I think the Kansas City parks and rec does a solid job getting people on at our publics. Likely a story of many mid-sized cities (so dont think we are a shinning example) but the rates are fair, they have actively purchased courses to add to the municipal bucket, are investing in a renovation for our most historic course, drop prices significantly after noon, and never really a scare to not get a time.
I dont think KC is a shinning example but not every municipality is at this level. Naturally, there are critiques in this argument as we dont have a well-known world-class course, but worth considering.
Agree with everything you said but most of all pointing out that for mid-sized cities it’s just a different game.
No accident that the first two editions of this podcast focused on the two biggest metro areas in the country. That obviously doesn’t excuse instances of knowing abuse of the system but in cities that big getting a tee time is always going to be so next to impossible that people are going to find some way or another to skirt the rules.
Truly I’m convinced if there was no refunds issued, this would solve a lot of the issues - even if it’s 50% down that would help
I’m no tech guy but if people were using the same credit card for multiple tee time purchases it would just be another data point to figure out who’s stealing the tee times
You don’t pay til you get there. No cc required until you are on site.
You do get charged $15per person for a late cancellation / no-show, but since they don’t have your cc on file, it just gets charged against your account and you just have to call in and pay it before it lets you make another tee time.
It’s very stupid but the state appears to be almost going out of its way not to fix it.
I think the issue at Bethpage is a combination of a massive demand for public golf in the largest metropolitan area in the country, combined with the fact that this particular municipal facility represents the best municipal golf in the area, especially relative to price for conditions. Bethpage keeps all of the courses in incredibly good shape, with the Black and the Red a step above the Blue, Yellow, and Green. I’m not really looking forward to trying to play around here next summer, when I imagine the shutdown of Bethpage in preparation for the Ryder Cup will make it almost impossible to find a tee time anywhere, let alone a good tee time. Charging $500 isn’t going to make things better. It’s simply going to make it harder to play public golf in an area where it’s already nearly impossible.
Compared to the horror stories I’ve heard, I’ll say Cleveland’s MetroParks system does at worst an ok job. It’s far from perfect but if you’re a member of Bonus Rounds program for a whopping ~35 bucks/year, you get access to online booking 14 days ahead instead of 12. And each round is discounted so the membership pays for itself after 3 rounds. There’s a lot of people who book immediately when they can, but there’s no evidence of outright fuckery.
I was surprised to hear Bethpage has such a lax cancellation policy. We have the same situation in Cleveland. And while a couple of our parks courses are awesome, there’s not demand close to what Bethpage has. @KVV I’d be curious about cancellation policies at the different locales you cover. It seems like if places required a credit card to book and had some kind of cancellation fee, it could help mitigate some of the shit people are pulling.
People complain and hate it, but when I lived in DC, I thought their system wasn’t bad. It beats the absolute hell out of the county I live in up in New Jersey currently.
DC’s public courses are troubled conditions and especially pace of play wise, and it sucked they released times at midnight. But when I wanted one, I was able to get a prime tee time (if not the exact time I wanted, +/- 20-30 minutes for sure) pretty much every time.
Where I live now, it doesn’t matter if you’re on their site the split second they’re posted, you’re not getting one
How are either of these business decisions not the business figuring out the best way to ensure a fully booked resort?
They both absolutely have it figured out.
If municipal courses were run more like businesses we wouldn’t have this issue but we would have the issue of whether munis should be run like businesses.
I’m cheering for TGL to be wildly successful to encourage more sim golf to move people off actual golf courses. Screen golf is the future. Spread the word.
Close, but Bergen. I’m dismayed to hear it’s not much better in Essex though.
I really don’t think I can afford a private club in New Jersey yet, but it seems like the only way to consistently play and get decent times…maybe even not that. I don’t currently have many friends who are members anywhere and could give me the inside scoop and I’m very afraid of joining somewhere and finding that it’s impossible to get times there too.
Sounds almost identical to the situation on Long Island. The private club initiation fee situation is insane on its own, but add in massive information asymmetry on what the clubs are like and it’s just straight up bleak.
This will be my first year mainly playing public courses in Essex, so I haven’t had the first hand experience of not being able to book times but from what I’ve gathered it’s very tough. Got the two week in advance tee time county card so we’ll see if that pays off.
It will, you’ll just have to be ok with tee times in the mid morning or afternoon on weekends. Most stuff is already gone by the morning since times are released at midnight for gold card holders. I typically just made sure I had something booked 2 weeks out and if anything better came along I cancelled. You should do well for yourself, Byrne rules, Hendricks is great, interested to see what the work at Weequahic is like this summer.
Bergen’s a disaster though. And the courses suck by comparison. Doesn’t make any sense why it’s booked out in minutes
Well that’s certainly a relief. I haven’t made the track up to Bergen courses but I wander if those are all getting filled up by the Bethpage hackers who are missing out on times there
I love Chambers and I think their system is pretty good. It allowed me an out of state resident to play there twice when I visited a couple years ago. I paid a hefty rate, but nothing absurd, and I’m happy to do that to subsidize locally owned high class courses. FWIW Bethpage’s rate is almost comically low. I think the lady charged me $115 to play the Black even though I told her I wasn’t a resident. Insane.
Anyway, @mcdonart22 hit on this, but the problem is just how big New York is. The NY metro area has 5 times as many people as Seattle. There are probably more public courses in that region, but there sure aren’t 5 times as many.
