The tee sheet – Its history feels nearly as old as the game of golf itself. Tee sheets are how a golf course organizes and manages their golfers’ reservations, or tee times. The concept seems simple enough today, but courses haven’t always had such streamlined rules or methods of managing tee times.
Though the first 18-hole golf course was established in the Scottish town of St. Andrews in the mid 1700s, golf’s popularity as a sport exploded later during the Victorian Industrial Revolution. The advent of railways increased travel and allowed the birth of golf clubs across the countryside of Europe.
Once formal rules codes were collected and standardized by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in 1899, as well as the United States Golf Association of New York City, golf blossomed into a unified game with real momentum.
Like any other sport, golf needed daily organization to keep players happy and engaged. Along came various methods of scheduling golfers’ tee times. Some golf virtuosos may remember a method reminiscent of a gumball machine where your golf ball hitting the bottom of the track meant it was your turn to golf – but this system, and others, rapidly became antiquated as golfers increased in volume.
Operators moved on to pen and paper scheduling – a system rife with clerical mistakes, paper waste, scribbled-out names, hastily scrawled updates in margins, and frustrated golfers and staffers alike.
This evolved into a spreadsheet-style method of managing tee times. But a static spreadsheet can only offer so much support to busy courses, so foreUP hit the scene over a decade ago as the first cloud-based tee sheet solution in the industry.
What does foreUP offer that a spreadsheet (or pen and paper) can’t?
- Ease of use. We continuously invest time and thought into the design and functionality of our tee sheet, resulting in an intuitive, quick-to-learn system that even the most tech-reluctant retiree has no problem mastering.
- Instant communication, anywhere. The ability to instantly text or email all guests on your tee sheet with just a few taps stops things like frost delays or weather emergencies from raining on your parade.
- Optimized for revenue. Allowing courses to set their own capacities, fees, and appointment parameters means efficient scheduling – such as allowing back-nine bookings on slow days and only complete parties when the season’s in full swing.
- Constant innovation on the horizon. As one of the first to offer online appointments and the first fully cloud-based tee sheet in the industry, we’re all about innovation. We’re heavily focused on speed and automation in the Pro shop – always seeking out ways to streamline logistics so that you can focus on your guest’s experience.
- Time savings for operators. Set the rules and restrictions for your tee sheet, then forget the rest. No more repetitive explanations of scheduling systems or fielding phone calls about tee times – just send your guests online and get back to managing your club.
- Reporting that removes the guesswork. Stop trying to figure out which seasons and play times are peak for your club and start relying on the data from our built-in reporting. (We’d like to see pen and paper scheduling do that!)
- Internal and partner integrations. Our tee sheet module combines seamlessly with our POS and member database, making disjointed systems a thing of the past. We also integrate with several partners, offering dynamic pricing, food delivery, inventory management, accounting, and more.
The history of golf and tee sheets is fascinating, but we prefer to look ahead… and the future of course management is already here with foreUP’s powerful and innovative golf course management solutions.
