Comparison

GolfBooker vs G1

GolfBooker is a straight subscription, and we never ask for your tee times. G1 is GolfNow's platform, sold alongside the marketplace your inventory ends up on.

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G1 has also been sold as IBS, EZ Links, Fore Reservations and GolfNow Reservations.

The GolfBooker tee sheet showing a morning of bookings with player names and confirmation status

Rounds today

243

Checked in

128

The short version

Why clubs pick GolfBooker over G1

Pick GolfBooker if

  • You want the cost on an invoice, not in tee times. A subscription and a booking commission, both written down before you sign, rather than an arrangement whose price is a number of rounds a day.

  • You do not want your vendor bidding for your golfer. There is no GolfBooker marketplace, no consumer brand and nowhere else your tee times appear.

  • You want the rate card to hold. Golfers who only ever pay a deal price learn that price, and it is hard to unteach.

The catch with G1

  • Reporting describes tee times given up daily in exchange for the technology and marketing.

  • Those tee times are resold as discounted Hot Deals on a platform you do not control.

  • Reporting names the inherent tension in GolfNow being both your technology provider and a competitor for the same golfer.

The long version

GolfBooker vs G1: what the difference actually is

GolfBooker is a straight subscription. A per-club subscription plus a commission on online bookings, both shown to you before you sign. No tee times are traded for technology, nothing of yours is resold as somebody else's discounted deal, and your card revenue settles into a merchant account in your club's own name. There is no GolfBooker marketplace and no consumer golf brand, so we have no inventory of yours to sell and nothing to bid against you with.

G1 is GolfNow's course management platform, sold over the years as IBS, EZ Links, Fore Reservations and GolfNow Reservations, and led today as GolfNow Pro and GolfNow Premier. The platform is not the issue. GolfNow is also the largest tee time marketplace in the business, so the company selling you the system that controls your inventory is in the business of selling that inventory to golfers.

Section by section

What a straight subscription changes

On GolfBooker you keep the inventory, you keep the rate card, and you keep the golfer. Green fees are set by season, day of week, time of day and player category with off-peak and early-bird rules, so quiet slots are priced deliberately rather than liquidated. Card payments settle through a merchant account in your club's own name, so the processor relationship and the payout schedule stay with the club. And the commercial terms are a subscription plus a commission on online bookings, both shown before you sign, rather than an arrangement whose real cost is a number of tee times a day that never appears on an invoice.

Verdict

GolfBooker on control. The cost of a barter arrangement is real; it just is not itemized.

Your software vendor should not be your competitor

GolfBooker has no marketplace and no consumer brand. Your golfers book on your website, in your app or at your counter, and the only place your tee times appear is your own sheet. Published reporting on GolfNow names the inherent tension in the company acting as both a technology provider and a competitor to golf courses, and describes two consequences: golfers may become accustomed to the lower marketplace prices and resist paying full price when booking direct, and courses with genuinely scarce inventory give up rounds they could have sold themselves.

Verdict

GolfBooker. We are not bidding against you for the same golfer, because we have nothing to bid with.

Trading tee times for technology

GolfBooker never asks for your tee times, because we have nowhere to sell them. GolfNow's own business site does not describe a barter arrangement either, so what follows rests on industry reporting and we flag that plainly. A published interview on the barter model describes courses providing a designated number of tee times daily, which become Hot Deals sold at discounted rates on the platform, in exchange for a technology and marketing package. The NGCOA has published its own warning to owners about barter arrangements in golf. Whether paid-only alternatives exist alongside the trade is not something the reporting establishes, and we do not claim it either way.

Verdict

If you are quoted a barter arrangement, price the tee times you would be giving up before you compare anything else.

The GolfNow platform, and what it is called now

GolfBooker has had one name and one product since the day it shipped, which is worth something when you are trying to work out what you are actually being quoted. If you searched for G1 you were probably told that name by a colleague or an old contract. The platform has carried several: IBS, EZ Links, Fore Reservations and GolfNow Reservations, and the business site today leads with GolfNow Pro and GolfNow Premier. It lists tee sheet management with pricing control and real-time reports, a point of sale, integrated payment processing, and a booking engine for your own site, with pricing and marketing services alongside. It is a wide offer, and the software is not the reason courses leave.

Verdict

A capable platform. The software is not the reason people leave.

Competitions, members and the rest of the season

GolfBooker includes open online registration, entry fees landing in the same ledger as green fees and bar tabs, tee assignments, multiple formats, phone scoring, published leaderboards, and season-long series with cumulative standings, points systems, divisions and six tie-breaker methods, alongside membership types, automatic renewals and dues invoicing. Tournament and league management is not among the platform capabilities GolfNow publishes, though GolfNow Premier is positioned as an all-in-one club management system for private and resort clubs.

Verdict

GolfBooker on competitions, on the strength of what each product advertises.

Switching from G1

Moving to GolfBooker is the ordinary part: customers, members, membership types and the product catalog come out as CSV, we map and validate before loading, and your booking windows, cancellation policy, seasons and rates go in before launch, with the old system live until your GolfBooker sheet takes over. Two things need planning that a normal migration does not. Establish which platform you are actually on, because the contract may say IBS, EZ Links, Fore Reservations, GolfNow Reservations, GolfNow Pro or Premier, and the exports differ. Then read the termination terms carefully, particularly anything tying the technology to the tee times you supply.

Verdict

The data move is routine. The contract is the part to read twice.

Recap

GolfBooker and G1, capability by capability

G1 is a capable platform with a long history and the rows below say so. The row that decides it for most courses is not a feature at all.

Tee sheet and online booking

GolfBooker

Available: Cloud tee sheet. Your website, the golfer app and the front desk write to it in real time.

G1

Available: Tee sheet management with pricing control, real-time data and a booking engine for your own site.

Point of sale

GolfBooker

Available: Included. Green fees, pro shop retail and food on one ticket against one customer record.

G1

Available: Point of sale with fast check-in and check-out and mobile ordering.

Dynamic pricing

GolfBooker

Available: Built in. Rates by season, day, time and player category, with off-peak and early-bird rules.

G1

Available: ATHENA, described as intelligent pricing and insights.

Member management and billing

GolfBooker

Available: Included, with membership types, automatic renewals and dues invoicing.

G1

Available: GolfNow Premier is positioned as an all-in-one club management system for private and resort clubs.

Email, SMS and push marketing

GolfBooker

Available: Included, segmented off the same customer records.

G1

Available: Connect, a start-to-finish marketing service for email, social and ad campaigns.

Analytics and reporting

GolfBooker

Available: Rounds, revenue, members and POS reporting in one place, with a daily report.

G1

Available: Reporting and revenue management across the platform.

Card payments in your club's own account

GolfBooker

Available: Settled through a merchant account in your club's name, so the processor relationship stays with you.

G1

Not available: Payment processing is part of the GolfNow platform.

Every row is yes or no, on both sides. G1 details come from the company's own site and published reviews, listed with their read dates at the foot of this page, and a no means the capability is not offered in those published materials. Where a capability could not be established either way, the row is left out rather than guessed.

Common questions about G1
What is G1 called now?
GolfNow's platform has carried several names, including IBS, EZ Links, Fore Reservations and GolfNow Reservations, and today leads with GolfNow Pro and GolfNow Premier. Worth confirming which one you are actually being quoted. GolfBooker has had one name and one product throughout.
Does GolfNow take tee times in exchange for technology?
Industry reporting describes that arrangement: a set number of tee times daily, resold as discounted Hot Deals, in exchange for technology and marketing. GolfNow's own site does not describe it, so get the terms in writing. GolfBooker never asks for your tee times.
What is the risk of selling tee times through a marketplace at a discount?
Golfers learn the discounted price and resist paying rate card when booking direct, and a busy course gives up rounds it could have sold itself. On GolfBooker every slot stays on your sheet at the price you set.
How does GolfBooker charge if it does not take tee times?
A per-club subscription plus a commission on online bookings, both written down before you sign. There is no GolfBooker marketplace, so we have no inventory of yours to resell and no consumer brand competing for your golfer.

Switching from G1

What the move actually looks like

Four steps, one to two weeks for most clubs, and the team with you on the day. Import help and onboarding are included at no extra cost.

  1. Export from G1

    You pull customers, members, membership types and your product catalog out as CSV. We tell you exactly which exports we need before you start, so you are not guessing at which report to run.

  2. We map and validate

    We map the fields and run the file for duplicates and formatting problems before anything is loaded, then send you the list of what we found. Bad member records are cheaper to fix now than in your first week live.

  3. Your rules go in first

    Booking windows, cancellation policy, group limits, seasons and green fee rates by day, time and player category are configured before launch. You are not opening on defaults and correcting them under pressure.

  4. Go live with the team on the phone

    Switch-over morning is the one that matters, so we are on it with you: the people who build the product, from the first tee time to the last.

See it on your own course

A working demo on your operation, and a quote with the subscription and the booking commission both written down. If you are moving off G1, we will walk through what the import looks like.

Nick LeGarde

Nick LeGarde

Sales Lead

Prefer email? sales@golfbooker.app

Sources for the G1 claims (4) and trademark notice

G1 is a trademark of its owner and is named here only to identify the product being compared. Details are accurate to the dates above and product packaging changes.