The Golf Enterprise Solution, or GES, brings Air Force courses up to par with resort, public, private, and municipal courses in the United States and abroad. The same software is in use at more than 1,400 facilities in 15 countries in nine languages, according to the company’s website.
“The Air Force golf system is just about on every continent but Antarctica, I think. So there have been a number of ways of doing things out there,” Robert Jacobus, facility manager at Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA)-Lackland’s Gateway Hills Golf Course, said. “I think overall, it will give the Air Force a great tool to be able to look real-time at what they have … what their golf managers are doing and how the inventory level impacts the golf operation”
The biggest impact for golfers under GES is the ability to reserve tee times online.
“At Lackland and Fort Sam (Houston), I have always called the course for a tee time, but at the other courses, I will use the online reservation,” said David Walker, a member of the Air Force Civil Engineer Center at JBSA and a member at the Silverhorn Golf Club. “(At Silverhorn) I like that you can see the availability of times for a twosome or a foursome, and getting emailed announcements and updates from the course is handy.”
GES offers an online reservation system at https://myairforcegolf.com. Golfers book tee times at their convenience rather than by calling the course during operating hours. They can see what times are available for one to four players and select the time they want, and, once they register on the system, receive confirmation of reservations via text message or email.
“The first time you use the system and check in, it will verify your information as far as your rank, rate or the fee you are supposed to pay, but after that, it will automatically populate that information. It collects email information that we can use as a marketing tool so we can notify them about tournaments, a sale at the pro shop or maintenance issues. It’s a great marketing tool to get information out,” Jacobus said.
The system is also a great planning tool for someone with personal time off or a temporary duty assignment. “Say you’re going TDY to Miami … you can actually look up the golf course there you can see what available tee times you have, and you can reserve a tee time,” Rose Gomez, GES program manager with AFSVA, said.
GES was tested at JBSA Randolph and Lackland, Texas; Shaw AFB, South Carolina; and Yokota AB, Japan, from December through May. “We tested one OCONUS base so we could verify foreign currency,” Gomez said.
AFSVA is now in the deployment phase of the system with Kadena AB, Japan being the first base, followed by Misawa AB, Japan.
The goal is to implement GES enterprise-wide by the end of 2016, Gomez said.
GES is a nonappropriated fund, or NAF, investment of approximately $5 million. It provides a perpetual inventory for pro shops and snack bars by allowing staff members to input the SKU number bar code associated with that item, and see the quantity, price paid and profit margin on each product.
“We at AFSVA are able to see that as well. Our goal is eventually to assist the golf courses with their purchasing, by decreasing the number of suppliers and have menu buying on a particular product,” Gomez said.
Jacobus noted that in the past, course managers weren’t able to tell exactly what a pro shop sold in terms of sizes, brands, or types of products.
“It will allow you to know, depending on how you set it up, exactly how many Cadet medium/large leather gloves you sold during the year. If you sold 10 pairs of size 13 golf shoes, you might need to stock size 13s. Or if you sold no size 6.5s, you might not want to order those. It’s an operating tool that allows us to maximize our inventory to have the stuff that we need to have in the shop for what our patrons normally buy,” Jacobus said.
Snack bars will have the same type of advantages, he said.
Golfers at the following bases can look forward to GES implementation during phase one of the rollout: Kadena and Misawa ABs, Japan; Maxwell AFB, Alabama; Robins AFB, Georgia; Keesler, Mississippi; Aviano AB, Italy; RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom; Ramstein and Spangdahlem ABs, Germany; Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota; Beale and Travis AFBs, California; Osan and Kunsan ABs, Republic of Korea; and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.