Burstwick Country Golf & Nineteen Restaurant

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Members' Tee Booking Overhaul

We are very aware that a large issue has arisen at the club where players cannot book a tee time on the weekend because they are booked up so quickly, and there are not enough times to go around. This is something that has come up on the club quickly, and has never been an issue in the 16 years we have been open until now.

Why can’t I get a tee time?

There are many factors that are presenting that are affecting the availability of tee times:

  • Increased rounds per member due to COVID restrictions on other hobbies and activities

  • Increased number of members

  • The method in which tee times are released (currently casual bookings are released 7 days before competition bookings)

  • No shows (people booking just in case then not taking the time)

What can the club do to solve these problems?

We will never please everybody, but we have taken a lot of feedback over the last two weeks from members and come up with the following solution:

  • Capping the 7 day membership categories (including student, intermediate and junior categories) and forming a 7 day waiting list.

  • Extending weekend competition times to 10:28am from 9:16am

  • Releasing both casual and competition tee bookings all at the same time rather than going live at different times - all times will go live at 4pm two weeks prior

  • Competitions bookings going forward will now have an option for players to add themselves to a waiting list if they cannot get a tee time

  • Restricting visitor weekend bookings to a maximum of 2 days in advance, so they can only take up spaces members have not used

  • Imposing a 1 week “no-show” penalty for competition times

  • Changing BRS settings so that members must book individual player names in, rather than just reserving four slots without names

  • Restricting members to one tee time only per day, no multiple tee booking

Why didn’t the club implement a membership cap earlier? Or make these changes earlier?

A question we have been asked numerous times is what would be our total capacity for members at the club, and our answer was always the same - it’s impossible to know until we get there. Some people would see that as a cop out, but many 18 hole clubs have different caps for the memberships, some 550, some 600, some 700. It can depend on the demographics of the members, how often they play, what the spread of 5 to 7 day members is, etc. We have now reached a point where we are struggling to fit everyone on the golf course on a weekend therefore a cap for 7 day members must be introduced.

When the world is back to “normal” (post COVID) tee time demand WILL drop, so the demand we have right now from members is much higher than it will be from the same amount of total members once the pandemic restrictions are lifted. At that point it will become easier to get a tee time.

Closing thoughts

Whilst a lot of people are blaming the management of the club for the current situation, we are trying our best to react to feedback and make changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again, but we’d like people to remember this is the first time this problem has arisen in 16 years - it’s completely new and all part of being a growing golf club.

The whole golf industry is suffering the same problems that we are, we have spoken to many clubs around us that are in the exact same boat. By doing the above hopefully we can help aleviate some of the issues and also give everyone a fair crack of the whip when it comes to booking times.