Fastest finger first. Booking tee times

[Yorkhacker]

Yeah....that's what our course has.....blocked out times for ladies days......every Tuesday. EVERY TUESDAY. They call them comps.....and continue to do so. It sounds like you might have more blocked out times than you indicated.....

Exactly the same at my club. I was told that it had to be called a comp, rather than a ladies slot.

They also quite often get prime slots on a Saturday which is a bone of contention, especially at this time of year.

The funny thing is, they do it because they don't like playing in between men, but often they don't fill all the slots, so the slots are released and they end up playing amongst the men!

 

[twrmgoat]

When I took over the oversight of the tee booking system a few years ago, I investigated the issue whereby it appeared some members may have been using software scripts to book tees. These software scripts used to be referred to as ‘sniping’ which became popular in the early days of Ebay to win bids.
We use BRS which, as was previously mentioned, records the time, to a second, of when a booking has been completed. I spent many an hour taking the data from BRS and analysing the results. In our case there was evidence of regular ‘success’ of booking the popular tee times by the same groups of members, some of whom I knew personally.
I engaged two outside software ‘experts’ who independently came back with the same answer, that to use software to book a tee would need ‘direct access into the server’ and not ‘direct connection/access to BRS’. My background is aircraft mechanical engineering and, whilst I do have a rudimentary knowledge of software at management level, I did not really understand their assessments, but they were both insistent that it was extremely unlikely that a sniping tool was being used.
I discovered that the successful booking groups were well organised, with all four trying to book on BRS whilst connected by telephone chat/ video links to select the most suitable time and then they released or did not pursue the other ‘not required times’.
This last sentence has significance, if the non used times were not actively shut down, they would time out which could be seen by a number of tees becoming available at BRS booking start time + 2 minutes and then being booked around BRS start time +2mins 10 secs. I'm aware of one group who regularly watch and wait for these timed out slots to appear - it’s all in the crucial timing of the refresh.

For interest, our Board Members do have some booking advantages, with each member allocated pre bookings for certain competitions, carefully arranged and split across the year. Along with a shared parking space , I don’t think that they are over rewarded for the significant effort that they give to the club.

Sounds like your experts have considered the possibility that someone has a program that uses an API to book a time ( as opposed to using the app or web front end). My assumption is that the automation is via the front end, ie automating the app navigation and data entry. Is that not correct?

 

[Mandofred]

Not at all - the ladies comp is a booking for 2 hours

We have around 85% of the tee times each month just free for anyone

Not at all - the ladies comp is a booking for 2 hours

We have around 85% of the tee times each month just free for anyone

Yep.....sounds like a pretty regular ladies morning. As mentioned elsewhere.....they call them comps, but it's every Tuesday for clubs around here.

 

[NearHull]

Sounds like your experts have considered the possibility that someone has a program that uses an API to book a time ( as opposed to using the app or web front end). My assumption is that the automation is via the front end, ie automating the app navigation and data entry. Is that not correct?

I’m afraid that I don’t have the knowledge ( or memory) of the subject to add to the technical discussion in any wothwhile way. Both of my ‘experts’ seperately founded and partially owned Application development companies. My friend an, at the time neighbour, developed a series of specialised Apps and my brother’s area of expertise was software that App developers used to create Apps ( as far as I understood it). He was also the Head of Hewlstt Packard R& D UK for a while. I’m not sure if that information would enable you to deduce their approach to my request to help me.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

Yep.....sounds like a pretty regular ladies morning. As mentioned elsewhere.....they call them comps, but it's every Tuesday for clubs around here.

They are called competitions because guess what - they are competitions

And when they don’t play a competition the tee is open for all - just like today

 

[Mandofred]

They are called competitions because guess what - they are competitions

And when they don’t play a competition the tee is open for all - just like today

My rollups are competitions as well.....but not really. I think the ladies just schedule these millions of comps to justify their blocking the course for that period of time. I don't really have a big complaint about it at all, most Tuesdays around that 10am time are pretty quiet.....although a few weeks ago I scheduled a tee time for myself right before their first tee time. They had most of 3 hours booked and when you looked at the tee sheet half the tee times were empty. That's something the club should crack down on though.....

 

[Imurg]

Our Ladies have a booking system on Tuesday mornings and the Men have one on Sunday mornings
Booking opens 2 weeks before
With 7 days to go, any slots not booked are open to all.
The Ladies rarely book a Sunday slot, mainly because they're as rare as hen's teeth, but Men regularly book into the Tuesday slots that are free..

 

[TigerTime]

For me personally at my club. It's the time of day that's a pain in the ass. 7am and 8 days in advance, so if I want a long lay in bed I can't. . Thankfully I have a regular group who are much more on the ball with getting tee times, although I have contributed by booking a few here and there.

In all seriousness at my previous club which used BRS at the time, there was many groups who booked the same times every single week. Having chatted to a few of them at the time they just use bots/scripts. One in particular spoke about leaving his laptop on after he finished work at 5, and had a script set up that automated the clicks for him (open browser - navigate to booking page which was bookmarked - click here, then there, then tick boxes) done and if for some reason it didn't work, it automatically ran the script again and went for the next again free time etc. Another had similar, where the script would automate the clicking on several times one after the other on the same page, and then tried the booking button after each click and it would stop whenever it booked one.

I do understand why folk think the above sort of practice is unfair really, but at the same time I don't really see an issue with it, it's arguably not that different to coordinated efforts of groups sitting at their PCs a minute before booking opens and them all trying to get a time etc.

It's a tricky one for clubs - as the software whether it be BRS or others is fairly limited in what it can do. I'd argue there could be a gap in the market somewhere for a software that manages booking tee times differently. Perhaps a system that you can register your intent for a tee time in a specific time period for that day, and after a certain period of time the system automatically allocates you or you and your group one. Then the software could also be sophisticated enough that it can allow easy swaps or something. That would certainly stop the bots at least, and give everyone a fair shot.

 

[simsini]

We only have competition for spots on Sunday mornings, and I don't play then. Is there any punishment for members that book tee times, but don't turn up? At our club they have been talking about blocking people from booking if they regularly don't play after booking a tee time, although nothing has been implemented yet.

 

[chellie]

We only have competition for spots on Sunday mornings, and I don't play then. Is there any punishment for members that book tee times, but don't turn up? At our club they have been talking about blocking people from booking if they regularly don't play after booking a tee time, although nothing has been implemented yet.

Would think most clubs are all bluster about doing that.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

We only have competition for spots on Sunday mornings, and I don't play then. Is there any punishment for members that book tee times, but don't turn up? At our club they have been talking about blocking people from booking if they regularly don't play after booking a tee time, although nothing has been implemented yet.

Thankfully it’s not something that appears to happen regularly for us

It’s very hard to also monitor without a marshal etc

If you don’t turn up for a comp then you are DQ’d and then banned for a comp

 

[PaulMdj]

We only have competition for spots on Sunday mornings, and I don't play then. Is there any punishment for members that book tee times, but don't turn up? At our club they have been talking about blocking people from booking if they regularly don't play after booking a tee time, although nothing has been implemented yet.

When we book for Comps at weekends on IG the entry fee is automatically taken from your account, no money in the account, no booking.

If you withdraw from the Comp more than 24hrs before playing the money is returned to your acct.

Withdraw in under 24hrs you have to speak to the GM for a refund.

Was brought in this year as we had a spate of people booking and just not turning up or withdrawing on the morning of the event leaving no time to get replacements.

Working well so far.

 

[jim8flog]

This whole “fastest finger first” malarkey sounds like a real pain.

Reading the thread it seems the people with this challenge are members at clubs where they can only book a week in advance. Have your clubs experimented with different booking windows?

I can book a month ahead at my club and it seems that times fill up gradually over a 3 week period as people firm up their plans.

Our time was decided when I was on the committee

8 days in advance because if it was 7 some it might interfere with a players regular golf day.

8pm because the office is closed and would not have to deal with loads of phone call when the system goes wrong (although some still email the manager, who can do nothing about at that time of night).

If we went a month in advance every single day would be booked up by the regular players of those times regardless of whether or not they knew they would play on the day. Which would also leave insufficient spaces for late booking societies.