How to use on-course technology to drive retention at your facility

On-course optimization technology like Tagmarshal is becoming increasingly essential to golf course operators who want to drive repeat play and member loyalty at their facilities.

National Golf Foundation (NGF) stats show that, based on US round volume data for the first half of 2025, it’s likely the industry could hit record levels again this year.

It’s a slightly different story when it comes to the actual number of players, though. Data from Pellucid Corp.’s Golf Market Research, presented at Golf Inc. Strategies Summit 2025, shows there has been a 21% reduction in the number of people playing at public facilities year-on-year.

This means that you need to pay particular attention to three key strategies:

• Attracting new golfers
• Retaining existing and first-time players
• Optimizing tee sheets to increase capacity and revenue

Below, we will focus on how Tagmarshal will help you with retaining existing and first-time players, ensuring the viability (and profitability) of your golf operation.

According to NGCOA research, pace of play ranks in the top 3 most critical player experience factors, alongside course conditioning and playing partners. When you deliver consistently quick rounds with a steady on-course flow, players will return.

Tagmarshal has turned managing pace of play into a science, with the Live Map providing you with full, real-time line-of-sight. This means your team can effectively and proactively manage pace by targeting problem groups and intervening early to minimize their impact on the rest of the field.

The Live Map also distinguishes groups that are delayers (holding up other groups and causing bottlenecks) and those that are being delayed (out of position through no fault of their own). Delayer groups are purple and delayed groups are orange, so you can see where resources are required with just a glance at the screen.

Pace management is not just about real-time interventions and oversight, though. It’s also crucial that you have a deep, data-driven understanding of your course. Tagmarshal gathers extensive data sets and presents them in a way that allows you to draw valuable insights, predict trends, and guide better decision-making.

Pace trends are broken down by key metrics like time of the day and day of the week, which helps with assigning resources to busier periods where they are most needed to ensure pace and flow are maintained.

Other valuable data insights include percentage of rounds on pace, giving a more accurate indication of how many players are actually finishing on or below your goal time, starter accuracy, and hole-by-hole run times. The latter will help you spot opportunities to tweak and optimize hole setups, ensuring a more consistent flow and preventing potential bottleneck areas.

Finally, with the 2Way cart screen devices, Tagmarshal’s system feeds pace information directly to players, allowing them to self-police. Throughout the round, each group’s pace is measured against your goal time and displayed on the cart screens.

A landmark USGA study identified roughly 1,000 touchpoints during the golfer experience, spanning pre-round, in-round and post-round. Of those 1,000, the highest-rated satisfier (touchpoints that drive overall satisfaction) is etiquette and friendliness from the on-course ranger or marshal.

Just as importantly, the top-ranked dissatisfier (touchpoints that negatively impact overall satisfaction) is corrective pace of play actions carried out by rangers or marshals, which act as a perfect player frustrater when poorly executed. It is matched only by the speed of other players on the course.

The polarizing nature of these interactions illustrates why it is so important for your on-course staff to get them right.

Unfortunately, the marshal role is generally not well-liked or respected. To counter this, you should consider renaming and reframing the role to player assistant.

Tagmarshal empowers your on-course staff with objective data to draw on before addressing groups, as well as showing them the player names in each group. Using these tools, on-course discussions can be reframed and repositioned as neutral and fact-based with a personal touch.

Checking in with groups that are on pace and offering positive feedback is also a great way to build rapport that makes any potential pace-based interventions later in the round easier to handle.

In a recent NGF study of regular golfers, 33% of respondents said the staff where they play most often don’t know their name, and around 50% of core golfers couldn’t recall a single meaningful interaction at a course or club that left them feeling valued or special. There is also recognition at the executive level that “golf lags behind other industries in customer engagement and retention innovation.”

Tagmarshal’s system empowers your team to really deliver on the personalized service front, which is a massive differentiator in today’s market.

With Tagmarshal’s Auto-Assignment feature, an integration with your tee sheet provider pulls player names through into Tagmarshal’s system and assigns them to groups as they are teeing off. This allows staff to know the names of each person in a playing group.

These saved labor hours due to increased efficiency through automation, as well as the time gained by proactively managing pace and flow using the Live Map and other features, can now be redirected towards service-oriented tasks and white-glove service.

At private clubs, where staff know their members’ preferences, personal touches like a certain meal or drink can be delivered directly to golfers while they’re out on the course, using the group’s location on the Live Map.

You can also identify new golfers and input and log this information so that it’s immediately clear to on-course staff. Equipped with this information, staff can tailor their interactions from the outset. This may involve more regular check-ins, providing information and tips on playing the course’s trickier holes, or letting them know about any clubhouse or pro shop specials.

These additional on-course touchpoints have been proven to drive repeat play and turn first-time golfers into regulars who choose your facility as their ‘home’ course.

Attracting new golfers is essential to growing your operation, but that only occurs when you’re retaining your current golfers, too.

Tagmarshal’s technology opens up many opportunities to improve your on-course experience, especially when it comes to managing pace and flow effectively and enhancing levels of service. 

When you get the most important player experience factors right, it drives retention and member loyalty and, ultimately, long-term growth.