You are in the golf industry, I presume.
Thank you for your insight from that side of the road.
Our City Parks management ( municipal golf courses belong in that department for management ) are pencil pushers and they are not even golfers , so I heard. They care for one thing only, maximizing profit, instead of serving the public.
It is evident in many decisions they had made in the last couple of decades. A local muni course with over 110 years of history had the back nine chopped up by shortening two holes because the neighbors across the roadway complained of errant golf shots landing in their yards. So it has 3 par 3 in a roll, farther shortening the already short golf course. The screen made of trees had perished on the right side to block the slicers tee shots, the solution is to build a net system in sections of angles ( no need to build the whole length ) to effectively block the errant golf shots, but the city took the easy way out by chopping short the holes. My buddies and I have not return to that course for a long time.
The Parks and Recreation department syphon the profit generated from the municipal golf courses to other projects instead reinvest back into the golf courses. They paid outside consultant $230,000+ for a study of using the land for affordable housing. All along they were taunting quality life for the citizens. So in their opinion, the golf courses are not as important as a park with swing sets and slide. Money wasted.
Like many of these ignorant pencil pushers lacking real life experience inserting their ideas from data to reality without testing. Like one traffic circle in our area was re-built 3 times, because study showed the traffic circle will solve the issue of increasing traffic and increased driving speed.
I my opinion, the “smart tee time” as you call the Dynamic Pricing, is nothing but robbery. It’s like having a Christmas Sale before the Thanks Giving is over. Out of line and does not fit in.
I have no idea how these “solutions” are dreamed up and by who? Besides the golf tee time and fees schedule many other aspect in life also, in my opinion, out of line and messed up.
Life is not playing a video game, not about getting by and don’t care because I’ll be out of here when issues arises. Not run by taking a couple of golf course management classes and a degree taught by someone who was not a golfer.
A lot of us vote by our wallet as several other members mentioned. In my circle, our guys refused to participate and rather drive longer distance to other venues for golf.
I know we don’t have enough numbers to influence the current policy. But we are not a small group either. Just, wait when this golf craze stirred up by the pandemics is over. The golf courses will lose the “new golfer” because they’ll be back to whatever they were doing prior to the pandemics and golf is really not a game which someone could pick it up and be good at it right away. In the meantime, this policy of milking more out of the golfer’s pocket will deter many of the long time golfers who would stayed in the game otherwise.
From talking to several local brick and mortar golf stores recently while shopping for a new pair of golf shoes for my wife; all of the employees I talked to reflected that their inventory and the supply from the OEM had been dropping since the pandemic is over. Some high end golf shoes are no longer being offered. My wife had to settle for the previous year model of the style she likes. The new models all look like tennis shoes to give the impression of being comfortable.
I only have pennies to spend but I will spend them at the place I want.
It is hard for me to accept the excuse of “trying to control” the surging crowd of golfers during the pandemics.
It worked as first come first serve, always, through good times and bad times.
I hope all the golf courses employing this method did not need to spend any extra expenditure for software or ways to implementation.
Resources wasted.
The right way is to stop the brand new golfers from getting on the golf course before they learned how to advance a golf ball. Encouraging them to use par3, executive type of shorter golf links first.
Ever heard of how other parts of the world deal with this “crowding issue”. They require anyone getting on the golf courses has the basic knowledge of etiquette and advancing the golf ball in the general direction.
Our golf course management has a lot to learn.
Life can not be run by a module for A.I.
As well as the G.P.S. system is to aide finding the direction, not taking over the common sense and our eyes and between the ears.
Gold courses can not be run by modules created by none golfers.
I think because of the expensiveness of Greens Fees now…many in excess of $125 a round, they really don’t have the camaraderie for players any longer which is what drew me to the game in the first place. I think this is very SAD. And for some reason, I have noticed that in the aftermath of the Major Covid outbreak from 2019-2022ish, everyone and their dog have taken up the game. The majority of these players are very poor players, they have no etiquette and no respect for the grounds or other players. Music blaring out of their phones in carts. They don’t let faster players play thru, when a ranger tells them to speed-up they F/U him, they don’t fix ballmarks, replace divots and Drink alcohol like it’s 11pm on a Friday nite at the local PUB! That’s what seems to be trending. I mean how can a 4some that that just has no understanding or even respect for OUR game drop $500…this I don’t get!