The Pellucid Perspective - July 2015 - (Page 6)

Tee time marketing NGCOA 's no-go decision on tee time sales wise, but more controls needed By Rob Larsen Editor's Note: As part of our recent decision to periodically provide commentary on various issues impacting the golf industry from knowledgeable observers outside the Pellucid family, the following insight into the past, present and potential future of third party tee time marketing is offered by Rob Larsen, the founder of TeeBone GolfTimes. As always, we invite feedback from our readers. J ust before the turn of the century the NGCOA, led by Mike Tinkey, brought the tee time industry together with the goal of creating a standardization in tee sheet interfaces. GolfSwitch was born from these meetings and was intended to be the open source for tee sheet connectivity and save us all a lot of misery. Had the NGCOA been able to own or govern this piece of technology, enforcing best practices might have allowed operators to retain control of their tee time inventory and price, but that has obviously not happened. Right about the turn of that same century, GolfDigest was in over its head with the T-Links tee sheet system and handed it off to the NGCOA after reportedly investing $20 million in development and marketing. That did not work out well and the NGCOA passed T-Links off like a hot potato to a group of course owners. Now down two-zero in the struggle to take control of the tee time game, the NGCOA released its third party tee time guidelines, published in the June 2005 issue of Golf Business Magazine, which were designed to guide course owners in their dealings with third party tee time marketers. Over the past 10 years the NGCOA has been working against the forces of industry fragmentation and defiance to get their Best Practices accepted. GolfSwitch eventually went rogue, no open standards were established, and third party tee time companies added exponentially to the already widespread problem of discounting. It's no secret GolfNow has simply ignored the best practices, and let's not forget that EZLinks has been selling their massive stash of bartered inventory for $.30-$.80 on the dollar since before the days of their now larger rival. Recently, after well over a year of debating the wisdom and feasibility of creating their own tee time marketing entity in partnership with an existing tee time company, the NGCOA an- 6 The Pellucid Perspective nounced that they and the PGA of America are, once again, disseminating a list of best practices that those organizations hope will guide not only the tee time companies but course operators. That seems like another risky proposition that could take years when, in fact, we only need two or three of the larger companies to follow the rules. Now that the PGA Tour has partnered with EZLinks, shouldn't we expect TeeOff.com to comply? That would leave the 6,000 pound gorilla from Orlando. Wouldn't it now be in the best interest of the PGA Tour to use its influence on behalf of the heart of the industry, golf courses themselves and their owners? Will other companies follow the lead of Club Prophet Systems and shut down the inventory? Are the large multi-course operators like Troon Golf, Billy Casper, KemperSports and others all taking as hardline a stance as possible, or are they just going along, settling for the fact that they're getting a better deal than individual operators? Are manufacturers and other stakeholders willing to pull their advertising dollars from either those companies' web portals or GolfNow's TV partner? Are golfers going to golf less merely because their discounts aren't better than 20%? Someone close to the company told me last January that it's "in GolfNow's best interest to raise rates and increase Larsen the value of their bartered inventory." Will the editor allow me to end this paragraph with a "Duh!"? And a note to my second and third tier tee time friends out there: There can still be handsome profits selling golf at rack rate. We did it for almost a decade at TeeBone until deep discounts could not be ignored by even our serviceoriented clientele. Even if you just have the word "discount" on your home page, you're not part of the solution. All this conversation surrounding the NGCOA, GolfNow and the PGATour/EZLinks/TeeOff partnership is about the redistribution of golfers and has nothing to do with growing the game. Coming from a guy that built one of the best tee time portals out there, channel marketing only redistributes golfers. It steals them from one course for another and does not create new golfers or get current golfers to golf more, which is critical to ensure a prosperous future for all golf businesses. Over the years we have seen many millions spent on a business model that has failed both courses and consumers. Failed model? July 2015 http://www.teeoff.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - July 2015

TOC
2015 rounds up but revenue trailing
Golf course threatened by latest in series of reverse discrimination complaints
NCGOA’s no-go decision on tee time sales wise, but more controls needed
Golf gets a seat at the multi-billion dollar gift card table
Millennials seek answers to what golf offers to them
June golf weather impact: A second core month of “neutral”
Potential for Nirvana, but grungy performance slowing Seattle operators
Trumped?

The Pellucid Perspective - July 2015