Consider Club Security In Downtime

GNN blogger Kyle German got an early Christmas gift this year of a not-too-pleasant nature when he was informed that the shop at Point Roberts Golf and Country Club in Point Roberts, Wash., had been broken into recently. Security cameras were in place, but couldn’t identify the intruder who was wearing a hood. German says it’s a good idea to do a double-check of your security in the off-season.

They came in around 1 a.m. and the alarm did go off. They came in through a back door, broke a window and rifled through the tills.

As far as the shop goes, there was just some broken glass. They actually went up to my computer in my office and I don’t know if they were trying to get the hard drive, but they grabbed a DVD writer, maybe thinking it was the hard drive

When they realized there was nothing to get, they took a power cart key, broke through the chain that we lock up the carts in. We found the cart the next day on the fifth hole, which is right by the Canadian-American border, so we figure they just drove it up to the border and went across into Canada.

The actual border itself is a road with houses and back yards and I guess they just went through someone’s back yard and left our cart in the water hazard.

As of this writing, they’re still trying to figure out how much damage was done to the cart. They figure they got it out of the water about 10 or 11 hours after it went in, so they’re not sure if the seats are going to have to be replaced. We’ll see how the electrical system is after it’s all dried out.

Thankfully, in this case, it was more of a pain than a big financial loss due to damage or theft, but the alarm that went off was more than the one that sounded during the break-in.

Where we are, it’s kind of secluded, so people who know the area know that they’ve got time if they try to break in. They can make noise because there are no neighbours.

Those facts emphasize the importance of security at golf shops, many that are in the same type of location as our shop. We were diligent enough to make sure that everything was where it was supposed to be and, as a result, the impact of the incident was kept to a minimum.

We changed the locks afterwards and installed deadbolts, but the incident emphasized something I read in Kevin’s Blog (GNN blogger Kevin Thistle) recently.

He talked about getting ready for the new year and making sure that everything’s set for next season. Shop and building security in this day and age needs to be on that list.

Just like Kevin said, take stock of what happened, what you did well, what you didn’t do well and make changes if you need them.

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