (28:18)

Cool. And yeah, and like, think what you said about, you know, your value proposition, the personal connections between members and between staff and members, it really, can't be overstated the value. And like you said, Brad, it's, it's valuable. It's very valuable, but it's also invaluable. It's priceless. It's hard to put a price on it. And as well, the word that came to mind when you were, as you were speaking, but it was chemistry.

you sometimes just, it's just good luck. You throw the different ingredients together and you're just like, boom, it just, it just takes off. you're like, I wasn't even, couldn't have, I couldn't have planned for that. You know? And then sometimes people can throw ingredients together 10 times over. It doesn't come together. It just doesn't, the, chemistry doesn't bind, know? And then if you're fortunate, it really does. when you see it as, know, again, hat tip to you because

there was dynamics at play there when you came in, people that had already been there for a long time, you're stepping in, you're the new guy, then five out of the seven board members leave. So there's all this tumultuous change going on, most of which was out of your hands. You're just leading through it and you're just presenting what you're seeing and what you're finding, making recommendations and you get your buy-in.

And then now you're, now you're running with it. Now, now it's like, now your biggest problems is like, what do we do with all this money? Where do we put all this money? Right. It's, it's a complete turnaround. So yeah, it's, it's very, it's very powerful when you know, members or customers in any, relationship based service based business, they really feel like you truly care and are, you know, making investments in your business with them in mind.

Rich Morel (29:34)

you

Clay (29:57)

Right? Like everything you're doing is always considering them and they know that everything, even if they don't love what you did, if they know like Rich is going to bed, putting his head on his pillow and thinking about how he can make this experience better for me, whatever he does, like he has my support. Even if I'll give him feedback, if I love it, I'll give him feedback. If I don't love it, but either way, I love it that he's trying to go out of his way to continuously make it better for us. Right? That that's

Rich Morel (29:57)

And that's exactly it.

Clay (30:23)

That's service, right? You don't, you don't always hit 10 out of 10. You don't always hit the bullseye right on the mark every time. But if everybody knows you're aiming for the mark and you're taking very serious about hitting the mark as close as you can get to it, there's tons of people are very forgiving. They're very accommodating. They're very, they want you to succeed because your success means they're a better experience. So it's this mutual beneficial relationship, right? That.

Rich Morel (30:23)

Yeah, I think that's a...

Exactly right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Clay (30:49)

that you get there by and it builds

trust over time. And really those micro moments add up and it just builds that relationship, that trust where maybe the grass is greener on the other side. They want to go explore it. They go and they literally go putt and play another green somewhere else. And they're like, this isn't, this isn't like my green. Now I know what I had over there. It was very, it's very special and I'm not going to just, squander it, you know, and cast it aside.

Rich Morel (31:11)

For sure. And

not to say we're perfect by any means either, right? It's we're still working at everything every day to make it better. But I think your point's exactly right, Clay. And that, you know, if your intentions are noble and you're doing things for the right reason and you're doing it for the benefit of the membership, any decision I make is going to rub somebody the wrong way. That's just inevitable in the business that I work in. When you've got 500 people, many of which are type A and used to being the ones to call the shots, they may see a different path. And that's just

the nature of the business that I'm in. But I think if they understand that everything we do is for their benefit and to make the place better. Typically, they may not see it in the moment, but ultimately, there's a fair amount of buy-in because they know that we all have the best intentions of where we're trying to get to. And to that end, we started down the path early on and it was all about the X's and O's of the business. It's all about dollars and cents because it had to be. Now it's more around, obviously that's still an important consideration and it always will be.

But the experience I would say is equally as important, whereas it may not have been early on because it couldn't be. Now we're doing things like, and your comment before it got me thinking, there was a book that I read recently that you guys may have been familiar with called the Unreasonable Hospitality. That's kind of gone around recently and great book. And the whole concept behind it is more around, you know, care more than you really need to. And so we try to take that philosophy with our team and we do little things like we'll have umbrellas at the front door that members can take.

if it's raining so they go to their car and don't get wet. We had a winter event this winter where a huge snowstorm was coming down and the staff went out and cleaned off everybody's car before they got out there. So things that people aren't expecting. We've got a rule at our place that if there's somebody's had their first child or somebody's passed away, our chef will make a lasagna and here I'll deliver it to their home. So then nobody would ever expect those things. But I think if you care more than people expect you to, we're not doing it for any reason other than to, you know, these are people that we see as our family and

And when somebody's hurting, you want to help them. And when somebody's celebrating, you want to have some form to celebrate with them. So we're trying to find those unique touches to care a little bit more than maybe people think we should and try to create those relationships that I think are so important. yeah, that's kind of the next evolution of where we're going and kind of touches on what you're saying as well.

Clay (33:25)

Cool. And it is, it's setting the bar. It's setting a standard. Once it's been done out there and done consistently and done consistently with quality, word spreads and eventually people are like, that's actually, people actually clubs do that. Like, wow, that's, they start to be like, wow. Okay. Well,

My guys, my guys don't do that. It's good to know. And those guys got it. Rising tide can raise all boats though. Right. Doesn't have to be one guy leaping ahead and everyone else in the dust. Like it gives something to model and aspire towards and even share best practices. Maybe one day in the future with the way tech and data management and, dissemination gets to a point where maybe there's like a

And then it synthesized and then it sends out a little note to all the golf club members, all the, the golf club managers using the app, was like, here's a, you know, breakthrough, the day at this club. These guys did it this week. And just a, you know, I mean, based on if you want information based on, F and B, efficiencies or based on,

Rich Morel (34:29)

Yeah.

Clay (34:36)

Wowing members with unexpected levels of unreasonable service, right? Like there could be different categories in this like collective knowledge base, right? Where everybody can be throwing their, I'm just thinking out loud here, right? It's some of these, cause this is where like the management of large quantities of data is impossible for a human to do. And if you don't have a whole...

Rich Morel (34:48)

yeah, absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (34:59)

factory full of people sitting there, you know, punching on keys, trying to pull the good information. You need systems to synthesize all that information. And so, yeah, I'm just excited about, you know, where the tech is going and how it's going to open up just new awareness and new best practices for everyone to share. And I think, sorry, go ahead.

Rich Morel (35:20)

Yeah, I...

Yeah, I gonna say there's one we did. Now there's probably a way you guys are more apt on the tech side than I am. But even go back to my time at Dear Ridge as the head pro, we would have our locker room attendance as they're putting shoes away once they're cleaned. We'd have a record of what was in everybody's locker. So it could be a foot joy windbreaker that's medium in color wasn't as relevant, but we would usually record it anyway. There'd be three pairs of shoes are this size and this brand.

So, and we would use that for all the members of played on a regular basis, put into an Excel spreadsheet. So you get to the end of the year and me as the retailer who owned the golf shop, I could see who was wearing Nike shoes, only Nike size nine. And I could send out something directly customized to them and I know you're a huge Nike guy, a size nine. I've got one pair left in inventory. Happy to give it to you at 20 off if you're interested. So things like that, that there's

It's just, think sometimes it takes somebody to kind of lead a little bit and then some form of a technology piece to kind of help facilitate that because there's, you know, how many retailers would kill to have that level of data on their customer base. Ours is sitting downstairs. All we have to do is write it down. But then it becomes usable. So how do you take all that information to your point, get it into an easily digestible place and then execute on it. So I think there's so much upside for tech in golf.

in the private space in particular, just that's obviously what I know a little bit best from my working experience. But I think there's tons of opportunity and we talked a little bit on the A side too, and I'm sure we will more, but just where there's so many applications I can see with it.

Clay (36:55)

Yeah, exactly. let's talk about some operational stuff now. The industry is battling rising costs across the board, labor, materials, food, everything. What are some ways that you've tackled those challenges without compromising member experience? And like you said, it's without slashing it out, making the most hyper efficient club that no one wants to be at.

Rich Morel (37:21)

Yeah, and those are the biggest, I'd say topical questions right now. As we're having this conversation, tariffs are in, then they're not in, then they're back in, they might not be in, who knows? Right? So how do you how do you act proactively to counteract that as best you can? So if I'm looking at tariffs specifically, you know, we we front low purchases that relates to our turf team. So we get those items in earlier because we have the cash flow to do it to avoid what may be coming in the next weeks to months, who knows? So

that'll kind of cover us off on that end. When it comes to food and beverage, we've got to make some strategic decisions. So will we be carrying any California cabs this year? No, we won't, to be honest, at least at this time, because the cost to get it here is just too expensive. It doesn't make sense. So we've got to get a little bit more strategic and we'll carry some Niagara wines or some stuff from out west or some stuff from Spain and Europe that in the past, maybe we wouldn't have looked as closely at. So I think it requires, you know, knowledge of what's happening and then trying to get creative with solutions.

Staffing is the big one. We've, you minimum wage has gone up a couple of times the last few years and you know, I'm all for everybody making a living wage and everybody should, but it does create challenges in terms of when wages were at one level now need to be adjusted and everybody else needs to be adjusted a little bit as well. What that does to the business. I can't pass all of that onto our membership. So trying to figure that out. So I think AI as we've talked about a little bit, what we can play into some of that.

whether it be with the product you guys have to offer or whether it be other things too. So we're always looking at different efficiencies. One, when it comes to labor specifically, is you've got a tag Marshall, if you're familiar with it. Essentially, each member has a little beacon that they carry on their golf bag or on the golf course allows us to see where everybody is, if they're out of pace of play. And so we can send somebody out there when there's an issue or to be proactive before it becomes an issue.

as opposed to the old days where somebody just drives around the golf course, the guy who was in his 80s, who isn't overly effective. So allows us to kind of be more targeted, more efficient when it comes to those conversations, handle it in maybe a more professional way because we know who's having that conversation and they might be a little bit more polished as an assistant pro. So that's one area for staff efficiencies.

I do see a scenario coming where AI becomes a little more official. Like I said, when comes to phone calls and we've talked about that one specific. But I think golf in general tends to be slow to move when it comes to adopting any new technologies. And there's, sure you guys will know of technology that's been out in the regular workforce. Let's call it for the last five or 10 years that golf could adopt today that would make things more efficient. So I say I'm always on the lookout. Don't have all the answers, but those are certainly some of the areas that kind of come to mind.

Clay (40:08)

Yeah, that makes total sense. And like you said, maintaining a high standard doesn't have to mean high waste and efficiency and excellence. They're not polar opposites. They don't have to be. And especially nowadays with the tools and the systems and the automations and they just don't have to be efficiency and excellence can be, you know, bedfellows. They don't have to be complete opposite ends of a spectrum.

Rich Morel (40:38)

Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I think the critical element will ultimately is how did the two when it comes to technology and the human element work together for everybody's benefit? That I think is the million dollar question because as Brad can relate to have worked on the green grass side for a number of years, I don't think we want to lose the human element and that connection to the member, right? So don't think we want to automate everything, but I think there's areas of the business that can be automated.

that the member may not even realize in all honesty. there might be some efficiencies that can be found there that doesn't lose that personal connection to the individual where we still know their name, still have that personal element to them as well. So trying to find a way that technology can be kind of married into the business as seamlessly as possible, almost where it's not even recognized to some extent, if that makes sense.

Brad (41:25)

Yeah, 100%. I think it's more about enhancing your staff. It's not about replacing them necessarily. And this is what we're getting from talking with GMs and golf pros is having the ability to take those processes that could be automated where you have a golf professional locked away in an office, running a tournament, which is extremely important to get that tournament done correctly if you're using.

you know, tournament software, golf genius, something like that. It is very hands-on. You need to be sitting there and aware of what's going on and on top of it. And, you know, but then to be able to automate something like, you know, phone calls getting picked up, missed calls, things like that, or emails taking a couple hours out of the day, an hour out of the day, whatever it is, over an entire season, that adds up quite a bit. So that, then that staff member can now be sort of more member facing, right? Take an hour.

go for a drive on the golf course, greet everybody, say, how's it going out here? How's the condition? You know, what a beautiful day. Just that stuff, like those little touch points with members. It means so much to them and you don't really realize it until you are running a tournament, like a men's two day, where you're literally in front of a computer for, you know, 14 to 20 hours. And they're like, is Brad on vacation? Where did he go?

Right. And it's like, no, no, he's he's here. He's just he's in the office and he's just grinding away at it, you know, listening to house music or something. Right. So you can just sit there and plow away at it. But, you know, I think that's where really where AI is going to help actually increase your your face to face interactions with your membership, enhance your staff as opposed to replacing them. And that's we don't want to see human beings getting replaced by this. You know, we have a moral compass here. We're not like, let's get rid of everybody.

Rich Morel (42:54)

Thank

Brad (43:15)

let's make everything robots. We definitely don't want to see that happening. We're not looking forward to that at all. So really we would just want to enhance the staff experience. that'll, again, it'll help create that loyalty with your staff. They're like, I really love coming to work. I'm not spending my entire life behind a computer anymore. I'm interacting with members. I got to play nine holes today. It was the best, right? So I think that's really where it's headed. But yeah, if we could just, we could just like shift here, talk about food and beverage, because

We were speaking about waste and you touched on it a little bit before. know, FMB is often the leakiest department in the club. A lot of clubs just accept that, that they're just losing money and that's the way it is. But I know you took a different approach, a carrying place. What did you put in place to turn that around completely?

Rich Morel (44:02)

Yeah, you're bang on. I'd say most private clubs do lose money and most I think just augment through dues. So they plan for it and that's fine for most business models, especially early on in carrying place. That just wasn't going to be feasible. There was no extra money to pull from. I wasn't in a position to raise dues by 20 % to make that happen. So we took probably a contrary approach to just about everybody in the industry.

eliminated the food and beverage minimum as a first step, which again, sounds counterintuitive. But the belief was, if you offer a good product at a fair price with great service, members will spend money because they want to not because they have to. So that was our kind of North Star and what guided the decision. So we got rid of the food and beverage minimum, and meant people who didn't want to be in the food and beverage department for whatever reason didn't have to be so kind of change the vibe and the feel in there as well.

And those who wanted to be were there. They were giving us constructive feedback as opposed to simply pointing out issues. And from there, we then we did bring in a new executive chef who the membership had actually known from previous. So there was some familiarity with him that they knew that his cooking was going to meet their standards, that the menu was going to be consistent, plating was going to be consistent. They could bring their family out and feel confident that the meal they were going to get was to the standard they would expect. So.

I think by having the right person leading that department certainly helped by taking away the requirement to spend money. In my experience, no matter how much money somebody has, they never like to be told how to spend it. Even in, know, in our case, it was $400 a year. Like that's nothing in the grand scheme of things. But regardless, we went away from it and we grew from give you some numbers. When I first started with the club, it were just shy of $500,000 in food and beverage revenue. We've now averaged 1.2 over the last several years. So

you know, two and a half X where we were with no minimum. We've had a good focus on external events. So what we would call kind of lifestyle events. So birthdays, confirmations, some small weddings, those types of things. As a not for profit, we can't actually advertise to the public. so there's no advertising going on whatsoever. It's all been through word of mouth. So based on the experience that somebody's had as a guest or as a member or family member of a member.

It's spun into one event after another on the event side of things, and that's turned into about 40 % of our business. And then day-to-day dining has continued to pick up just based on the confidence level in that department in terms of the quality of service and product they're going to get. And we've been fortunate that in now six full years of the club, we've been profitable in five of those, which is great to see. again, not to say that that model works for everybody. Part of that is because our executive chef runs back house and front of house.

We are lean, we don't have, you know, six different outlets where people can get food. It's the dining room, it's the patio. Our halfway house is connected to the kitchen, which certainly helps. And then we added actually a couple of years ago to lose money, but we added it because it was improved service and improved the experience as we built a pseudo halfway out on the six hole. So that way you can get food before you tee off at six, at nine, at 15 to make it easy and no beverage cart. So it just makes it more consistent. So you know what you're going to get and where, and that model's worked out for us. again, our goal is not to make

hundreds of thousands of dollars. If we break even at this point, we're content, but trying to give outsize value for the quality of the dish you're getting and what you're paying for it. And our members and their guests and families have bought into it, which we're fortunate with.

Brad (47:32)

That's awesome. Yeah. I don't think I've heard of anybody removing their house minimum because that's like, like nobody really thinks about that, right? You're just like, and you brought up a good point there. It's like forcing people who are already members of your club. You're like, well, now you have to spend this, this amount. And you know how it is at the end of that. They're just, they're just, you know, trying to, they're coming in there and they're, they're angry about it. They're like, well, I guess we have to have dinner here tonight and get rid of this 500 bucks, 400 bucks, whatever it is. And they're like, this better be good.

Whereas the other time they're making a choice. They're like, okay, I need to, you know, let's have dinner here tonight. We haven't been here in a bit. Let's go here, right? So yeah, that's a really, really progressive thing to do, I would say. like, I'm sure there was some members who were like, you know, this is a massive change. And others were like, well, it's about time this happened, right? It's so ridiculous for you to do this to us, you know?

Rich Morel (48:27)

For sure. And I don't know that there's many others that have eliminated it. I know of at least one other club, but that's maybe about it. There was also a strategic reason as to why we did it when we did. And that was, there was a bunch of capital that was needed into the club. We wanted to redo the bunkers. We wanted to build a short game facility. And at the time there was no money to do it. So the way I positioned it to the club was that we're going to eliminate the food and beverage minimum, which is $400. And we're going to turn that into a capital levy. So your fees as a member stay the same, but

Brad (48:30)

Yeah.

Rich Morel (48:56)

in food and beverage, if you do great, make five or 10 points, right? So why force money where you make no money? Whereas if I have the full $400, I get all of that times however many members we have to put that total dollar to work to build new bunkers. So it was an easy sale to say, hey, you're going to get these things. Support food and beverage if you want to, you don't have to, but we're going to give you a reason because it's so compelling that the product we're offering, I think you're going to want to anyway. And we're going to use that money you otherwise would pay regardless.

and you're gonna end up getting new bunkers, you're gonna end up getting a new cart flake, you're gonna get paving, all these things, and it's not conceivably costing you anymore. Technically, those people are gonna go and buy the food and beverage anyway, but it's now their choice. So we just repurpose the money to make it go further to serve the benefit of what we're trying to accomplish. So it's a different way of packaging it to get to the outcome we needed.

Brad (49:44)

Very cool, very cool. That level of accountability and structure in your F and B ops is really impressive. I think clubs often overlook how much money they're losing month to month in that department. It can be a cash cow for some clubs, but it does not need to be a cash hog or at least break even and be a value add for members.

Rich Morel (50:04)

Absolutely. I think the challenge a lot of the clubs face is that they've got almost too many outlets. So they might have three or four different dining rooms. We're gonna have everybody staff for those. You might have different menus. So now your food cost goes up because of all the different stuff you've got to have in the fridge and the potential waste that comes from that. So we've been able to just streamline the operation for what our members are really focused on and kind of what makes sense for us. And as I said, we've actually expanded it by building that hut out on the sixth hole.

to give members what they're looking for. But I agree, don't think there's a requirement where you have to lose money to make members happy. I think if you give them a fair price, with great service, they're gonna come out and support it because you're giving them a reason to, as opposed to forcing them to be there. You're gonna have people, to your point earlier, almost like their expectations are if it's not a 10 out of 10, you failed today. Where you'd never have that same expectation if you went into any other restaurant. So you're almost setting yourself up for success.

Sorry, for failure rather. So yeah, the adjustments for us made sense and I agree. think there's no requirement to lose money to make people happy from my perspective.

Clay (51:13)

Yeah, exactly. Let's, that was some good content. haven't talked in detail about food and beverage with other interview guests yet. like to.

touch on it more in future episodes. But let's shift into something that we're very bullish on, very passionate about here at Ace Call AI, which is the latest technology in AI. Golf, as you mentioned, it's notoriously slow to adopt new technology and to change. But it's starting to shift, and it's AI, it's automation, and autonomous.

range pickers or other, there's all types of equipment coming in and hardware coming in. That's really certain to drive the change in the industry. How do you see AI and other modern, you know, technological hardware and software playing a role in the future of club management? And, you know, how do you use a right right now yourself?

Rich Morel (52:13)

Yeah, I think Brad touched on it perfectly earlier in the sense that I really see it coming through as a way to add service levels, maybe streamline some of the mundane tasks to take off of people's plate, not necessarily to replace the human element. In fact, I think it will enhance the human element as kind of Brad touched on as well. those are the ways we're looking to to utilize it. I think golf in general is slow to adapt just because sometimes you just don't know where to look, right? I've been to maybe six, seven.

maybe more than that presentations on AI, but to walk out of that with something tangible that I can use isn't always there. It's just, hey, this is coming. This is something. Now what do I do with that? Right. It's, think sometimes there's just the industry. just don't know where to turn. What is that product? What is the solution? Um, you see it now with a couple of different, uh, platforms, whether it be, you know, minute taking for board meetings would be one. There's platform that'll record it all and write all the minutes for you, which is normally a mundane task that takes sometimes hours to do after the fact. Well,

it starts to become smart enough where I can pick up who the individual is that speaking, write everything down, and then becomes simply an added after the fact. So something like that, that just, you're not replacing the human, but it takes what could have been, you know, two to three hours down to what could be 20 minutes. As I said too, might be an auto response to certain emails. I can see they're not something we're using right now, but how do you find a way that still gives somebody that instant feedback they're looking for? Cause that's just the day and age we're in, but gives the individual either

less, less of a full inbox to manage, or a summary of what they need to do as opposed to 100 emails that all need, you know, me to read them and go through them all, which is just a time suck. And then same thing we talked about on phone calls to us, how do I automate that to give the critical information to the people who need it, as opposed to somebody standing there for eight hours waiting for the phone to ring. So a bunch of different elements, there's video capabilities I've looked at right now to

Even something as simple as headshots we're to do right now at the club for our website. There's there's companies that do that So I've got probably six or eight different technologies under the process of looking at in terms of how do we integrate it from you know could be newsletters to video content and most of its trying to engage the membership and find unique ways to do that and then find efficiencies, but I far from believing I have all the answers and Fortunate to be on this call with you guys that kind of learned from your experience who are much more Progressive or further along than I am at this point

Clay (54:38)

Yeah, well, you nailed it. in some industries and some sectors, AI and automation is, it's exactly, it's literally replacing people. It's literally coming in so they can get rid of certain people.

Rich Morel (54:52)

and

Clay (54:56)

And this is like disrupting massively disrupting so many industries. Golf from everything, every way we've sliced it and examined it, it doesn't seem to be, it seems to be, I don't want say completely impervious to it, but as close, as close to that being the case, like if you have 50 staff in your club, you're not going to cut down to 10.

and just have AI systems running 40 other people's jobs. You're just, not going to be able to do that. Right. But if you keep all those 50 people employed and you can get more productivity out of them by working with them, working less and enjoying their job more and having more free time in a given day or a week to then go and do, it could be a new KPI in golf. Once you get these things rolling out, which is, how did you spend your 10,

Rich Morel (55:26)

Mm.

Clay (55:50)

Wow. A member, wow. A member hours. Wow. The member hours. Right. And it's like, you have to report now a daily or weekly to our collective, you know, group chat. How did you spend an hour today? Wow. A member with that free hour you got back by getting all your other deliverables done by leveraging AI to get them done quicker and easier and more comprehensively and more with less human error in less time. And now you've got two more hours or three more hours in a day. It's like, all right, go do something. unexp... unreasonably

unreasonable hospitality. Go do some unreasonable hospitality today and then tell us about what you did. What was the response? What was the feedback? Did they love it? Were they wowed? You know, like, and this can be a game that clubs can play with each other. And it's not even like a, and it's got an end to it. It could be just an ongoing, a new way of operating. When you're like, wow, I just got what normally would it take me 20 hours in email reading and responding. I got done in four.

Rich Morel (56:21)

Absolutely.

Clay (56:48)

or five or three. And it's like, if everyone can do that and everyone's getting all their job done and by like, you know, just past lunchtime, I was like, well, I got all my stuff done for the day. You know, it's 2 PM. It's like 1 PM, 2 PM, 3 PM. It's all right. What are we going to do guys? Let's go have some fun. Let's go wow some members today. Right. And it can, it just, it can really, that's why I see applying in golf. That's how I see this, software, this hardware, um, really freeing people and giving people the ability.

Rich Morel (56:48)

Yeah.

I agree.

Brad (57:10)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (57:15)

to focus on these things. Like you mentioned something earlier on, was when clubs are having financial issues, they can't spend any time thinking about all the different ways they're going to wow new members and spend all these ways to wow them. it's like, no, we're like in business, they call them indigestion problems or starvation problems.

It's better to have indigestion problems than starvation problems, right? If starvation problems, have one problem, it's get food in my belly. Indigestion problems, it's like, where are we going to put our money? GICs or stocks? Like what are we going to do? Right? It's a problem. It's still a problem you have to deal with, but it's a way better problem. It's an abundance problem versus a scarcity problem. And if everyone's worked to the edge of their mental and emotional and physical capacity, that's in the realm of a starvation problem. People are taxed out. There is nothing more to spare.

Rich Morel (57:36)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Clay (58:04)

You know, so it is a scarcity. Their time is very scarce and they're very, they're guarded. They don't want to take on new projects. They're like, already have so much on my plate. As soon as the idea of like, wow, members with new service. If I, I, as if I don't have enough already to think about on my plate, right? They don't want to take those extra things on, but if the software just helped me get a whole days where the work done in two hours in the morning. And they're just like, wow, that was supposed to take me a month to get done. And I'm done it now. Like it's not due till June and it's.

mid April and I'm done that project. I'm, it's already like, it's being reviewed now. It's already in editing and reviewing. It's already done. It's, just creates freedom for people and no one will complain about coming to a job where they're like, wow, I have so much creative opportunities to be innovative and experimental and creative and just hang out with the members. And like you said, go play nine rounds at one of them who's by himself and he's his, his, his playmate couldn't come and his, you know, his game mate couldn't come and play with him. so.

You know, I'm free. can go play with him for a bit. And he's a good solid member. He's been here 10 years and he sounds like he's got some stuff he wants to get off his chest. I'm just going hang with him for a few hours. And, know, and again, if the general, if you're like, yeah, go do that, Clay, like you have free time, go do that with Brad. Like, yes, I, I, that's not a waste of time. That's a value add to the member. Go, please go do that. You know? And then you're getting paid to go play golf and talk to a guy. It's like, that's, that makes life grand.

Rich Morel (59:20)

Go for it.

That's the idea. If you can free staff up to

fill in that unreasonable hospitality or just wow members as you talked about, imagine the enjoyment the staff would have and the membership, right? Just the culture we talked about earlier that that would create would be second to none, right? So think everybody would love to get there and is trying to find different ways to make that happen. There's another AI tool that you're talking to me think to that I've got to use tomorrow. We're just putting together a spring newsletter that we'll launch right around master's weekend.

Clay (59:41)

second to none.

Rich Morel (59:54)

And there's one where you can speak into it. And then if you speak for two minutes, you can then translate it into any language. So we've got at our club, a lot of Italian members just based on our location and where we are. So in the newsletter, my intent is to have something me speaking in Italian. I can't speak a word of Italian, but be able to do that will be something I think our members will get a kick out of, right? So stuff like that, just to have fun with it, right? Cause ultimately at the end of the day, that's what to me golf is supposed to be. People are coming to our club to enjoy themselves, have a good time. How do we...

make sure that they leave in a little bit better headspace when they arrive. How do you put a smile on somebody's face? You know, there's enough bad stuff going on in the world. This should be their escape from reality to some extent, right? So those are the things that get me excited. And as you said, if you can free up a staff member by noon every day to go, go look for ways to have fun and engage with the membership, you know, think of just how much further every club would be in that scenario. So I think we're just barely scratching the surface on what's possible, which is exciting.

Brad (1:00:52)

Yeah, definitely. And I think a good point to make is, that golf managers and staff who get good at leveraging these AI tools will free up so much valuable time that they, you know, we've been talking about this, it's freeing up that time and then they can reinvest and reallocate back in into the members, you know, golf facing activities into their staff to getting to know their staff better. Those little touch points are so, so crucial.

You don't want to have this kind of disconnect in the entire operation. adding that time in, I would literally add that into my day was like, you know, I've been sitting in front of Golf Genius for six hours now. I'm going to get up, go for a walk, say hi to the staff, say hi to the members, like get outside, get some sun and get that done. I think that'll be really, really fascinating. I'm sure Golf Genius is already looking at this, but like being able to actually speak into it and say,

I'm running this type of tournament. have this many players, know, this format, blah, blah, blah. I want the scorecards to look like this. And then it pumping that out. think they're, I don't know if they're working on that yet, but I think that's something they could be doing. But that's sorry. ahead.

Rich Morel (1:01:57)

wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I say I think that's exactly where things are heading, right? Is how do you just, it's not all about replacing people. And yes, either there are industries and jobs, I'm sure that'll be replaced on the way. But most of that are those mundane tasks, I think that that could be better done by AI. And that's just the reality of it, right? Where there's less errors and less oversight and, often things that people just don't want to do. So it's how do we take the stuff that is the biggest time suck and less of a human element?

in our operation and hand that to AI to free up those people to do the things that they get excited about and that drive value to the membership. So kind of exactly what you guys are talking about.

Brad (1:02:37)

Exactly, Yeah, good point there. So I guess my last question before we wrap up is for a GM who's unsure where to start with AI. What's one area you think they could experiment with AI today and see a quick return or time saving?

Rich Morel (1:02:53)

Great question. would say the product you guys are working on right now and although I haven't dug into it in detail, it certainly makes a lot of sense from my perspective in terms of automating the amount of phone calls that come in and the workload that comes from that. So I'm excited to dig into that a little bit deeper and I'm not saying that just as a plug, I legitimately am. I would encourage. Don't worry, I'll send you guys the info for eTransfer later.

Clay (1:03:13)

We didn't pay him for that. We did not pay him for that.

Brad (1:03:16)

Yeah.

Ha ha.

Rich Morel (1:03:22)

But in all honesty, think phone calls are one of those things, again, I could talk about don't wanna lose that human element, but I think there's a way from what we talked about before that your product will allow for that. So that's one that'll certainly dig into a little bit more. And then as I mentioned, there's a handful of others and I think it's really dependent on each facility. Some will look at the automated range picker, right? The great, some will look into...

Chat GPT when it comes to that and I know a lot of GMs and pros that are using that right now and a lot of them will use that to to draft what I would call more delicate responses to members where They'll write something as they think it's going to the members send it to chat GPT. It'll tidy it up and maybe Professionalize it a little bit more or streamline it and then come back and then send it out So I think there's things like that where you know, I've been guilty of it myself or I've got to send something that's relatively delicate I'm gonna

whore over that for what could be an hour for one email to make sure I get it right and I articulate things correctly. Well, if one hour can be dropped down to 10 minutes with chat GPT, that's huge. And I think phone calls and emails are the biggest time suck for most GM. So that's where I would kind of look at first is how do you how do you automate or streamline those processes. And if you can free up an hour a day alone like that is that's a game changer, in all honesty for most of us.

Brad (1:04:41)

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Rich, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been great. Your story is not just about leadership, but about resilience, strategy, and a deep commitment to both your members and your team. I know there are club managers listening right now who are working through some of the very same challenges you face, and you've given them a roadmap of what's possible when you stay focused and lead with commitment, discipline, and integrity.

Rich Morel (1:05:07)

It's very kind of you to say Brad and been fortunate as I said to be surrounded by great people in terms of staff and mentors that I can call on and lean on when needed to. So it's been a fun ride and look forward to what the next chapter in my story holds at Care In Place and beyond for sure.

Clay (1:05:24)

Yeah. And I'll just echo, you know, Brad's words. It was, really appreciate you jumping out on this call with us and speaking with us and, know, sharing your insights. They've been, know, for the people that are struggling for the managers and aspiring managers listening to this, you know, in the near or far future, you know, your insights were very, useful, you know, to people that might be in a similar boat. So yeah, we just really appreciate your time and to the listeners.

You know, if you're, if you are ready to explore how AI can make you and your staff's work easier, get done faster with less human error, with more diplomacy where needed, you know, whether, you know, it's responding, you know, instantly to missed calls or automating, you know, member messaging or streamlining your operations. You know, we really, we invite you to.

Give us a call and see how our software can help you with all the above. If you give our demo Ace Call Golf Club, a receptionist, this is a advanced receptionist that we created for our hypothetical Ace Call Golf Club. We've programmed it with, to be able to answer any question that someone would call your golf club and ask.

And so we invite you to give it a call 1-866-838-8581. Again, that's toll free 1-866-838-8581. Give it a call. It's a voice AI receptionist for a semi-private golf club that is open year round. So any question that you would call that golf club to ask, you can call and ask our receptionist. And I think you'll be amazed with the back and forth conversation and what it can do.

Once again, the software in the Gulf is not meant to replace humans. It's meant to replace voicemail. It's meant to replace missed calls. People should answer their phones wherever and whenever possible across all departments. But we can't answer phones all the time, 100% of the time across all departments. And so where normally a voicemail, which people either don't leave a voicemail or they do, and then they wait and wait and wait to get a response, our software can

completely change that missed call experience for the members and for golfers as well as your staff. And we'd to give you an opportunity to test it out. So give it a call. And you can also encourage since we were on that topic today, talking about ChatGPT, if you are new to ChatGPT, or if you consider yourself an advanced user of ChatGPT, we have created a resource called the golf club AI amplifier.

It has a number of prompt templates. So you can just easily cut and paste them right into ChatGPT as is and begin to see how, you know, what the results, what the outputs are for you and for your club. When you put these prompts in, you can also edit them, you know, do whatever you want with them, combine them. It's a very powerful resource. It's going to save you a lot of time. If you're new to ChatGPT, it's as easy as cut and paste. And if you're advanced to ChatGPT, you, this is a whole

It's a whole other, I call it a tool in your utility belt that you're already pretty proficient in. So that's it for today. Thanks again for tuning into another episode of the Ace Call AI podcast. We help golf club managers win with AI. We'll see you next time.