GPS-Based System ‘Changes the Way Golf Courses Manage Their Business’
AUGUSTA, GA (Jan. 28, 2009) – Club Car’s Guardian SVC (Satellite Vehicle Control) system brings an advanced level of protection to golf courses and their most valuable assets – their customers, course and golf cars – as part of the industry’s most affordable GPS-based system.
Guardian incorporates the most desirable course management features of GPS technology – including limiting vehicle access, controlling vehicle speed, reviewing the history of where a golf car has been driven and monitoring and diagnosing vehicle performance – into a system that can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.
“Guardian changes the way golf courses manage their business,” said Michael R. Packer, Club Car’s vice president of sales for the company’s Americas group. “It enables GPS technology to become a strategic course management tool with widespread application.”
One of the most appealing aspects of the Guardian system is its price of $500 per car (plus a nominal monthly servicing/licensing fee) – far less than what conventional GPS systems cost. Guardian’s affordability results from its highly integrated design and use of existing satellite imagery to plot the course and designate restricted areas. “Guardian takes the best of GPS technology and makes it affordable for any golf course,” Packer said.
Before designing the Guardian system, Club Car commissioned a national survey to find out what owners and operators considered their most critical business challenges. According to the survey, operators’ chief concerns are keeping vehicles on the cart path during cart-path-only periods, safeguarding riders, golfers playing additional holes without the pro shop’s knowledge, damage to cars, vandalism and accidents resulting from golf cars being driven into unsafe areas.
“These are all issues that directly affect operating expenses and areas where Guardian can help operators lower costs,” Packer said.
The Guardian system makes it easy for course managers to set up a profile to limit vehicle use or maximum speed anywhere on the course, including near lakes, bunkers, environmentally sensitive areas and steep downhill portions of the cart path. Using the golf car industry’s first Local Interconnect Network, which allows the vehicle’s controller and on-board computer to communicate in real time, Guardian can display a message to vehicle occupants (visible on an LCD panel mounted in the vehicle’s dash area) to return to an unrestricted area. The system can also be programmed to slow the vehicle’s speed or stop it altogether in prescribed areas.
The same technology monitors battery use to prevent a vehicle from going out on the course with an insufficient charge to complete the round. Diagnostic capabilities also helps course technicians remotely identify and correct potential vehicle faults. The system supports an optional distance-to-the-green feature with distance to additional points of interest such as bunkers or water hazards.
The Guardian system, which will be available in the second quarter of 2009, will be offered on Club Car’s 2009 Precedent models equipped with the company’s Excel drive system. It also can be installed in the field on existing 2008 Precedent i2 and i2L Excel models.
Club Car worked with GPS Industries (GPSI), a Sarasota, Fla.-based global media and technology firm, to develop the Guardian software. GPSI will provide assessments, installations and training for the Guardian system to Club Car customers.
Club Car, a business of Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited, a diversified industrial firm, Honors the Game in its service to customers and support of the golf industry. Club Car is the exclusive premier partner of the National Golf Course Owners Association in the U.S. and NGCOA Canada’s exclusive Golf Car Supplier and Platinum Partner. Club Car is also a sponsor of the European Golf Course Owners Association, a Silver Partner of the GCSAA and a Corporate Advantage Partner of the Club Managers Association of America. It is the Official Supplier of Golf Cars and Utility Vehicles to the 2010 Ryder Cup, the Official Golf Car and Golf Utility Vehicle and an Official Sponsor of the PGA European Tour, the official supplier of golf cars and utility vehicles to PGA Tournament Players Clubs, and leading sponsor of the PGA Professional National Championship, The First Tee and the Executive Women’s Golf Association.
About Club Car
Club Car provides fleet, turf, hospitality and financing solutions for golf, agricultural, recreational and industrial markets. For more information on Club Car, go to www.clubcar.com. Based in Augusta, Ga., Club Car is part of the Industrial Technologies sector of Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited. Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR) is a global diversified firm providing products, services and solutions to enhance the quality and comfort of air in homes and buildings, transport and protect food and perishables, secure homes and commercial properties, and increase industrial productivity and efficiency. Driven by a 100-year-old tradition of technological innovation, we enable our customers to create progress and a positive impact in their world.
Contact:
Bill Bryant, Bryant Marketing Communications
(678) 366-3232, bbryant@bryantmarcomm.com
Mike Read, Club Car
(800) 227-0739 (Ext. 2615), mike_read@clubcar.com
