Electronic caddie system
sets Butter Valley apart

By Julie Pelchar
Reading Eagle/Times

BALLY - Your pockets may be feeling light from out-of-county adventures to upscale daily fee courses, but you're still  looking for another road trip.

Butter Valley Golf Port - located about 40 minutes east of Reading in Montgomery County - is the answer.

The price is right ($29 with cart weekdays and $37 weekends), the scenery different (a quaint airport lies between the 10th and 15th fairways) and the amenities plentiful.

Butter Valley not only offers a fully stocked pro shop, indoor practice center and excellent snack bar - the Runway Grill - but it's the only course in the area that features an electronic caddie system - a satellite-operated distance measuring and information system that provides yardage and playing tips via a cart-mounted computer screen.

No more pacing off yardage or searching for sprinkler heads. The system provides enough information to satisfy even a low-handicapper.

A computer screen attached to the steering wheel column of a cart shows yardage to the center, front and back of the green. It also provides distances to bunkers and Butter Valley's few water hazards.

And with just three buttons, the computer is about as user-friendly as a Tight Lies fairway wood.

"With all the stubborn Dutchmen here, I didn't want a lot of user interaction," joked John Gehman, who doubles as Butter Valley's proprietor and superintendent. "The system is really simple."

Gehman first saw the ProShot Global Positioning Satellite Omni Golf System five years ago at a National Golf Course Owners Association show in Atlanta. He didn't use it until the spring of '98 when he played Falcon's Fire Golf Club, a resort course in Orlando, Fla.

"I played well that day," Gehman said. "I think the system gave me the confidence which allowed me to play better."

Six months later, Gehman contacted ProShot Golf. The project was completed in February '99.

Butter Valley is just one of three courses in Pennsylvania (the other two are Wild Pines Golf Club in Pocono Pines and Treesdale Country Club, a private course in Pittsburgh) and 145 worldwide that uses the ProShot system.

Along with its obvious benefits, the system also facilitates pace of play. Golfers simple glance at the computer screen for distance instead of searching for yardage markers.

At Butter Valley, patrons also receive messages from Gehman and the pro shop staff regarding their position in relationship to a prescribed pace of play.

A pro shop computer monitors every cart on the course. If a group is "out of position," Gehman and Co. will send a message to their monitor that may read, "Please keep pace."

"It's fantastic," Gehman said. "About half the time, a (slow) group will speed up after we send a message and before we have to send a ranger out. It reduces what I call 'ranger anxiety.'"

The system may not be as useful as on resort courses in locations such as Myrtle Beach, S.C., where distances to hazards are as essential as golf gloves, but its novelty gives Gehman an edge.

I started to feel the competition and felt I had to be proactive and create a niche and offer something different," Gehman said.