Company: Tee-On Golf Systems Inc.
Primary Roles: Lead Product Designer
Timeline: 2021 — present
Tee-On Golf Systems is one of the leading providers of golf point-of-sales systems and tee time booking engines in North America. Tee-On’s software platform powers nearly 500 golf courses worldwide and is growing faster than ever.
<aside> ⛳ The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in huge growth for the game of golf, but booking engine technology is falling behind...
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With the COVID-19 pandemic placing serious limitations on what sports and activities are permissible under federal and provincial health guidelines, many people have turned to golf as a source of exercise and physical activity since, for the most part, golf courses have been allowed to remain open when other facilities have been forced to close down.
As someone who loves golf and wants to see the game grow and reach new people, it's brought me immense joy to see new faces out on the course and to share the beautiful game with even more friends and family.
If we think of golf as a commodity, this surge in popularity has created an imbalanced relationship between the supply and demand of golf... in a pre-pandemic world, if I wanted to book a Sunday tee time on Saturday night, 9 times out of 10 I wouldn't have any issues — there are over a dozen golf courses within 30 minutes of my house and I would almost always be able to find somewhere to play.
Nowadays, golfers don't often have the luxury of booking a tee time on a whim.
I'm writing this on October 5th, 2021, somewhat late into the golf season here in southern Ontario, and this is what the tee sheet looks like at a popular course about 15 minutes from my house:
Screen capture of legacy Tee-On booking engine.
Considering that the sun sets around 7pm this time of year, the 9:20am and 12:40am tee times are the only realistic options for me if I wanted to play a full 18 holes. And if I wanted to golf with a group of friends? Forget about it...