Internet Tee-Time Companies Are Going for the Green

You just got home from a late Friday night at the office and it dawns on you: You forgot to reserve a Saturday morning tee time for your foursome. It’s too late to call the golf course, which has been closed for hours.

Even if somebody else had canceled at the last minute, you would have no way of knowing.

What to do?

Try the Internet.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Internet-related companies are offering tee-time reservations in hopes of cornering what could be an enormously lucrative market.

“The Internet tee-time idea is a hot item at the moment,” said Tom Morgan, executive director of the Southern California Golf Assn. “A lot of people are getting into that business.”

How many is uncertain.

“We don’t have any idea how many [companies] are out there--not a clue,” said Judy Thompson, spokeswoman for the National Golf Foundation, the golf industry’s trade association. “A new one comes online every day, I think.”

It’s no wonder.

“By conservative estimate, about $9 billion worth of tee times went unsold last year in the United States,” said Eric Campbell, CEO of selectteetimes.com, a tee-time reservations company based in San Diego. “The Internet is not a cure-all for the courses--it’s not going to get them completely filled--but it’s going to help.”

Campbell’s company offers tee times at about 150 courses, including 70 in California, and hopes to increase that number to 2,500 before the end of next year.

The San Diego company and EZLinks Golf Inc., an Illinois company that offers tee times through its Web site at www.ezlinksgolf.com, are among a half-dozen or so companies that appear to be the industry leaders so far, according to GolfWeek magazine.

Both companies generate revenues from course owners and operators through monthly and transaction fees.

Others, such as the not-yet-launched Golfgateway.com, plan to charge golfers a fee.

Eventually, though, “It’s all filtered down to the golfer,” said Dana Gunderson, head golf pro at Pala Mesa Resort in Fallbrook, which offers tee times through its own Web site and three outside services. “Don’t let anybody kid you. Even if the courses pay the providers, they’ll raise their prices to cover the costs.”

That may be a hard sell.

According to a random survey conducted by the National Golf Foundation and USA Today through the NGF Web site, only 1% of 490 respondents said they regularly use the Internet to book tee times. Nearly 80% said that if they did, they shouldn’t be charged.

“The situation is similar to the early days of ATM machines,” wrote one. “Since there is less human interaction on the supplier end, there should be no cost to the consumer. If I am to be charged for booking a tee time, then I want the pleasure of being able to complain to someone about the time I really want not being available.”

Wrote another: “Since it costs nothing to make a tee time by phone, why would I spend money to make a tee time by computer?”

In a word: convenience.

Or so says Gunderson.

“Businessmen love this,” he said. “They can access several courses at once right from their computer, instead of making several phone calls to find out what times are available at each course.”

Robert Ford, director of golf at Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Beach, is intrigued, but Pelican Hill has not yet signed up with an outside service to book tee times through the Internet.

“There are so many companies out there, you don’t know which one is going to survive,” he said. “I think what we’re doing is trying to find out which one is best for us.”