I have a confession to make.
I'm tired of using software that has the same design as an excel spreadsheet.
Unfortunately, design and user experience are not something the golf software incumbents have put a premium on.
Golf course software is in need of some love.
Thankfully, new entrants into the space are bringing approachable, modern, and affordable solutions to the golf software landscape.
We've compiled a list of the best software solutions for various aspects a golf course or professional needs and a summary of why they're great.
Golf Software
Reservation Management (Golf & Racquet) - Whoosh, Inc.
We are firm believers that good design is a strong indicator of a good product and when you look at Whoosh, that couldn't be more clear. There's a big reason why many of the top clubs in the country have moved to Whoosh. Now that they support public courses and have a partnership with Square for POS, watch out!
Online Merchandise - Tee Commerce
You know when you see a business and think, "I wish I had come up with that idea"? That's how I felt when I found Tee Commerce. Tee Commerce is an absolute no-brainer of a product. It enables courses and resorts to sell custom products from top brands on a web storefront, all without the hassle of inventory management and logistics.
Tournaments & Live Scoring - Live Tourney
Are we biased here? Definitely. Do we think we have the best product in the space? Absolutely. In general tournament software is confusing, slow, and expensive. We set out to change that and the feedback is clear - it's working. Golf courses appreciate the time and cost savings offered by Live Tourney, while players enjoy the fast, responsive, web-based live leaderboards, avoiding the hassle of dealing with a sluggish app. Where our competitors charge a $500 onboarding fee and require you to go through a representative, we have a free trial anyone can use. While they offer a $600, 3 day long training course to learn how to use the product, we've designed our product to be intuitive enough for everyone to learn on their own.
Waitlist & Cancellation - Noteefy 🔔
Noteefy offers an immediate revenue boost for courses while providing players the opportunity to secure tee times at their favorite courses without constantly refreshing, making it a win-win for everyone. Courses have long been missing out on revenue when tee times are cancelled and not filled. Noteefy solves this by allowing players to receive text alerts when a tee time they want becomes available. Noteefy is quickly becoming the go-to product in this space and today announced a new round of funding and it's easy to see why!
Booking and Email Marketing - GolfBack
GolfBack started with the premise that it's critical for you as a course operator to control your pricing, especially your lowest price point. When you use third party tee time aggregators, you lose that control as well as the data for that customer. With GolfBack, you can process transactions through your own POS system while simultaneously nurturing relationships with customers for future email marketing and loyalty rewards.
Non Golf Software Golf Courses Should Be Using
Website Builder - Webflow
As someone who's visited hundreds (if not thousands) of golf course websites, it's clear that most courses could use a refresh on their website. Thankfully, software like Webflow makes it incredibly easy to build your own beautiful site without knowing how to code. Not to mention, it only costs around $20 a month.
Our customer Prairie Falls Golf Club recently re-designed and built their site on Webflow, and the difference speaks for itself.
New vs Old using Webflow
Newsletter - beehiiv
If you want to start a newsletter to keep players engaged or up to date on upcoming events, beehiiv is the way to go. It's completely free up to 2,500 subscribers and they make it incredibly easy to get started.
