Opinions on BRS - Help me!

[Sweep]

We brought it in a few years ago with promises that it would only ever be used for club competitions. It was a great success.
Slowly, over time it’s use has been expanded to include opens and even roll ups until recently it has taken over all tee times.
The freedom to turn up and play at any time (comps and visiting parties allowing)was a major plus for me and many members. It’s why I joined. The loss of this freedom is a major setback in my view. The only reasonable reason to implement such a policy is to facilitate the sale of tee times to visitors. This means that, as far as access to the course is concerned, there is no difference between being a member or a visitor, except the member has to pay a ton of cash up front.
If clubs don’t start prioritising members over visitors then clubs are only going to go one way.
BRS is a great system IF it’s use is limited to book competition tee times if comps are very popular. However, be aware that it may well be too tempting for your club not to employ it to control all tee times and for me that denies a member a major benefit of their membership.

 

[fundy]

We brought it in a few years ago with promises that it would only ever be used for club competitions. It was a great success.
Slowly, over time it’s use has been expanded to include opens and even roll ups until recently it has taken over all tee times.
The freedom to turn up and play at any time (comps and visiting parties allowing)was a major plus for me and many members. It’s why I joined. The loss of this freedom is a major setback in my view. The only reasonable reason to implement such a policy is to facilitate the sale of tee times to visitors. This means that, as far as access to the course is concerned, there is no difference between being a member or a visitor, except the member has to pay a ton of cash up front.
If clubs don’t start prioritising members over visitors then clubs are only going to go one way.
BRS is a great system IF it’s use is limited to book competition tee times if comps are very popular. However, be aware that it may well be too tempting for your club not to employ it to control all tee times and for me that denies a member a major benefit of their membership.

this is pretty much to the word how ive been trying to express myself on this for a few years, thanks Sweep

 

[HomerJSimpson]

We use the HDID system and have recently expanded it to allow members to book their preferred slots (not actual time) in competitions rather than the traditional name on a list in the pro shop. A lot of displeasure early on but now everyone has got to grips with it and can book on any device it's working quite well. I've no real experience of any other system but what have works for our needs. We as a club don't have booked tee times bar club competitions, and everyone knows when the roll ups go out so it works well.

 

[jim8flog]

We had BRS with Cobra until this year. We now have Intelligent Golf

I do the booking for two roll ups and it all it requires is a rough idea of how many play on a regular basis and one or two people knowing login details for the number of time slots required. Each persons name is then used for one time slot and the other 3 spaces in that time slot are just reserved without a specific name being entered.

One thing is to make sure that the club has it set so that one person can only use one slot per day.

I like BRS system for being able to quickly see the month in a single view to be able to spot bookings for medals, societies etc.

It is very easy to have the club set it up for specific periods of a day. We have up to 9.30 (members only before that time) and after 4.30 ball shoot and tee times booking only between those times.

One of the biggest benefits we found of having a booking system was that once booked we knew for sure we would go out at that time on that day. Prior to having a booking system we could not guarantee being able to get out at all until we arrived on the day. The club would often book a society at short notice and for a period we found another group trying to set up another rollup on the same day and time.

I would not like to go back to a system without a booking system for most of it days.

 

[jim8flog]

One of the things I like about Intelligent Golf over BRS is that we no longer have to go in to the proshop and book for comps which require a payment it can all be done online. No longer do we have queues outside the proshop at 6am on a Saturday morning with the proshop not opening until 7.30. It is now very civilised with the booking system 'opening up' at 10am on the Friday 8 days before the Saturday Medal.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

One of the things I like about Intelligent Golf over BRS is that we no longer have to go in to the proshop and book for comps which require a payment it can all be done online. No longer do we have queues outside the proshop at 6am on a Saturday morning with the proshop not opening until 7.30. It is now very civilised with the booking system 'opening up' at 10am on the Friday 8 days before the Saturday Medal.

Agreed. We now top up a competition account on our club cards and the system takes the money automatically. Not enough money and you need to either find a way to get it topped up (shortsightedly only the office and bar seem to be able to do that and not the pro shop) or you are DQ'd. That's the only down side as far as I'm concerned and how hard is it to put £12 (4 x £3 entries) on the card once a month or when you top the bar account up

 

[Deleted member 16999]

We brought it in a few years ago with promises that it would only ever be used for club competitions. It was a great success.
Slowly, over time it’s use has been expanded to include opens and even roll ups until recently it has taken over all tee times.
The freedom to turn up and play at any time (comps and visiting parties allowing)was a major plus for me and many members. It’s why I joined. The loss of this freedom is a major setback in my view. The only reasonable reason to implement such a policy is to facilitate the sale of tee times to visitors. This means that, as far as access to the course is concerned, there is no difference between being a member or a visitor, except the member has to pay a ton of cash up front.
If clubs don’t start prioritising members over visitors then clubs are only going to go one way.
BRS is a great system IF it’s use is limited to book competition tee times if comps are very popular. However, be aware that it may well be too tempting for your club not to employ it to control all tee times and for me that denies a member a major benefit of their membership.

Sorry, without sounding awkward or thick I’m confused, are you saying that your Club won’t allow you to look at BRS, see no one is booked in and then simply turn up and play?
If that is the situation at ours, I’ll go and play without booking on via BRS.
Prior to BRS did your Club have blocked off periods outside of Comps for members just to turn up?

 

[jim8flog]

Agreed. We now top up a competition account on our club cards and the system takes the money automatically. Not enough money and you need to either find a way to get it topped up (shortsightedly only the office and bar seem to be able to do that and not the pro shop) or you are DQ'd. That's the only down side as far as I'm concerned and how hard is it to put £12 (4 x £3 entries) on the card once a month or when you top the bar account up

We can top up our cards online, each player booked gets their own card debited and not the player doing the booking in unless the the booking in player wants to pay for it.. Online booking for Opens etc is by debit/credit card.

Looks like your office needs to discuss with IG all the options.

 

[duncan mackie]

Great summary by Foxy.

Jim coversion many aspects, and Sweep raises the concerns of a generation!

BRS is simply an online booking system - but it's generally more focused on non members than members/comps and handicaps. C2000 (back end to HDID) and IG are more member focused systems. Many clubs have evolved to use both in parallel (partially as I understand it because of the cost of the additional modules.
What you do with any of them is completely separate!
We run comps on IG (previously C2000) as well as match administration for members, and captains. The management use BRS to manage societies and match administration because they integrate tee times with catering administration. Membership is partially IG and mainly separate in house systems.
BRS is the member front end to booking times where booking is permitted - but we also have blocks of non bookable times...this arose because systems one members (mainly new ones who joined together to play together) objected to having to wait (ball in shute equivalent).
The change (about 4 years ago) has impacted the underlying club roll up mentality - but others have come to appreciate it. Most of those who triggered the underlying change have left. BRS didn't cause any of this - it simply supported the online booking aspect. You could do exactly he same with phones and people with paper (but the costs are huge - if hidden).

Don't focus on the system - focus on the underlying objectives. Unfortunately the system will support opposing objectives in proprietary clubs - everyone needs to stay realistic.

 

[Jamesbrown]

Couldn’t imagine turning up to golf and queuing up!
Can’t understand why anybody want to do that!

 

[Sweep]

Sorry, without sounding awkward or thick I’m confused, are you saying that your Club won’t allow you to look at BRS, see no one is booked in and then simply turn up and play?
If that is the situation at ours, I’ll go and play without booking on via BRS.
Prior to BRS did your Club have blocked off periods outside of Comps for members just to turn up?

If no-one is booked through BRS then of course you can play.
Prior to BRS the only time a member couldn’t play was if a society or team match was on. Visitors could come to play but they would not be given an exact time.
It remains to be seen if there are sanctions applied to any member who books but doesn’t turn up. Otherwise you could potentially have a full booking sheet and an empty course. I wonder how other clubs handle this?

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Sweep, in answer to your question, I have been a member of three clubs running BRS and I have never come across members booking and not turning up as a problem. I understand your concern but I suspect it is more theoretical. I would hope if it became an issue that the relevant club would sanction those involved.

 

[Deleted member 16999]

If no-one is booked through BRS then of course you can play.
Prior to BRS the only time a member couldn’t play was if a society or team match was on. Visitors could come to play but they would not be given an exact time.
It remains to be seen if there are sanctions applied to any member who books but doesn’t turn up. Otherwise you could potentially have a full booking sheet and an empty course. I wonder how other clubs handle this?

Understand with the visitors thing, cheers.
We’ve not come across any issues with members booking and not turning up.

 

[Sweep]

Sweep, in answer to your question, I have been a member of three clubs running BRS and I have never come across members booking and not turning up as a problem. I understand your concern but I suspect it is more theoretical. I would hope if it became an issue that the relevant club would sanction those involved.

Thanks for this.
i don’t expect it will be a problem.
However, for people like me who work it’s almost impossible to commit to playing golf at a specific time in say two weeks time. If I am playing in a major knockout or if selected for the team then obviously a special effort is required. But, for a bounce game or a social match I would now have to commit to an exact time and book or risk not playing. If am delayed at the office and arrive 5 minutes late it’s possible I won’t be able to play and as you say I may face a possible sanction. All problems I didn’t have to face before.
I suppose the end result will be that I won’t risk booking and probably play less golf as a result or take my chances on the day.
At my club, the comps are well subscribed with 150 to 200 entering on Saturday and over 100 in the midweek comp. So BRS works well as a competition start sheet. However, outside comps, in 20 years I can’t recall ever having to wait for more than one game to be out of driving distance from the first tee before I could tee off ( visiting parties and official matches aside, which are diarised) so as far as the members are concerned this change was not needed. So I would conclude the members are losing the freedom of not having to book to facilitate the sale of tee times to non members (2,3 or 4 golfers not playing as a guest of a member).

 

[Val]

Wooomf, get the popcorn out

For some clubs it's the holy grail for others it's the devil incarnate.

It really does depend on what the club is trying to do with booking rounds.

Personal opinion, if you're not embracing it you are missing out.

 

[fundy]

Wooomf, get the popcorn out

For some clubs it's the holy grail for others it's the devil incarnate.

It really does depend on what the club is trying to do with booking rounds.

Personal opinion, if you're not embracing it you are missing out.

so you agree that it works for some and doesnt for others but then state that those it doesnt work for are missing out. Ok then, seems about right for this forum

 

[Fish]

We only use a booking system through IG (miles better than C2000) for club competitions.

If it was rolled out for all social tee times there would be an exodus of members leave, irrelevant of how good the course is, in fact I think an EGM would get called and it would easily get thrown out!

We’ve still got a lot of members who don’t like us advertising or marketing the club in any way, they want it all to themselves, hidden and empty for their own selfish use.

It’s all about balance, to keep fees down we need society bookings, but they need, and generally are, well organised and only on Wednesdays & Thursdays and never at weekends. Introducing a BRS system with an open door would unlock that and cause havoc, your falling into the realms of Pay & Play, which Coventry is miles away from ever becoming.

If you rolled out BRS just for members 7 days a week, with visitor slots only showing on Wednesday & Thursdays, then very traditional and successful roll ups would disappear over time, which would be bad as they help intergrate new members into our club.

I saw a BRS system in use at The Warwickshire for a Comp I’d entered and it would only display ‘booked’ in a tee time with 3 slots booked and a space that suited the time I wanted to play, but who was I playing with? There were no names or handicaps, just ‘booked’, as I was just starting to play golf at that time and being a very shy, quiet and introvert individual, I didn’t play as I didn’t want to find myself in a group of Cat1’s and be reduced to a jibbering wreck.

So, it’s a NO for me, I wouldn’t join or be at a club with any kind of ‘social’ BRS system.

 

[duncan mackie]

Couldn’t imagine turning up to golf and queuing up!
Can’t understand why anybody want to do that!

I'm guessing the concept of turning up without knowing who you will be playing with isn't high on your list either?

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Sweep, I am not going to quote your whole piece but will answer your latter point. Your worry is based on an extremely busy course. Perhaps I am not fully grasping your fears because I have not experienced that. I may play after work today but I haven't even looked at BRS yet. I don't need to, I know there will be space. I may not even book, on the app on my phone, until I leave work. I can book that last minute, no need for a decision two weeks in advance. Of course I may look at the app, discover 5 x 4 balls clogging the course and decide either not to go out or go later. For me, I'd rather know that now than just turning up at the club and wasting my time.

If your course is that busy then BRS would surely tidy it up, organise it?

On comp day our numbers are not huge but booking is opened 7 days in advance. That helps prevent the blind booking out of slots as people know at that point whether they can play one week in advance or not. We don't get late drop outs as a matter of course.

It is not the bogey man that people see unless your club use it solely to sell quiet slots. If that starts to dominate then it is a different matter but that is a problem for the club not the booking system.

 

[patricks148]

If no-one is booked through BRS then of course you can play.
Prior to BRS the only time a member couldn’t play was if a society or team match was on. Visitors could come to play but they would not be given an exact time.
It remains to be seen if there are sanctions applied to any member who books but doesn’t turn up. Otherwise you could potentially have a full booking sheet and an empty course. I wonder how other clubs handle this?

that's what happens a lot at my place particularly on sat mornings. We play around the same time most Sat mornings and the sheet is full till 1pm every week, but very often half don't turn up and the club has not done anything to sanction the repeat offenders on this.