Spotlight on Head PGA Professional Oliver Cross

I’ve been at Brough Golf Club since I was an 11 year old junior player.  At 16 I worked here under Gordon Townhill, who was Director of Golf at the time, and then started my PGA qualification in 2009.  I’ve worked at other clubs but came back over five years ago as Head Professional, which was always my goal. I’m Brough through and through.

I like the buzz of retail. I see how it ties in with coaching and custom fitting, and you can flip that around and talk to people about lessons who come into the shop. It's an essential part of our offering.  I like to work on Saturdays to ensure I see a lot of our members, and Wednesdays as well, so I don't miss the women's comps.

We have three members of staff in the shop and a PGA Coach, Carlo Ciullo.

Back when I was a PGA Assistant at another club, retail was done manually, which led to some poor buying decisions due to lack of data and understanding of what customers were buying.  We now know you can't run a shop off your gut instinct and I could really see the benefits of having good retail software. When I set up on my own, I got in touch with Xpos.  It gives us all the stats we need and, while it doesn't take the economy into account, you've got the comfort and reassurance of the system.

Being able to access it from home or abroad is a huge positive for me

We moved to the new cloud software in August last year.

I really can’t see any draw backs from the new online service. Being able to access it from home or abroad is a huge positive for me, and is something the old system wouldn’t let you do. From a time-saving point of view, it’s great.

I can only talk from experience but my PC broke a few months ago and, thankfully, I didn’t lose any data as it was all in the cloud. I know people think it won’t happen to them, but it really is something to consider.

The system is specifically designed for golf which is where other companies fall down

The stocktaking app, Xapp Pro, is brilliant. I use it for all my stocktakes.  It’s easy to use and we can stocktake using the barcode scanner and our phones. Someone else can be on the till and it doesn't stop me from stocktaking.

I just think Xpos has got it right. The system is specifically designed for golf which is where other companies fall down.  They don't understand golf. I've seen other ePos systems which didn't take into account the nuances of the golf business such as account debits, credits, vouchers, running competitions and reports.  In Xpos, everything is streamlined.  It’s easy to navigate and very intuitive. It took us no time at all to learn how to use the cloud software and I just can’t fault it.

All Xpos users are switching to the new cloud service. Book your move here