The 2025 PGA Show in Orlando, Florida was an action-packed, energetic affair, and Tagmarshal was excited to join – bringing technology solutions, data-driven insights and innovation to the thriving golf industry.

Tagmarshal’s Education Session on Thursday, January 23 featured two world-famous courses, Hazeltine National and Erin Hills, and was titled “Lessons from major hosts Hazeltine and Erin Hills: How optimization tech and data are reshaping on-course operations – and how your facility can benefit too!”

Prof. Kris Schoonover, a USGA expert and Director of Operations at Erin Hills was joined by Kyle Brandt, PGA, Hazeltine National’s Head Golf Professional, and together they outlined how their operations are harnessing the full power of optimization tech and data.

Here are 5 key learnings from the Education Session that will benefit courses ranging from high-end private clubs to well-run municipal courses.

USGA research shows there are more than 1,000 touchpoints in a golfing experience – before, during, and after a round  – that greatly influence satisfaction.

Ranging from ‘engage’ (occurring before a round) to ‘extend’ (touchpoints that occur when golfers have left the course), each of these presents an opportunity for a course to differentiate itself and provide a superior experience.

Touchpoints that serve as perfect delighters (enhance overall satisfaction) include the professionalism of player assistants and information around the course’s pace of play expectations. Conversely, perfect frustraters or dissatisfiers include the speed of other players on the course and corrective actions for golfers falling behind pace, which revolve around interactions with player assistants.

At a private club like Hazeltine, there is often a high-touch environment and operators can plan the member and guest journey effectively. At a public or resort course, such as Erin Hills, there are far more variables that can impact the experience and the more that can be done to mitigate these factors, the higher likelihood there is of dealing with them effectively.

Erin Hills prides itself on providing a memorable player experience with exceptional service and a steady pace and flow of play.

To achieve this, and to control and pre-plan the golfer journey, the course needs to understand how certain variables impact pace and flow of play and the overall experience.

Gathering and analyzing this data is made easy using Tagmarshal’s system, with the extra data fields inputted into the tee sheet alongside the player names. When the course upgrades to the latest system this coming season, this process will be made even easier thanks to the Data Directory feature.

Variables tracked by Erin Hills include:

• New players versus returning players
• Golfer handicaps
• A group of friends versus strangers playing together
• White tees versus green tees

This level of detail isn’t always viable for everyday operators with smaller teams. At a minimum, though, courses should track whether a player is a first-time player at the course, or even a first-time golfer.

Through the shrewd use of optimization technology and proactive pace management techniques, Erin Hills has seen revenue gains of $700,000 per season from green fees alone.

The main driver here is that the course knows that the overwhelming majority of rounds are finishing on or below the goal time of 5h03m. Because of this, they have removed the ‘buffer’ tee times they previously had during peak times of the day that went unsold.

Additionally, Erin Hills can confidently sell two more tee times at the end of the day, knowing that these rounds will finish before the course is shut down. 

Industry research shows that 40% of first-time course visitors don’t return, but operators can reduce this number by taking better care of these groups and making them feel welcome. This may include a player assistant checking in and welcoming the group, letting them know about any specials that may be running at the clubhouse or pro shop, and asking the group to give feedback when they complete their round. 

These relatively minor efforts drastically increase the likelihood that players will return to the course, and continue playing the game of golf, which is a win for both the individual operation and the industry at large.

Hazeltine National has a long, storied history and the club’s members expect a high level of service excellence and a seamless player experience from start to finish.

To facilitate this, Hazeltine relies on the Live Map feature, which gives them a real-time overview of where each playing group is on the course and how they are doing relative to the course’s goal time of 4h10m.

This enables them to proactively and efficiently identify out-of-position groups so staff can intervene before they have an adverse impact on the rest of the field.

In addition, Tagmarshal’s powerful machine learning and AI capabilities draw on data from more than 75 million tracked golf rounds to predict potential bottlenecks and issues, guiding staff to focus on the on-course interventions that will have the biggest impact.

There are many ways to elevate the player experience, such as a clubhouse renovation or a course redesign, but both of those require large capital investment. With optimization technology, courses can elevate the experience at a fraction of the cost by giving teams what they need to operate more effectively and more efficiently, freeing up staff hours to focus on service and the touchpoints that really matter.

It’s never easy to have conversations around pace with members, and even more so when you don’t have any data to rely on. These tough conversations are vital, though, to building a pace of play culture at a club and holding members accountable. 

Kyle Brandt, PGA, Hazeltine National’s Head Golf Professional, knows that all of the data gathered by Tagmarshal’s system is tied to each member and can be accessed via their Player Profiles. 

Over time, this will highlight consistently slower players and he can rely on this data to guide and inform tougher conversations with members, as well as using it to report to the golf committee. These interactions are now framed in a neutral, fact-based way, rather than being confrontational.

Brandt can also easily pull up a Track Map for any round, which shows the progression of a round around the course with pace indicators throughout and any interactions logged. This is another vital tool to guide pace-based conversations.

Hazeltine measures the impact that guests have on pace and, if necessary, Brandt uses the data to ask members to work with him to ensure that guests aren’t adversely affecting pace and flow of play.

This data and reporting is shared with all Hazeltine members via a monthly newsletter, building awareness around pace and highlighting the measures that the club is taking to ensure the optimal member experience.

The 2025 PGA Show was a clear indicator of the health of the golf industry, which continues to go from strength to strength as more first-time players take to the course.

Erin Hills and Hazeltine National are great examples of how technology, when utilized effectively, will reshape on-course operations for the better.

It’s important to remember that the lessons learned from these leading operators are applicable across any course type, not just Major hosts. 

Tagmarshal’s optimization technology enables smaller teams to operate more effectively and efficiently, which makes it ideal for the course down the road that wants to positively impact the player experience without a significant capital outlay.

The excitement and energy were tangible at the 2025 PGA Show in Orlando, Florida, as golf continues to thrive. Tagmarshal was proud to celebrate its 10th year attending the industry’s flagship event, allowing our team to meet face-to-face with many valued partners, and showcase our latest innovations to those at the forefront of using technology to shape their operations.

As the market leader in on-course optimization technology, Tagmarshal is constantly innovating and evolving to ensure the system gives operators the tools they need to enhance the player experience, increase efficiency through automation and generate additional revenue.

Working with more than 40 of the Top 100 US courses, and in excess of 600 partners worldwide, also means listening to the needs and issues faced by leading course operators and creating solutions that empower their teams.

Tagmarshal’s range of features is always expanding, with 5 exciting new features rolling out at present. Below, we’ll cover the basics of each feature and highlight how it benefits operators.

Weather conditions, especially wind, are hyperlocal and constantly changing. Rather than showing you wind conditions from a beacon many miles away, WindTag is an innovative piece of technology that measures the exact wind conditions (speed and direction) in real-time at each pin on the course.

Every flag is fitted with a WindTag anemometer and instead of manually recording and uploading pin locations, and printing these out ahead of each day’s play, daily hole locations are automatically fed into Tagmarshal’s system.

Along with reducing labor needs, the WindTag data is displayed on Tagmarshal’s Caddie app or 2Way screen devices, as well as available screens for tee boxes and yardage markers, helping players with wind-adjusted distances and shot planning and enhancing their experience.

The technology also provides real-time recommendations that take into consideration how wind impacts distance, club selection, shot trajectory, and target. Additionally, WindTag is ideal for driving ranges, giving players at each bay recommendations based on which pin they’re hitting to.

All of the data gathered by WindTag is also gathered and analyzed, helping to drive optimization within the Tagmarshal ecosystem.

Tagmarshal’s Analytics Hub, which brings together all of the data gathered by the various features, has been given an overhaul and features enhanced data visualization tools and visually appealing graphics.

The Advanced Reporting feature, which is separate from the Analytics Hub, facilitates a deeper understanding of pace, capacity and other key metrics by breaking them down into tee time blocks, days of the week, days of the month, weeks and months. This is a great way for operators to understand where and how they can add tee sheet capacity, which provides significant revenue gains.

The Data Directory allows users to create custom fields to collect specific data around players, which is then carried into the Round Reports sheets. This way, courses can create custom databases related to their most important metrics and track these over time.

Using AI and machine learning based on more than 75 million tracked golf rounds, Tagmarshal’s system identifies problem groups before they adversely impact the rest of the field, with color-coding on the Live Map highlighting where interventions are most pressing.

Using the Pace Disruptors feature, operators can go a step further and set their own parameters for what constitutes an out-of-position group. When this threshold is reached, a notification is triggered and staff are alerted, as well as the players on courses using 2Way devices. Operators can swiftly and accurately change the outcome by proactively identifying these disruptor groups and intervening in real time.

The thresholds and methodologies can be adjusted to ensure that pace alerts are triggered at the course’s discretion.

Tagmarshal’s Cart Stop feature now comes with kill switch functionality across both 2Way and Classic Installed devices.

Where 2Way devices are in play, a geofence warning will appear on-screen as soon as a breach occurs, as well as audible beeping. If a player hasn’t exited the prohibited area shortly afterward, forward motion will be disabled and the cart will be forced to reverse and return to the cart path.

In carts with the Classic Installed device, the Geofence Buzzer will sound when a breach occurs, affording the player the chance to exit the prohibited area. Should they not do so timeously, the kill switch will be triggered and they will need to reverse the cart until they exit the breach area.
This enables greater protection of sensitive turf areas, with the ability to toggle geofence templates on and off to react instantly to changing weather conditions and other variables.

Multi-Course Operators (MCOs) face a unique set of challenges – achieving steep revenue targets while optimizing the player experience and on-course operational efficiency.

Tagmarshal’s innovative, data-driven and consolidated MCO reporting includes key on-course metrics:

• High-level view of on-course operations performance vs. objectives.
• Ability to create benchmarks to track and optimize against.
• Correlation between added tee sheet capacity and impact on player experience.
• Quantify operator efforts and resultant outcomes.
• Visibility of team engagement and the effect across facilities.
• Creates a basis to charge premium rates.

Passive group reporting allows the operator to collect key data insights and metrics via a monthly single overview, whereas actionable group reporting can be conducted with MCOs that use 2Way cart screens for direct messaging with players.

Actionable tracking uses AI for automated identification of Pace Disruptors (problem groups), recovery and intervention success rates, and intervention time, with the reporting frequency tailored to daily, weekly and monthly reporting increments

With custom group reporting for premium operators, bespoke reporting requirements can include metrics like rounds on pace, groups tracked and caddie and green speed performance.

These are broken down into monthly and daily view, as well as day segments, to aid with the application of variable goal times and optimal resource allocation.

Each course faces a unique set of challenges, although many are shared across course types and the industry at large.

Tagmarshal’s new features have been designed to give operators the tools they need to provide the ultimate player experience while operating efficiently and maximizing revenue.

Operators that utilize the feature set effectively, backed by a revamped training system and unrivaled support from Tagmarshal’s dedicated Customer Success team stacked with PGA professionals, will see the benefits of data and optimization technology.