Welsh winner at Turnberry

Posted on Tuesday July 28th, 2009.

Although we watched the Open at Turnberry with baited breath as to who would lift the claret jug, besides the eventual winner of Stewart Cink, the spoils could equally be shared with a Welsh company who once again provided spectators both on and off the course a real insight to what is the worlds greatest golfing event.

North Wales based DMC (David Morris Corporation Ltd) supplied free of charge paper based course guides to spectators entering the event between Thursday and Sunday, handing out nearly 50,000 in total. David Morris, Managing Director and founder of DMC said “once again we were inundated with requests from people wanting to have the full colour guide which we produced in association with Nike. To say they were well received would be a huge understatement, and something we once again have had great feedback from, having done it for the first time last year at Royal Birkdale”.

World number three Paul Casey worked with DMC to provide a hole by hole strategy of how he would play the hole, giving the spectator an inside perspective on how players of this calibre attack each hole of the world famous Turnberry Ailsa links.

But in addition to the free handout, thousands of golfers across the country downloaded the free course guide direct to their mobile phone by simply texting the word ‘Golf’ to the number 82727. David Morris continues, “this application is something we are introducing to golf clubs as an alternative to printed course guides. The problem with printed guides is that they are very costly and are in effect out of date immediately, so when a bunker is added for example, the course guide is now incorrect, although for the poor club pro there may be a couple of thousand still left to sell before the costly re-print. We can change the image in about one minute, and customers will get the new course instantaneously, and also for the club pro there is no money upfront so everybody wins.

So what else were DMC doing at the Open to share the spoils with Mr Cink? How about supplying over 3000 golfers a free download of the GPS version of Turnberry to their phone using the CaddyAid Mobile software. In effect they are getting this award winning software absolutely free compared to the normal price of £9.99. On their phones they have GPS readouts from where they are standing to any hole, irrespective if you were thousands of yards away. Of course not even the great Mr Woods can hit the ball thousands of yards (well not at present anyhow) but it does show the power of the technology as well as its costs advantages.

CaddyAid Mobile certainly has grasped golfers requirement for technology, and having a fully blown GPS system on your mobile phone brings with it a massive cost saving. DMC provide a facility where unlimited courses can be downloaded for the price of only £49.99. A massive saving when compared to the standard price of £300 plus for a competitive product using a bespoke piece of hardware, which of course you have to pay for, in addition to paying for extra courses as well on top of that £300, so £49 all inclusive is a very very attractive offer for any golfer and any club pro in retail.

As a company DMC have already forged links with major golfing brands like Nike, and had significant talks with leading golf ball manufacturers about them using the software which is a huge testament indeed for this reasonably small Welsh company who have previously won the British Invention Show for its technological innovation beating competition from around the world. David Morris concludes “our build up to Turnberry was well thought out, and the take-up exceeded all our expectations, in fact at one point we were so busy with customer requests we had to put on an additional server to cope with the demand. As a company we are supported significantly by the Welsh Government, and have been since day one which is an incredible support mechanism, and we hope this collaboration takes us all the way through to the Ryder Cup next year at Celtic Manor. Having GPS on your mobile phone will soon override other major GPS players in this field, which will be supported by the alliances with major phone networks and phone manufacturers”.

With a range of products from GPS software on golfers phones, downloading distance guides to mobile phones the company are offering both the golfer and the club pro very strong alternatives to existing products such as paper guides and high cost rental GPS units which are long overdue. With the support from the Welsh Government as well as the business alliance already forged with mobile companies and leading golf manufacturers DMC as a business certainly are moving in the right direction even in this current economic climate.

To steal a strap line from one mobile company – The Future is Bright, the Future is CaddyAid Mobile. For DMC that certainly seems to be the case, by offering thousands of golfers something for free during the Open where so many things were overpriced, indeed it is fair to say that there really was, at long last a Welsh winner at Turnberry.