Andy DevaneyGolf District PricePoint is attempting to change one of golf booking’s more final-sounding phrases: sold out. The new feature allows players to make an unsolicited offer for a prepaid tee time that is unavailable, even though nobody holding that reservation has actually put it up for sale.
That distinction is the interesting bit.
Rather than waiting for inventory to reappear, a golfer decides what the unavailable time is worth and makes the first move. The course gets an opportunity to respond before the offer can reach players already holding bookings in the relevant window.
Golf, never shy of finding another arena in which money and handicaps might behave unpredictably, has effectively been given a secondary market with no requirement for the seller to advertise.
Golf District PricePoint turns demand into an offer
Golf District says PricePoint is built into its booking engine using the company’s patent-pending “Unsolicited Offer” technology.
A golfer searching for a sold-out period can submit a price. The course then receives an exclusive 10-minute opportunity through Golf District’s “Squeeze Time” functionality to accept it by adding a new tee time within the requested window.
If the club declines, or the period expires, the offer moves to golfers holding prepaid tee times in that window.
Those players can accept, decline or counter.
The first accepted transaction completes the deal.
It is a notable departure from the usual resale model because nobody needs to decide in advance that their booking is for sale. A sufficiently persuasive number may make that decision for them.
Why sold-out tee times suddenly have a price again
Golf courses have long adjusted prices according to demand, but availability normally ends the conversation. Once the popular Saturday morning slot has disappeared from the booking sheet, the golfer sees no price because there is ostensibly nothing left to buy.
Golf District argues that PricePoint exposes the demand sitting beyond that point.
“Golf courses have used dynamic pricing for years, but it’s always been one-directional, the operator sets the price and hopes they guessed right. The moment a tee time sells out, the market goes silent,” said Kevin Kalner, co-CEO of Golf District.
“PricePoint opens the other side of the conversation. Golfers tell you exactly what a time is worth to them, and the course captures demand it couldn’t see before. This isn’t golf catching up to ticketing, it’s a transaction ticketing has never had, and golf gets it first. It’s true price discovery.”
There are safeguards within the model. According to Golf District, an offer cannot fall below the original purchase price. A booking holder who accepts should therefore receive more than they originally paid, while the course also participates in revenue from the resale.
Black Gold Golf Club becomes the first PricePoint course
The first venue to launch PricePoint is Black Gold Golf Club in Yorba Linda, California.
The daily-fee course regularly sells out its prime weekend periods, making it a fairly logical laboratory for a system whose usefulness depends upon scarcity.
Golfers can reserve times there up to 120 days ahead. If the period they want has already gone, PricePoint now provides another option besides repeatedly checking the booking page with the increasingly misplaced optimism of a man tracking an airport upgrade.
A golf waitlist with money attached
PricePoint also alters the purpose of a traditional waitlist.
A waitlist records interest and waits for supply to emerge. An unsolicited offer attaches an actual monetary value to that interest and asks whether somebody can be persuaded to create supply.
That distinction should interest course operators because it produces information as well as transactions. Clubs may begin to see not merely that golfers wanted a particular time, but how much some were prepared to pay once the normal inventory had disappeared.
John McNair, COO of JC Resorts and a former PGA of America board member, sees potential in that information.
“For decades we’ve watched tee time inventory expire with no real way to capture what another golfer would actually have paid for it, and no way for the original purchaser to recover their money,” he said.
“Golf District’s PricePoint is the first thing I’ve seen that lets the market tell you what your tee times are truly worth, while still giving the course the first right to accept. It’s a genuinely new mechanism for the golf industry, and I expect it to change how operators think about pricing perishable inventory.”
The real test will come on busy Saturday mornings
Golf District is now onboarding additional courses, but the broader significance will depend on how golfers actually behave once desirable tee times acquire visible aftermarket values.
Operators will be watching the extra revenue. Players will be watching the numbers attached to their bookings. And somebody who thought they were playing at 8.10 on Saturday may discover that, at the right price, brunch suddenly has considerable appeal.
Sold out, it appears, may no longer mean unavailable. It may simply mean make me an offer.
