The modern golf tech stack takes shape

When rounds across Fairfax County Park Authority’s eight municipal golf courses surged by 51% during the pandemic, Ryan Carmen faced an operational crisis. As director of golf, he and his team scrambled to keep track of tee times with handwritten notes and dealt with constant phone calls, hoping the goodwill of golfers willing to wait around for an opening would be enough.

“We relied on handwritten waitlists in the pro shops, advised golfers to frequently check the online booking system for cancellations (especially 24-48 hours in advance), and encouraged single golfers to show up and hope for an opening, which sometimes led to ‘squeeze times’ which disrupted the pace of play,” Carmen said. “In response, we had to elevate our customer service efforts to help mitigate the frustration of golfers unable to secure their preferred tee time.”

The fix came with Noteefy, a tee time management platform that fills cancellations automatically and alerts golfers on the waitlist.

Since adopting it, Carmen said accessibility issues have vanished — and, to his surprise, the technology’s most enthusiastic users have been older players.

“My reluctance was, ‘Will the 50-plus age group be resistant to adopting this new technology?’ But I kept thinking about it and finally just said we got to do this,” he said. “So we did, and as it turns out, that age group were the earliest adopters of Noteefy and they continue to be the most popular users of the technology, so I was glad to be proven wrong.”

Fairfax’s experience highlights a broader trend in golf. Courses of all types are building out “tech stacks” — a combination of systems and integrations that manage tee sheets, pricing, food and beverage, pace of play, customer communication and more. With players expecting convenience and seamless service, technology is no longer optional; it’s becoming the backbone of course operations.

Building the base

At the heart of a modern golf course’s technology is golf management software (GMS), which provides the tee sheet, point of sale and website backend. From there, courses can layer on additional tools — dynamic pricing, food and beverage management, revenue management, pace of play tracking and more.

Companies such as Club Caddie, Lightspeed and ForeUP design their GMS platforms as all-in-one solutions.

But as Jason Pearsall, CEO of Club Caddie, noted, not all courses share the same needs.

“A private course…