The History of GolfSwitch
When GolfSwitch was founded in 1998 by a team of golf, travel and technology professionals, the golf reservation industry was highly inefficient for golf courses, tee time resellers and consumers. The process of finding and booking tee time reservations often required multiple phone calls and time-consuming manual procedures. Golf courses were challenged with increasing tee time inventory yields and finding new ways to attract customers – without breaking the bank. The ability for tee time resellers to market and sell golf reservations was hindered by the prevalence of closed architecture tee sheet software programs –preventing easy access to golf courses and their tee time inventory.
Despite the considerable size of the golf reservation business – over $20 billion in 2002 – no company had offered a solution that created value for all members of the golf community – until now.
GolfSwitch had a new vision for the golf industry – a global golf network that eliminated software conflicts, increased tee time yields for golf courses and enabled profitable relationships between buyers and sellers of tee times and golf vacations.
We believed the golf industry needed standardization – a common platform based on open architecture – so that all golf courses could communicate, interact and respond to customers and business partners in real time, on a 24/7 basis. It would have to be scalable and universal. It would have to create new, real-time marketing and distribution channels for golf courses, and new, more efficient ways for consumers to find and book tee times anywhere, anytime.
This network is called the GolfSwitch Network, and today, it’s the largest tee time marketing network in the world.