The paper certificates were just not working. Yes, people were buying and using them for their discounted rounds of golf, but the expiration dates were a hassle and few people knew if the certificates were really doing the job they were supposed to do.

Golf courses are a very competitive business. Many new golf courses have opened in the last few years and the older ones have remodeled. The "Baby Boomers" are at their peak and starting to play golf. Golf courses have to get new players in. Golf courses are in the land rental business and each "tee time" is a unique slot for rental.

Sure all golf courses can sell the Saturday 10 AM tee time. But the golf course has to rent out the rest of the week also in order to make money. To do that, the course has to find new players. These new players are often found at other courses. One way to find those new players is to offer a way for players to try out this course.

Marsha Fennell of FairwayBiz has been offering a marketing program for golf courses. This program provided a membership for golfers (and a sponsorship for the courses). Golfers would purchase a membership in this program and get a special deal at all the sponsoring courses. In many cases, the deal was that they could bring a guest and both of them could play one round for the price of one person. The golfers can sample many different golf courses and see how each one plays. In the past, this program used paper certificates that the player would give to the course.

Well, the paper was a problem. The biggest problem the courses had was that these certificates had expiration dates. That date had

to be managed when the membership was sold and then they had to be checked when someone wanted to play a round. Since that was done manually, there were a number of times when a mistake would be made.

This last year, FairwayBiz switched to an electronic system. Now, when the courses sell the membership, their players are given a card which can be taken to the other courses. The courses accepting the cards don't have to worry about looking up some expiration date on the paper and arguing with the customer. They simply swipe the card through a tranz 330 and it will tell if the customer has already used up their discounted round on this course or if the card is expired. The manual errors have disappeared.

The results are striking. The courses are a lot happier with the system. The courses can now check up online to see how people are using the system to test out their course. The members also can check up online to see what courses they have already tried and which ones they can try next. The members can check out the restrictions on the various courses on line. And Marsha is out of the business of printing certificates. That makes her happy, too.

The system is a stable one. While lightning is always a problem during the summer months, using stable terminals and stable equipment at the host means that the system has worked very well. If you would like to have your course be part of this system or if you would like to purchase such a membership, please give Marsha a call at 813-925-0020. For other systems, please give Prairie Trail Software, Inc. a call.

Dave Randolph,
President, Prairie Trail Software
1-800-618-4199

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