Black Gold Golf Club in California will be the first U.S. facility to use Golf District’s new Price Point technology.
Trevor Cigich | Black Gold Golf Club
Four of the past five years have seen a record number of rounds played at U.S. golf courses, which has prompted a gradual rise in green fees in response to the sustained demand. But how much might those rounds really be worth?
Golf District, a booking platform that lives on a facility’s website, has a new, patent-pending feature called PricePoint that aims to help course operators… and golfers… finally answer that question.
The concept is that golfers can name their price for a certain time slot that’s already been purchased through Golf District’s prepaid and non-refundable platform. It’s a first-of-its-kind technology in the golf industry, giving interested buyers the power to make an offer and have the market – operators and tee time holders – respond in real time.
There are essentially two ways PricePoint works:
First, a course can choose whether to accept an offer – say $150 for a Saturday morning round that was priced at $75 – and install a “squeeze time” into their existing, and likely full, tee sheet. The result is the operator, who has 10 minutes to accept or reject the offer, could get hundreds of dollars in added revenue.
If the course rejects the squeeze time, that same price offer is made to every prepaid tee-time holder in the relevant window — at or above the amount that was originally paid. It’s then up to the original booker, or booking group, to decide if they want to simply keep their existing round of golf or sell it for what might be a considerable demand-dictated mark-up.
Here’s a hypothetical.
Say ‘Golfer A’ purchased a 9 a.m. Saturday morning, peak season tee time at a popular resort course such as Torrey Pines two months before the actual date of play. Again, and strictly as a round-number example price, let’s say Golfer A paid $400 for the foursome and opted in through the Golf District platform to entertain offers. A week before the round, someone visiting the area is scouring the website and other options but can’t find an available time. So, this person – ‘Golfer B’ — visits the course’s website and decides to make a $1,000 offer to Golfer A for their starting time, eager to experience an iconic venue. If Golfer A accepts and decides to sell, they get the difference beyond the original price, with the course operator receiving a portion of the transaction fees.
Within the course’s existing website and booking engine, Golf District’s technology provides golfers the opportunity to buy or re-sell prepaid tee times. In this example, the 8 a.m. tee time is being re-sold through Golf District (denoted by the flag logo), while the others are priced by the golf course itself.
Golf District
“Golf courses have used dynamic pricing for years, but it’s always been one-directional — the operator sets the price and hopes they guessed right,” said Kevin Kalner, co-CEO of Golf District. “PricePoint opens the other side of the conversation. Golfers tell you exactly what a time is worth to them, and the course captures demand it couldn’t see before. This isn’t golf catching up to ticketing, it’s a transaction ticketing has never had, and golf gets it first. It’s true price discovery.”
The Golf District Model
PricePoint is a new capability within Golf District, a booking platform that’s in use at 20 courses, with approximately 15 more in the pipeline.
Black Gold Golf Club is one of the most heavily played public courses in Southern California, and the first to implement Golf District’s Price Point technology.
Trevor Cigich | Black Gold Golf Club
Golf District’s core model is prepaid (and non-refundable) tee times that can be purchased anywhere from 60 days to one year and resold up to 30 minutes before the scheduled tee time. The platform is designed to remove perishability risk for operator, most notably reducing the impact of “no-shows” and lost revenue. It’s estimated that nearly 10% of booked tee times go unused, costing golf course operators tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
With Golf District, secondary market transaction fees are split 50/50 with the course operator. And if a tee time doesn’t resell, the original buyer is responsible for it, similar to a ticket re-sell model for sporting events or concerts.
Kalner, who shares the CEO role with Josh Segal, notes that a participating course such as Encinitas Ranch outside San Diego saw a 38% increase in its public rates, shifted almost entirely to foursomes-only, and helped eliminate a short-show issue after instituting Golf District.
Why PricePoint?
PricePoint changes the dynamic even further.
Rather than simply waiting in the prepaid environment, golfers say what a particular tee time is worth to them. And either the course benefits in the transaction by adding a lucrative squeeze time, or the original tee time holder – who might not have planned to sell – gets an offer compelling enough to change their mind.
“For decades we’ve watched tee time inventory expire with no real way to capture what another golfer would actually have paid for it, and no way for the original purchaser to recover their money,” said John McNair, the Chief Operating Officer of JC Resorts, which counts 18 California courses within its portfolio.
“Golf District’s PricePoint is the first thing I’ve seen that lets the market tell you what your tee times are truly worth, while still giving the course the first right to accept,” added McNair, a former PGA of America board member. “It’s a genuinely new mechanism for the golf industry, and I expect it to change how operators think about pricing perishable inventory.”
Golf District’s Price Point is a first-of-its-kind technology in the golf industry that gives golfers the power to make an offer and have the market — operators and tee time holders who might be interested — respond in real time.
Trevor Cigich | Black Gold Golf Club
Black Gold Golf Club in Yorba Linda, one of Southern California’s most heavily played daily fee public courses, is the first facility to go live with the PricePoint platform. Black Gold, which regularly sells out its prime weekend windows, is precisely the type of course that PricePoint was created for, allowing golfers to book tee times 120 days in advance and now providing even greater visibility into demand for its most desirable tee times.
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