Fastest finger first. Booking tee times

[3offTheTee]

Probably been asked before. Our Group are having problems getting slots for booking. Sometimes the phone iPad freeze with 1 second/ immediately when it comes to booking.

I go near the router, have a fast internet but to no avail most of the time..
Any suggestions please?

 

[KenL]

Probably been asked before. Our Group are having problems getting slots for booking. Sometimes the phone iPad freeze with 1 second/ immediately when it comes to booking.

I go near the router, have a fast internet but to no avail most of the time..
Any suggestions please?

Get a group of you organised to all try as the booking opens.
Very tricky at my club at this time of year.

Edit.
What booking app is it your club uses?

 

[RichA]

Experience from my previous club tells me that you're better off checking for cancellations during the week before the tee time than trying to get prime tee times in the seconds after they are released.
I was quite good at it but got annoyed with having to go through it every Wednesday and Thursday evening at 8pm.
It's one of the main reasons I left for a club where there is literally no competition for tee times whatsoever.

 

[Imurg]

Join the Committee.....

 

[KenL]

Join the Committee.....

That shouldn’t give any privileges.

 

[Mandofred]

The club I've just rejoined is horrible for this. The 2 rollups days (Wed+Sat) are tough to get the prime times for...in this case about 9am. I have to set my watch for 5:55pm so I can go and sit at the computer in time....I hate it. At some point I might try to get them to back off a little to 10am or so....those times don't fill as quick.....BUT, you then will start pissing people off who have regularly been booking at THAT time. It's a no win situation. One of the clubs has pre-booked rollups on Wed + Thurs (open rollup and senior rollup). VERY well supported by long time members of the club. Often get (even at this time of the year) 40+ in the senior rollup. It works well and avoids the weekends. The small group I play with at another club avoid most of the hassle by don't bothering to play until at least 10:30....makes it a lot easier to get times.

If it was up to me, I'd try to talk all my groups into waiting until 10-11 just to avoid time conflicts. Gives me time to get up and get my 5 mile walk in and still get to the golf course. But.....they are likely to resist on me having God-like powers to make decisions.

I'm fine with committee members getting some extra privilege. Unpaid work to help the club.

 

[jim8flog]

Desk top computer with super fast broadband, preferably fibre to house.

Still no guarantee.

Experience from my previous club tells me that you're better off checking for cancellations during the week before the tee time than trying to get prime tee times in the seconds after they are released.
I was quite good at it but got annoyed with having to go through it every Wednesday and Thursday evening at 8pm.
It's one of the main reasons I left for a club where there is literally no competition for tee times whatsoever.

Seconds after would be too late where I play

 

[kp17]

Don’t know what it is but there’s got to be a better and easier way, it’s soul destroying.

Bring back a big book in the pro shop.

 

[timd77]

The club I've just rejoined is horrible for this. The 2 rollups days (Wed+Sat) are tough to get the prime times for...in this case about 9am. I have to set my watch for 5:55pm so I can go and sit at the computer in time....I hate it. At some point I might try to get them to back off a little to 10am or so....those times don't fill as quick.....BUT, you then will start pissing people off who have regularly been booking at THAT time. It's a no win situation. One of the clubs has pre-booked rollups on Wed + Thurs (open rollup and senior rollup). VERY well supported by long time members of the club. Often get (even at this time of the year) 40+ in the senior rollup. It works well and avoids the weekends. The small group I play with at another club avoid most of the hassle by don't bothering to play until at least 10:30....makes it a lot easier to get times.

If it was up to me, I'd try to talk all my groups into waiting until 10-11 just to avoid time conflicts. Gives me time to get up and get my 5 mile walk in and still get to the golf course. But.....they are likely to resist on me having God-like powers to make decisions.

I'm fine with committee members getting some extra privilege. Unpaid work to help the club.

5.55pm? You don’t even know you’re born! Try 6.55 in the AM! Yep, 7am it opens on weekends. We try to play in the 9-10am slots, as you say, the most popular times. It’s not so bad if you’re already up at that time to get ready to play that day, but it’s a killer getting up at 6.55 when you could have a lie in.

To the OP, it does depend on which system. At a previous club we used intelligent golf, and it was a bit of a secret that the app was quicker than the desktop. So a few of us in the group paid the annual cost for the app (couple of quid) and booked for everyone.

Where I’m at currently it’s BRS, very busy club. Sometimes there are 20 of us in the roll up wanting to play, we split up into groups and focus on certain tee times, communicate via a WhatsApp group who’s in which slot. Sometimes we’ll get the ones we want all in a row, other times we’re split up. Very rarely a couple of us miss out and have to drop in elsewhere.

It’s a pain.

 

[Billysboots]

I still recall the dark days when we came out of Covid, and entire days at ours were booked within a minute of tee times going live. It was just nuts. We used BRS at that time.

We’re now on IG and it’s generally not too bad, with the exception of this time of year. With early times no longer available, and people off work for an extended period, competition for peak times is ridiculous.

I agree with Rich A. Don’t join the scrap, wait for cancellations. We always have one or two no shows, or groups who rock up before it’s fully light having booked a slot after 8am, so can often show up without a booking and still get a game.

 

[KenL]

5.55pm? You don’t even know you’re born! Try 6.55 in the AM! Yep, 7am it opens on weekends. We try to play in the 9-10am slots, as you say, the most popular times. It’s not so bad if you’re already up at that time to get ready to play that day, but it’s a killer getting up at 6.55 when you could have a lie in.

To the OP, it does depend on which system. At a previous club we used intelligent golf, and it was a bit of a secret that the app was quicker than the desktop. So a few of us in the group paid the annual cost for the app (couple of quid) and booked for everyone.

Where I’m at currently it’s BRS, very busy club. Sometimes there are 20 of us in the roll up wanting to play, we split up into groups and focus on certain tee times, communicate via a WhatsApp group who’s in which slot. Sometimes we’ll get the ones we want all in a row, other times we’re split up. Very rarely a couple of us miss out and have to drop in elsewhere.

It’s a pain.

Well, I’m not so sure. On a computer you can several windows open to give you a few goes. On the app, you have to go back, click the date etc.

 

[ManinBlack]

When I miss out you can almost guarantee that, after 2 minutes, a slot will become available due to more than one member of a fourball reserving a slot.

 

[timd77]

Well, I’m not so sure. On a computer you can several windows open to give you a few goes. On the app, you have to go back, click the date etc.

I can’t remember the exact process on IG but it was definitely quicker on the app where I was. I spent about a year booking them on the desktop (by desktop I mean website on my phone) getting frustrated at not getting a decent time, until another member told me quietly ‘the app loads quicker, don’t tell everyone’!

Whichever way you look at it, it’s a pain. The problem is that most people want to play between 8.30ish and 10.30ish, it’s impossible to accommodate.

 

[Tashyboy]

We book the same times for the Tuesday and Thursday every week. Usually around 5 tee times. It is a royal pain in the butt. For some reason the club booked a few society’s in for the time we book week after week. It didn’t go down well at all.
Not saying the tee times are ours but everyone’s lifestyles fit in with those times. Another guy who is not in our fuddle books any time amongst the times we are after and mostly e as books, he don’t turn up. Buts he does it on most days. Why the club has not pulled him up for it is beyond me.
I agree any group of lads should get organised to book times and double up. I always find it faster booking on the phone than the iPad and make sure all background apps are turned off.

 

[Neilds]

For those with groups that always play at the same time, can you not approach the club and ask for the tee times to be block booked? It may have to go to an EGM but if you can put together a case you may be successful. We have a number of groups throughout the week (not summer weekends) that have a number of times blocked out for their use. If they can’t fill all the slots, not very often, they give back the unused slots for general use. Works well for us and has been going a few years now.

 

[3offTheTee]

Some very valid comments thanks. We have a group who try and book different times. This time of the year is worse as the fist tee is 8.40.

We have BRS but understand it will be changing next month although not sure what to.

For IMurg there will be no difference being on The Committee.

Appreciate the help offered and suggested.

 

[timd77]

Some very valid comments thanks. We have a group who try and book different times. This time of the year is worse as the fist tee is 8.40.

We have BRS but understand it will be changing next month although not sure what to.

For IMurg there will be no difference being on The Committee.

Appreciate the help offered and suggested.

As mentioned, we have BRS and there’s no way around it.

Saying that there was a fourball who always got the same tee time every week, without fail. There was a rumour that one of them had created an app that automatically booked the slot as soon as it opened. One weekend when I wasn’t trying to book a time, I still logged on and just watched. Sure enough, as soon as it opened they were in there. I took a screenshot and sent it to the club, but nothing was done, hard to prove I guess. A couple of them left not long after and so it’s not a problem now.

 

[wjemather]

So many clubs have their booking set to open dead on the hour in the evening on a Friday or Saturday (or even on the half hour but that's not quite as bad) that BRS is simply too busy and cannot handle all the traffic.
If your club is one of them, it's probably worth asking them to change to something less popular, e.g. quarter-past/quarter-to the hour.
Same applies for any software, but this has been a long standing issue with BRS.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

Probably been asked before. Our Group are having problems getting slots for booking. Sometimes the phone iPad freeze with 1 second/ immediately when it comes to booking.

I go near the router, have a fast internet but to no avail most of the time..
Any suggestions please?

What time is the booking open from ?

We have adjusted ours over the years to test different times

Most of the booking softwares just don’t have enough servers to cope with the load at the peak times

 

[rulie]

We have a group of about 30 players, subsets of this play on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays- different number of players each day with Tuesdays and Saturdays having the most players. We try to play between 730 and 930. Our electronic booking system allows bookings seven days in advance, and starts one hour before the first permitted tee time (7AM earliest). Each of us are allowed to book two times per day. The vast majority of us try to book times on every of those days, whether we are playing or not. We nearly always get more tee times than we need, with extras being released within about five minutes of the starting time (the organizer of each day sends an email saying which times to keep).
There are other groups that want similar times. Each group respects the others and adjustments are made, even including swapping of times. Things have evolved to where everyone is generally satisfied.