Beware of Barter: The Ins and Outs of Trading Your Tee Times
This guide reveals data, reviews and narratives every golf course owner or operator should know about bartering tee times away for golf management software (GMS) technology, and tee time distribution services. The guide begins with a definition and discussion of barter; it then explores Calculating the Cost of Barter, Price Elasticity and Golf, Rate Integrity and Parity - Protecting Your Brand, Is the Technology Worth the Cost?, The Hospitality Handbook, and various case studies and best practices.
Research included academic studies, case histories, and expert observations and analysis; the findings have developed over the years, not only through a recent member survey, but through discussions with GMS providers and Online Tee Time Agents (OTTAs), and general industry awareness. Click here to download the report.
Golf Industry Podcast by Chronogolf
On this week’s episode, Matt speaks with Co-Director of Advocacy for NCGOA, Jared Williams. Williams tackled a pressing subject in our industry, and gave a refreshing and impartial take on the current landscape of tee time distribution. He unravels the complicated web of golf technology providers, and educates owners, directors and managers on what to look out for when purchasing club management software (tee sheet and golf POS). In this episode, Matt and Jared discuss:
- The possibility of an open marketplace
- The inner-workings of golf management software vendors
- Benefits and challenges of wanting to purchase a tee sheet and POS system from separate vendors
- Why staff at pro shops do not capitalize on gathering as much customer information as possible
- Questions to ask your technology providers to ensure they are adhering to industry guidelines
- How to determine if your technology vendor adheres to the NGCOA’s guidelines
Taking What’s Theirs – July 2017 Golf Business Magazine
Golf Course owners are working to reclaim tee times from third-party sellers. In 2001, the GolfNow tee-sheet system arrived online, just as golf’s decade-long bubble began leaking air. Rounds played in the United States ended their steady rise that year and started a long decline. In 2003, the country’s golfer population topped out at 30.6 million and has tracked downward since. The 2001 tally of new golfers came in lower than in the peak year of 2000—a pinnacle U.S. golf has never again reached.
Online tee-time platforms engaging in third-party selling have endured harsh criticism, even as they’ve grown their base of partner courses. The environment in which GolfNow, TeeOff, GolfBook (formerly Golf Pipeline) and others have operated has been consistently demoralizing—a post-Tiger exodus of all those fad-chasing golfers along with an oversupply of holes fueled by real estate-development courses. How relations between course owners and the digital tee-sheet companies may have differed had the parties begun collaborating amid an expanding market is a matter for speculation.
What’s on Your Tee Sheet Shopping List?
So you’re going shopping for a new tee sheet this winter. This is a big decision regarding one of the more important tools for managing your business.
What Golf Now’s Worry Free Tee Time Policy Means for the Course Operator
“You will not be subject to course cancellation policies.”
“Worry-Free Tee Times supersede any course cancellation policy.”
As someone working on behalf of the Golf USA Tee Time Coalition to address the difficulties you may be experiencing with online tee time distribution, I certainly understand why the aforementioned statements regarding GolfNow’s Worry Free policy have caused some concern.
I recently met with GolfNow to get some clarity on a number of topics, this being one of them. With Worry Free, GolfNow does not pass credit cards through the system to the course; so that process remains the same. So how, then, do you enforce your course’s cancellation policy, when a cancellation occurs within your policy’s window?
For example, let’s say a golf course has a cancellation policy that reads:
- A person who has made a tee time booking will be required to call the Golf Shop a minimum of 4 hours prior to the tee time to cancel or amend the number of players in the bookings without penalty.
- A $20 per person cancellation fee will be charged to the cardholder of the person who made the booking if the tee time cannot be re-sold or spots filled with walk-ons with less than 4 hours notice.
This cancellation policy would require 4 hours notice.
GolfNow’s Worry Free policy only requires that the cancellation occur “before” the tee time. (Does this mean 1 minute before? 10 minutes before? 1 hour before?)
Based on the above cancellation policy, with Worry Free, Golf Now indicated they would:
- Allow those golfers to cancel within 4 hours of the reservation AND
- Reimburse the golf course for the $20 penalty that already exists in the course’s cancellation policy.
In order to make sure the golf course receives its reimbursement, the owner/operator simply needs to fill out the form located here http://golfnowsolutions.com/no-show-request-form. It is also important that the owner/operator makes sure that the course’s current/ latest cancellation policy is included in the booking notes via GolfNow. This should always remain up to date.
Reservations made through GolfNow.com are guaranteed to the course on behalf of the golfer, and the onus is on GolfNow to reimburse the course, when/if the course receives a no-show or late cancellation inside of their own policy window.
Again, the course would need to fill out the no-show request form and GolfNow would then reimburse the course for those costs (pursuant to the course’s cancellation policy).
Like many aspects of golf course operations, there is great disparity in how golf courses manage, maintain, and enforce cancellation policies. If you are a GolfNow user that doesn’t currently have a cancellation policy, you may want to consider making that a priority.
Golfers, managers and business experts weigh new booking technology
C&G Newspapers (Detroit Metro)
In large part, the days of calling the golf course clubhouse, asking for a tee time and hoping there’s an opening have faded into the past. For many golfers, the decision of where to go, how much to pay and what time they’re teeing off is now just a few clicks away.
NGF Survey Reveals Surprises in 3rd-Party Tee Time Use and Perception
National Golf Foundation Newsletter
3rd-party tee time sellers have been a polarizing subject in the golf industry since their emergence almost a decade ago. Concerns over price integrity, customer ownership and divided loyalties have caused some consternation among course owners and operators. However, partnering with services such as GolfNow.com and TeeOff.com offers benefits of additional marketing power, enhanced awareness and direct revenue that are difficult to dismiss.
What Golf Now’s Worry Free Tee Time Policy Means for the Course Operator
“You will not be subject to course cancellation policies.”
“Worry-Free Tee Times supersede any course cancellation policy.”
As someone working on behalf of the Golf USA Tee Time Coalition to address the difficulties you may be experiencing with online tee time distribution, I certainly understand why the aforementioned statements regarding GolfNow’s Worry Free policy have caused some concern.
I recently met with GolfNow to get some clarity on a number of topics, this being one of them. With Worry Free, GolfNow does not pass credit cards through the system to the course; so that process remains the same.
So how, then, do you enforce your course’s cancellation policy, when a cancellation occurs within your policy’s window?For example, let’s say a golf course has a cancellation policy that reads:
- A person who has made a tee time booking will be required to call the Golf Shop a minimum of 4 hours prior to the tee time to cancel or amend the number of players in the bookings without penalty.
- A $20 per person cancellation fee will be charged to the cardholder of the person who made the booking if the tee time cannot be re-sold or spots filled with walk-ons with less than 4 hours notice.
This cancellation policy would require 4 hours notice.
GolfNow’s Worry Free policy only requires that the cancellation occur “before” the tee time. (Does this mean 1 minute before? 10 minutes before? 1 hour before?)
Based on the above cancellation policy, with Worry Free, Golf Now indicated they would:
- Allow those golfers to cancel within 4 hours of the reservation AND
- Reimburse the golf course for the $20 penalty that already exists in the course’s cancellation policy.
In order to make sure the golf course receives its reimbursement, the owner/operator simply needs to fill out a form.
It is also important that the owner/operator makes sure that the course’s current/ latest cancellation policy is included in the booking notes via GolfNow. This should always remain up to date. Reservations made through GolfNow.com are guaranteed to the course on behalf of the golfer, and the onus is on GolfNow to reimburse the course, when/if the course receives a no-show or late cancellation inside of their own policy window.
Again, the course would need to fill out the no-show request form and GolfNow would then reimburse the course for those costs (pursuant to the course’s cancellation policy).
Like many aspects of golf course operations, there is great disparity in how golf courses manage, maintain, and enforce cancellation policies. If you are a GolfNow user that doesn’t currently have a cancellation policy, you may want to consider making that a priority.
Hopefully this information has been helpful in providing a little more insight on this topic. Like many of you, I am most concerned with how Worry Free affects the cancellation policies some courses may already have in place.