How the Tour Championship hosts optimize the player experience with Tagmarshal

Tour Championship hosts East Lake, have partnered with golf intelligence software leaders Tagmarshal, since 2017. This has allowed them to be at the forefront of advancements in golf course operations, improving their player experience, and allowing them to optimize operational efficiency. Adopting Tagmarshal’s 2Way system, assists golf courses like East Lake, to stay ahead of the game.

The 2Way System features a smart golfer facing front-end. Its accurate automated marshaling based on Tagmarshal’s proprietary pace algorithms displays real-time alerts that dynamically and preemptively address golfers slowing off the pace. 

PGA Head Professional, Drew Dunn, is pleased with the club’s advancements saying, “Tagmarshal’s 2 Way system has modernized the golf operation here at East Lake. We can now monitor the pace of play for every group on the golf course in real-time and have a way to directly communicate with them via the 2 Way device.”

Data transmission from the devices and handhelds provide a wealth of information that allows course staff to decisively monitor golfers’ on-course positions, prevent bottlenecks and accelerate flow and pace of play. Faster golfers mean shorter tee-time intervals, streamlined staffing, and greater golfer enjoyment and member-guest lifetime value.

“Tagmarshal has been the most popular addition to our operation amongst our members and guests because of the direct result it has on their experience. I would recommend Tagmarshal to any course looking to streamline their operation and improve golfer experience,” Dunn concluded.

Tagmarshal’s Tournament Track – the pace of play management solution

There is no doubt that pace of play has been a hotly contested topic in golf, with players voicing out on the issue to explore ways to address these issues in various areas. Some major tournament committees have shown a keen interest in taking on new initiatives.

“The pace of play intelligence software leader” (Forbes), Tagmarshal, in 2018 launched its tournament track solution to provide tournament operators with golf tournament analytics and pace of play management.

Golf tournament operators can achieve the following with Tournament Track: 

• Save costs by identifying operational efficiencies: Tagmarshal’s unrivaled features identify opportunity for efficiency and give hidden insights into untapped cost benefits.
• Pace tracking: Provide round timing analytics, discern between delayed and slow players and create pace of play profiles for each player.
• Gap time management: Plays an integral role in successfully run tournaments. Provides tournament operators real-time insight into field pace management and gap time management between groups.
• Reports and analytics: Enables tournament operators to gain an extensive understanding by streaming pace tracking and course optimization data into custom reports and personalized dashboards.
• Player profiles: Provides tournament operators the power to have historical data and an analytical oversight of a player’s pace management, during tournaments as well as at a course level.

Tagmarshal recently had the opportunity to offer its services on a trial basis at The Womens Amateur Championship at Royal County Down and The Amateur Championship which took place at Portmarnock and The Island Golf Club. Tournament officials had full oversight of the entire field and they were able to effectively manage the flow and pace of play.

In a step towards advancing the game, The European Tour will be trialing a pace-of-play system to be used at next month’s BMW PGA Championship. This system will provide tournament referees with the times for every group playing through every hole. This is to make sure that no gaps are missed. 

In an innovative development, on-tee displays on a minimum of three holes will provide players with information as to their position in relation to the group ahead.

European Tour committee chairman, David Howell, has embraced the opportunity stating that “We have had some very interesting and robust debates in the process of agreeing on the new initiatives. But with a combination of education, deterrents, technology, and modifications to the fields, we believe we have arrived at a set of fair and proportional measures to improve the experience for everyone involved in the game.”