Page 44 - GBC Spring 2021 English

At the first virtual Golf Business Canada Conference & Trade Show, delegates submitted ideas in advance for the Great Canadian Idea Share that showcased their best money-saving and revenue-generating ideas. The top 8 semi-finalists were chosen and presented live during the virtual event with delegates voting for the top 4 favourite ideas.
It was a competitive process, with many creative and impressive ideas stemming from a golf season unlike any other. The top 4 finalist ideas will be featured in Golf Business Canada Magazine.
In typical 2020 fashion, we had our first ever co-winners who tied for first place, and are the proud recipients of the grand prize of an all expense paid golf trip to The Highland Links at Cape Breton, valued at $5,000 courtesy of Tee-On Golf Management Software and bragging rights for a whole year!
Co-Winning Idea Green Fee Pre-Payment
Slade King, Play Golf Calgary, AB slade@playgolfcalgary.com
Would you like to make $38,000 more per month at your course without having to do anything but accept payment in a different way? That is what tee time payment has done for us at Play Golf Calgary. We can directly attribute $38,000 extra per course, per month in the 2020 season due to the reduction of no shows and short shows (4 show as 3).
Previously, we required a credit card on file for tee time bookings but we did not charge anything to the card. This resulted in an 88% show rate which we calculate by dividing the number who paid that day vs the number of golfers you had booked that day.
At the start of 2020, Alberta Health made a “strong recomm- endation” to only accept tee times with full prepayment. The rationale was to reduce touchpoints with staff at the beginning of COVID-19. We contacted our POS provider and set up full prepayment using Moneris integration. Throughout 2020, we required full prepayment
of all tee times. We implemented this at all our courses with green fees ranging from our $19.90 par 3 course up to our $99 high-end public course.
With the introduction of prepayment, our number of rounds not only increased substantially just like all other courses in the area, but our tee time show rate went from 88% to 97% on average between all 5 courses. This increase multiplied out by the number of rounds and the average spend per golfer netted us $38,000 per month, per course!
Next golf season provides you with an opportunity to re-train golfers, and train new golfers that a tee time is valuable and that it expires the second it goes past. The winter is an ideal time to contact your POS and banking to get your system ready to go for 2021.
For more information, please see the article I wrote in the Fall 2020 edition of Golf Business Canada magazine: “COVID-19 Silver Lining: Prepaid 4somes”.
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