I loved showing our booking email to Chicago PD at 5 am just to get past Lake Shore Drive during COVID restrictions.
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We also played through a solar eclipse but my photo did not turn out.
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Chicago parks tried this one year, I once was stuck behind a senior couple that had no interest in letting me through, no refund for me.
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For a better course experience you could definitely do Stonebridge in Bossier.
Not sure if the thread has mentioned Dave Finks in the LA area yet or not, but he uncovered a massive scam involving tee times being scalped earlier this year…
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And you didn’t even mention Torrey Pines.
It has become virtually impossible to get a tee time that allows enough sunlight to finish a round booking in the “traditional” way of logging on at 7PM a week in advance.
If you want to beat the bots and other people vying for a select few times that will guarantee you have enough sunlight, they do give you the opportunity to pay a $30 fee per player to book up to 90 days in advance but even this method gets tight up to a month in advance.
So if you are a city of San Diego resident and would like to play Torrey with friends, plan (far) ahead. There’s a good chance of getting on as a single if you show up to the course and get on the virtual waiting list due to the pretty strict 30 minute check in policy. Otherwise, join the men’s or women’s golf club and play in tournaments (this is what I ended up doing) or monitor the website 24/7 to grab someone’s cancellation tee time.
I think it will be a common theme amongst this thread but gone are the days of spontaneously booking a decent tee time at a public course for the upcoming weekend when chatting with a buddy or two midweek or the prior weekend, which I think is a bummer.
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We had a fun conversation about that not too long ago: https://refuge.nolayingup.com/t/teetime-fails/104837/73
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I think if there’s a podcast in the offing he would be worth reaching out to.
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and don’t even bother trying to book coronado if you want to finish… worst booking experience in san diego
As a member of one of the three affordable clubs, we still have people who do not understand the rules of golf/golf etiquette and do not belong at a club. My buddy and I refer to them as the Group-on members (RIP CPG).
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Interesting the timing of this thread coming up, I live in rural Ohio and in general you can find a tee time to play if your willing to drive 30 minutes and are flexible on your preferred time.
However early morning tee times need to be booked several days in advance or they are seemingly all booked and you can’t get on before 11 am.
With this said, our club pro just sent an email earlier this week stating there has been a much higher number of no shows for tee times this year from both members of the club, and the public, including members not showing for their weekly standing tee times.
I found this very interesting and the more I thought about it I remembered multiple times this year showing up to play somewhere mid morning because it was all the earlier I could get booked and thinking to myself the course did not seem packed at all, likely people were no showing for early tee times?
This could be a situation only specific to me, but with all the online apps to book tee times, I wonder if it has just gotten too easy for 1 guy to book a foursome super early in the week, try to fill the foursome throughout the week and if he can’t get anyone to play, simply doesn’t cancel the tee time / no shows or cancels the tee time way to late where no one else has time to fill it.
Just some food for thought, in general public golf is not too bad where I am at though, especially if you can plan ahead.
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What are people’s thoughts on just making tee times non-refundable? Too many people have been abusing that for so many courses. Times for Bethpage go to bots pretty much immediately, then people cancel or change tee times because why not. Might as well claim the tee time if they want it since they can always cancel if they decide they don’t want to play. I think Sweetens remedied this slightly by having a portion of the tee time non-refundable.
There’s been times in my life when things have come up and it’s been nice to be able to cancel a tee time for no charge. Just feel like things have gotten to the point where drastic measures like this may be needed.
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I love it. It’s what needs to happen to fight the bots and cartels who control the tee times.
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This seems to be the only play for getting a prime tee time…(or even a decent tee time). I get the tee time and then plan around that vs the other way around the vast majority of the time. Other way is knowing well in advance that you are organizing a time with a friend and hope you’re able to get an okay time when tee sheets are available
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I also live in a rural area where I can find a tee time any day, especially if I’m willing to drive 30-45 minutes. I’ll share a quick story just to reinforce this point.
There’s a nice local muni that’s nothing special but is decent and cheap. They have gone to online booking, and I booked a tee time about 5 days out and the only time available was mid-morning. My buddies could either play Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when they finished putting up hay, so I booked one for each day. Anyway, whatever day we played, I called and cancelled the other day’s tee time, and the pro shop guy was aghast that I called and cancelled. He said everyone just doesn’t show and they also don’t call to cancel.
Furthermore, on the day we did play, the parking lot was less than a third full and the course was very open, and he confirmed that people book tee times just in case they can play, and they also hold a certain number of tee times for the “regulars” and passholders.
Also, to the conversation as a whole, I’ve booked tee times where I’ve told them I have to have the first tee time of the day because I work night shift, and they give it to me. Then, I get to the course 30 minutes before my tee time, and there are already guys teeing off. Very frustrating.
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Maybe not completely non-refundable, but charging a $10 deposit on a $50 greens fee seems reasonable if a place has frequent no-shows. You could even make the deposit refundable if you cancel with >48 hours notice. Apply the $10 to the greens fee when you show up to pay.
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I’d be okay with the idea of a deposit, but that makes calling in for a tee time tough if they have to collect cc info.
My big issue with booking online is that I typically walk and many times the online rates and booking mechanisms are pre programmed for riding.
Our club does no tee times. You show up and get in the queue. It’s kind of nice but also a bit annoying bc you never really know what’s going to happen when you get there. Luckily we’ve capped membership so it’s typically not an issue unless you are trying to get out during the “regular” group times, which you only really know about after being a member awhile.
I’d rather lean in to a policy like this over a “screw you, no refunds ever” policy. I’d like to see some actual numbers on the rate of no-shows/last minute cancellations before getting on my high horse about how big of a problem it really is.
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Or just require a credit card on file and if you no show, the card gets charged
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You get 2 freebies a year then you’re charged. Have to register w the club and put a card on file.
Add a GHIN before 10 and we might be cooking
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