Golfer Accountability & Booking Foursomes

Getting Back to Golf Basics

One of the best parts of the NGCOA Canada Conference is the Annual Idea Fair where courses of all kinds --big, small, private, public etc.-- can walk away with at least a few proven ideas that can fit into your business. In our experience, the easier something is to implement, the more likely we are to try it out. With that being said, over the next few pages we have put together a step by step process for holding golfers accountable to their booked tee times, and providing foursomes with advance booking during certain time frames.

Redwoods Testimonial

Traditionally, golf is a four person game. Over the last few years we have seen an increasing amount of golfers straying from that ideal golf scenario and becoming content playing in twosomes or threesomes without even trying to find a fourth player. Too often we have seen golfers book a foursome but show up only as two or three players without providing any notice, which is essentially lost revenue.

To help lower these losses and instead turn them into gains, we started doing two simple things: holding golfers accountable to the number of players they booked and providing foursomes with advance booking during certain times of the day. Combined, these earned us over $26,000 in revenue in a four month span from June to September of 2020. As an added benefit of having mostly foursomes play in prime tee times, we were able to significantly reduce pace of play issues on the course as we experienced very minimal days where our pace of play exceeded our optimal pace. We are aware that the COVID-19 pandemic put a lot of demand on the golf industry which definitely aided in the implementation and overall acceptance of these policies, but overall they were well received and helped us to fill our tee sheet with golfers who were committed to playing and would actually show up to their tee times.

The protocols that we have developed over the last two years are actually quite simple and primarily require small changes which can be easily executed by golf facilities large or small. These protocols involve small changes to communication and minor adjustments to policies that a golf facility likely already has in place; they do not require extra staffing, an increased number of refunds, or steep learning curves.

Holding golfers accountable to their reservations and giving priority booking to foursomes is not necessarily a riveting concept but by moving back to golf basics we all can continue to increase our revenues and save our facilities from preventable losses each year while maintaining a fantastic pace of play. In the following pages you will see a breakdown of how golf facilities, large or small, can implement these tried and true protocols and policies. 

Downloads of Redwoods policy wording, email templates, and a guide to the back end of the Club Prophet Systems online booking module is available on the last page.

Next Page: Holding Golfers Accountable

 

Holding Golfers Accountable

The simple act of requiring a credit card at the time of booking is often enough to encourage a golfer to be accountable to their reservation by showing up, or cancelling in advance allowing a golf facility to rebook. Starting in 2019 and again in 2020, we clearly communicated to our customers (on our website, over the phone, in tee time confirmation/reminder emails etc.) that if a group booked but showed as less golfers, they would still be charged for the number of players in the original booking. The potential consequence of being charged for a golfer that did not show puts just enough pressure on the people booking so that they think twice before showing as less golfers without providing notice, or not showing at all.

When we come across an issue of a group showing as less golfers than originally booked, we assess each situation and charge accordingly. With this policy, an entire group not showing is extremely unlikely and in 2020 we only had 12 golf groups no show their tee time and all were charged.

By holding golfers accountable to their booked tee times we reduced our rate of golfers who did not show up to their reservations or "no shows" from 10% of all booked tee times in 2018 to 1.8% in 2020, an increase in revenue of over $14,000 between June and September.

Below is a step by step process for how a golf facility can start holding golfers accountable to their tee time reservations:

1. Move tee time bookings online. This puts the ownership of the booking on the golfers themselves and you are not relying on staff to communicate policies, consequences, and other important information that may need to be conveyed when booking a tee time.
   1. When you switch to primarily online bookings, make sure that your golfers know of this change. Set an automated message on your phones, have staff tell each golfer they speak to on the phone, include it in tee time confirmation emails, include it in your next email newsletter etc.
   2. If you absolutely cannot move solely to online bookings, make sure that phone bookings are receiving email confirmations with necessary information regarding cancellation policies
2. Require a credit card number at the time of booking. We have set up this requirement through the backend of our Club Prophet Systems booking module so that a tee time cannot be booked without a valid credit card number. 
3. Use a secure online payment solution such as the Moneris Vault. The Moneris Vault allows a golfer to enter their own credit card information online, verifies it, and safely stores the information until the card expires
   1. At check-in on the day of the tee time, the Golf Shop Attendant is able to charge the card on file in the Moneris Vault for all green fees and any other purchases made such as golf balls, apparel, or power carts. This offers a higher level of customer experience but is also a convenient way to charge a golfer if they do not show up for their tee time at all. 
   2. By holding credit card information and charging on the day of play rather than taking prepayment at the time of booking, we prevent the need to refund golfers when they cancel within acceptable cancellation window.
   3. TIP: it is possible to manually enter credit card information into the Moneris Vault on behalf of a customer if they wish however, in the case of a credit card charge dispute it is much better to have the customer entering the information themselves online as well as booking their own tee time online.
4. Establish a clear cancellation policy and outline the consequences for not cancelling in advance or not showing up to a tee time at all. Currently we have a 24 hour cancellation policy and when golfers no show they receive a no show charge which is equivalent to the cost of their original booking.
   1. TIP: in the event of a credit card dispute for a no show charge, it is beneficial to have your cancellation policy worded as a no show charge rather than charging for services in which the golfer did not receive (ie. green fees).
5. Communicate your cancellation policy and consequences. This is not something to hide or be secretive about--you want golfers to know about your cancellation policy. Post it on the online booking page, put it in the tee time confirmation email, add it into the tee time reminder email. If you don't have confirmation and reminder emails, get them and use them!
6. Enforce your cancellation policy consistently. There are definitely some times where you can relax your policies such as a rainy day with a slow tee sheet, or when a foursome shows as three but they have a good excuse. Otherwise, apply your cancellation policy consistently and charge the golfers that should be charged for taking up a tee time that another eager golfer could have had instead.

Negative feedback: We received the most negative feedback on requiring credit cards to book a tee time when we were taking bookings over the phone for a short period of time. As soon as we moved primarily online, we rarely heard any complaints regarding this policy. When we charge no shows, or charge groups that show as less players that they booked for, we had next to no complaints as the golfers were aware of their responsibility for the tee time prior to booking. 

 

If you have further questions regarding these policies and their implementation, feel free to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Next Page: Advance Booking for Foursomes

Advance Booking for Foursomes

In addition to holding golfers accountable to their booked tee times, we implemented a "foursome only" policy which essentially gave advance booking to foursomes and a shorter booking window to twosomes. When we first introduced this policy in 2019 we only allowed foursomes to book and play on weekends and holidays before 11:30am; twosomes had to play after 11:30am or book last minute. This helped to prevent gaps in prime time if we weren't able to pair up twosomes or pair a single with a threesome. However, if the tee sheet still had available tee times the day before, we opened up the tee sheet for last minute bookings for groups smaller than four. With the success of these protocols in 2019, we implemented the same policy 7-days a week until 1:30pm for the 2020 season.

By giving advance booking to foursomes, and thereby restricting when twosomes can book during certain time periods, we went from having 86 unpaired twosomes in 2018 to only 8 unpaired twosomes in 2020, an increase in revenue of over $12,000 between June - September. 

1. Move tee time bookings online. This automates the booking restrictions and you are not relying on staff to enforce and communicate policies, consequences, and other important information that may need to be conveyed when booking a tee time.
   
   1. if you absolutely cannot move all bookings online, instead you can train staff that do reservations to first ask how many people are playing before recommending an available tee time. 
2. Select a time frame to restrict twosomes from booking and consequently provide advance booking to foursomes during those times. We don't allow twosomes to book earlier than 1:30pm daily, or 12:00pm daily during the winter months. 
   1. Take a look at where the most gaps on your tee sheet are with twosomes taking spots that foursomes could have booked and make that your time frame. You can start by applying the booking restrictions on your busiest days and move towards booking restrictions every day if that is your eventual goal.
3. Apply the booking restrictions through your online booking module. We use Club Prophet Systems (CPS) for our tee sheet so when we program the back end we are technically restricting twosomes from booking at certain times. At this time, CPS does not allow you to restrict threesomes from booking at a certain time so as a work around we just use twosomes and threesomes in our policy wording, even though the system allows threesomes to book.
4. Communicate your advance booking / booking restrictions. Again, this is not something to hide or be secretive about--you want golfers to know about your booking policies to decrease confusion. Post it on the online booking page, put it in the tee time confirmation email, add it into the tee time reminder email.
   1. Instead of not allowing twosomes to book at all, we found it worked to have different booking windows for foursomes and twosomes. Foursomes can book 30 days in advance any time and twosomes can book after 3pm the day before they wish to play if they want to tee off before 1:30pm, or 30 day advance booking if they want to play after 1:30pm.
5. Have a clear statement ready near each phone so that staff can properly communicate this policy and the reasons behind it to golfers when they call. This policy is definitely a little more controversial than just holding golfers accountable to their reservations so make sure that staff are equipped to handle questions.
   1. One of our statement focuses is that having foursomes playing in back to back tee times during the bulk of the day actually sets a better pace of play for the entire course and provides a better golfing experience overall.

Negative feedback: at first, you will very likely get pushback from golfers, specifically those that like to golf on weekends at 10am in a twosome. You can expect to receive some angry phone calls and hear a lot of "I am never golfing there again" but don't let it bother you too much. In the long run, you are rewarding the golfers that you want to return to the course time and time again: the golfers that are willing to put the effort in to make a foursome and show up to their tee time! 

 

If you have further questions regarding these policies and their implementation, feel free to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Next Page: Downloads

Downloads

Golf facilities are welcome to use our exact wording for policies, emails etc. if they so wish, or you can use our wording as a base for creating your own policies. 

 

For policy wording and a guide to the Club Prophet Systems online booking module, click here.

For a Tee Time Confirmation Email template, click here.

For a Tee Time Reminder Email template, click here.