Background
The Concord Golf Club is a golf club in Concord, New South Wales, Australia, a suburb of Sydney. It’s a premier golf club in Australia, having hosted the Women’s Australian Open in 2004, with the clubhouse designed by Thomas Pollard Sampson, a member, in 1921. Despite the pandemic, the Concord Golf Club has remained in business with new safety protocols in place designed to protect members and staff against the Covid-19 virus.
Problem
Confronted with restrictions on the use of shared equipment and a concern for the health and safety of the members, the golf club found the Covid-19 environment to be especially challenging to balance compliance with appropriate health guidelines and a desire to help members stay active. With a priority to look after the health of members, the club initially took a conservative position and withdrew all golf carts from use as they were not confident that they could appropriately clean them between hirings.
With the initial emphasis on personal hygiene including washing hands, one of their own members, Willis Kwok suggested that he could provide a natural-based cleaning solution for effective hand washing without the use of standard alcohol-based chemical cleaning agents. The suggested solution was to use an ozonated water dispenser at the halfway location to encourage members to wash their hands before, during (after 9 holes), and after their round of golf. The use of ozonated water, which acts as a strong oxidant, is extensively used as a fast-acting sanitizing agent in high-end restaurants and various health industry applications such as dental clinics and hospitals for killing bacteria and viruses. Having established the convenience and effectiveness of using the ozonated water dispensers for hand washing, the club asked if the ozonated water dispenser can clean hands, could it be also used to clean a golf cart?
Solution
Ozonated Water — Concord Golf Club found a unique solution to sanitizing golf carts to overcome Covid restrictions. After some further research, they have now installed a Water Disinfection System (WDS) ozonated water unit to sanitize the golf carts from top to bottom each morning before every use, resulting in re-introducing carts for use by members without risk of infection. Members were especially pleased that they were able to achieve the objective of “bug-free” carts without the use of harsh chemical-based products. The use of ozonated water, which naturally breaks down to normal water after approximately 20 minutes, makes it safe for application by staff and use by their members, as ozone (O3) naturally reverts to oxygen (O2) by releasing the singular oxygen molecules (activated oxygen).
From the Club’s perspective, they are now able to offer a cart service to their members and generate cart hire income, but more importantly, they are able to assist some members to stay active and to continue to play golf. In addition to enabling the obvious health benefits for members, and generating cart hire income, a more significant benefit has been the goodwill and the expected renewal of memberships of cart-based members.