Tagmarshal gains momentum at tournament level

Slow play in the professional game is rife, with a number of Tour professionals, including the likes of Matt Every, Paul Casey and Edoardo Molinari giving their opinions on the issue. There seems to be a consensus that there is a need for a better pace of play management on the professional circuits around the world.

While it’s clear that the major Tours are not prepared to regularly penalize players for slow play, most professional golfers acknowledge that it is a problem, but believe that there is not yet a solution to the age-old problem. PGA Tour pro, Paul Casey,  earlier this year at the Wells Fargo Championship commented that: “It’s a combination of things and the problem is I don’t have a solution. Nobody has a solution and we’re kind of going around in circles. Part of it is set up and part of it is too many players.”

One of the solutions to improve pace of play management that is gaining traction in the US, Ireland, and the UK is Tagmarshal’s Tournament Track product. This platform gives golf tournament operators access to actionable insights into pace of play management, player and tournament performances and real-time tracking of results.

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.

“We were delighted to be able to show the R&A tournament officials what our system could do,” said Duncan Cruickshank, who heads up marketing at Tagmarshal. “Feedback has been exceptionally positive and we are looking forward to supplying the tournament committees with the analytics from the data collected at both tournaments.”

Tournament Track helps optimize tournament efficiencies, provides in-depth analytics and puts field management at operators’ fingertips. Developed with input from professional golfers, Tournament Track is the leading tournament golf intelligence platform available today.

Golf tournament operators can achieve the following with Tournament Track: 

• Save costs and reduce staff and volunteer requirements: Operational inefficiencies and large staff requirements cause a waste of resources and lost revenue. Tagmarshal’s unrivaled features eliminate these challenges and give hidden insights into untapped cost benefits.
• Pace tracking: The only system in the world that can 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.

To find out more about Tagmarshal’s Tournament Track and how it works, book a free online demo with one of Tagmarshal’s Product Specialists, who will take you through the platform and introduce the various features available. 

Golf’s Pace of Play Challenge: Cause or Effect?

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It’s US Open week at last!

All roads lead to the west coast of the US as this year’s third major, the US Open, takes place at the world-renowned Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Regarded as the favored home of the US Open, Pebble Beach is hosting the prestigious tournament for the 6th time in 50 years and is set to return again in 2027. Tagmarshal is a proud service provider to the 2019 hosts, assisting by providing an enhanced pace of play experience and optimized operational efficiencies at the number 1 public course in America.

The pace of play management solution is also partnered with nine other US Open host golf courses such as Erin Hills, Chambers Bay and Pinehurst to name but a few.

Facilities like Pebble Beach have been able to identify that to better manage pace of play and field flow time is one of the two most important factors crucial to golfers’ enjoyment, in line with USGA research. The use of pace of play management software and running smarter operations are key to creating are key to ensuring player enjoyment.

Tagmarshal co-founder and CEO, Bodo Sieber, emphasizes how golf operators are moving towards understanding what golfers really value and need as consumers from their operations which is critical to golf’s future. “Golf courses have identified a need to improve the player experience to better serve and retain the current player base and, importantly, to attract new and younger players; technology obviously has a big role to play in both, on-course as well as in the back office,” says Sieber.

The efficient, accurate, data-driven support that Tagmarshal provides allows operators to be better prepared to seamlessly manage members’ and guests’ expectations and further add to a superior experience. Furthermore, maintaining a consistently satisfying golfing experience by alleviating pace of play challenges means golfers will have more time to spend at the pro shop and on F&B, completing a memorable customer journey which can ultimately boost the bottomline for a golf facility in its entirety.

How 2019 US Open host Pebble Beach Use Technology to their and the players’ advantage:

“Pebble Beach Golf Links now utilizes a GPS-enabled hardware and software system to help us manage pace of play. Before your round, our starter will clip to one bag in your foursome a GPS unit that tracks your positioning in real time. Each unit on the golf course feeds data into a software program that our pace manager and player assistants can view from any connected device, allowing them to identify issues as they develop. As a result, our player assistants are now able to dedicate nearly all of their time to helping, rather than identifying, the groups in need.”

Here’s a link:

https://www.pebblebeach.com/pace-of-play-guidelines/

A QUICK 9 WITH ANDREW HEDRICK – COUNTRY CLUB AT CASTLE PINES

Located south of Denver, Colorado the Country Club at Castle Pines is the premier private country club in the region. The award-winning Jack Nicklaus Signature course provides unmatched golf and social experience.

Get to know Andrew Hedrick, PGA Head Professional of the country club, who tells us why Castle Pines has chosen pace of play management software to aid field flow as an experience game changer.

1.     What was your favorite Major to watch this year and why?  

The Masters.  The field, the venue, and the overall viewing experience is special and unique.

2.     Who’s the Slowest / Fastest player on tour??  

Slowest – it used to be Ben Crane and then Kevin Na.  It very well could be Patrick Cantlay now. Fastest – Dustin Johnson.    

3.     If you could be a caddie on Tour, whose caddie would you like to be and why?  

Dustin Johnson for multiple and obvious reasons…

4.     Has golf always been your first love? What other sports/team are you a fan of?  

There’s only one team to root for and that is the Denver Broncos.

5.     Where does Pace of Play rank as an industry priority? Top 3?

Absolutely the Top 3.  In fact, we hosted a USGA Agronomy course tour recently and the USGA representative talked specifically about course design, setup, and tee box selection as some of the key factors in relation to Pace of Play.

6.     Why has your course decided to invest in Pace of Play?  

The ability to track groups, the creation of profiles and the ability to have the information in real time as it’s happening has become a powerful and impactful tool for our operation.

7.     What operational efficiencies have you identified and maximized on since Tagmarshal implementation?  

Due to the topography and distance in between holes, we now have the ability to identify the root cause and head directly to that part of the course versus driving the entire course and looking for the cause.

8.     How would you describe Tagmarshal in three words?  

Highly efficient asset.

9.  How responsive our Customer Experience Agents have been to questions or concerns about our product?  

We typically receive a response within the day if not sooner with an understanding of what has occurred and a description of the solution, which is greatly appreciated.

Japanese Summit Looks to the Future

For decades, Japan has been at the forefront of technological advances, management discipline, and operational efficiencies. Tokyo also is the host city for the 2020 Summer Games, featuring the second-ever Olympic golf tournament.

So, it was only fitting that this year’s fifth USGA Golf Innovation Symposium was co-hosted by this innovative, golf-mad nation and the Japanese Golf Association last March in Shinjuku, Tokyo. As it turns out, the main challenge U.S. course owners are facing in growing the game is no different in Japan – where an aging population continues to outpace the number of younger people picking up the sport.

According to Tagmarshal CEO Bodo Sieber, whose course optimization and pace-of-play management system has tracked seven million rounds and growing, one of the main takeaways from this year’s symposium might be a familiar-sounding narrative for most operators: Run “smarter, leaner operations to counter escalating costs and position oneself for a sustainable future-proof” business.

The other key message that came out of the conference was a need to better understand the player experience from both “revenue and growing the game opportunities.” Consequently, the USGA set a challenge for the industry to achieve a 25 percent reduction in the consumption of key resources and a 20 percent increase in golfer satisfaction by 2025.

“We need to improve the player experience to better serve and retain the current player base and importantly attract new and younger players,” says Sieber, whose company was featured at the Tokyo symposium. “Technology obviously has a big role to play in both, on-course as well as in the back office.”

For instance, Tagmarshal has collected nearly one billion data-points through its various mid-tier and upscale golf partners like Whistling Straits, allowing operators to better manage pace of play and field flow time, which, turns out to be one of the two most “important factors crucial to players’ enjoyment,” according to a 2016 USGA study discussed at the summit. Course conditioning, not surprisingly, was the most important factor to golfers (82 percent) with time being second (74 percent).

Interestingly, these two factors are more important to golfers than course design and clubhouse amenities, the study added, which might surprise some course owners placing more marketing efforts into these latter elements of the business. That disconnect in understanding what golfers really value and need as “consumers” is critical to golf’s future as much as anything.

Perhaps that is one reason the U.S. golf industry has a distinctively low 69 percent satisfaction score in the eyes of consumers, according to Rand Jerris, USGA senior managing director, public services. That puts golf course experiences at the low end of 48 industries polled – in the same family as airlines and the post office.
“Full-service restaurants, on the other hand, are highest ranked at 82 percent,” Jerris added. “This is where we need to get to as an industry to retain existing players and attract new ones.”

Basically, one of the paramount messages shared at this year’s USGA innovation summit isn’t all that innovative after all. Instead, it’s just simply embracing tried and true practices from so many other successful hospitality and retail-oriented businesses where a warm, welcoming environment and personal attention goes a long way.

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