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GPS – A Play Toy or Business Tool?
by Jeff Cline, VP of Institutional Sales
While GPS has been a fixture in the golf industry since the early 1990s, the technology has advanced remarkably since those days. Golf course GPS may have begun life as a toy, but led by ProLink Solutions, the world’s largest provider, it has evolved into a business tool that courses today find indispensable.
The early adopters of GPS took advantage of the new and exciting technology as a way to differentiate their courses. Giving golfers precise yardages to pins and hazards was a novel way to make a round more enjoyable, enhancing the playing experience and resulting in repeat business. With the increasing demands on our time, the average golfer wants to score well and play a round in about four hours; and ProLink Solutions GPS helps on both accounts.
But increasing golfer enjoyment is only part of ProLink’s value to a course. The system’s rapid evolution in recent years has seen the introduction of numerous functions. Clubs looking for marketing and information systems that can manage pace-of-play, fleet rotation, and customer-to-pro shop communications will find it all in ProLink Solutions’ GPS system.
A major recent development has been the introduction of advertising on GPS screens. The revenue-sharing program pioneered by ProLink allows courses to take full advantage of this phenomenon. Via “ProFIT,” partner courses and ProLink split ad revenues 50-50 (after a 15-percent agency fee is paid), generating significant cash flow to substantially reduce or eliminate the system cost.
How many toys can do that?
If the GPS yardage unit needs a battery, or it’s sold at Sharper Image, that’s something to play with. If the system is cart-mounted with course graphics and live yardage feeds, provides multiple revenues streams, delivers exceptional ROI, and provides robust back-end reporting, it’s clearly a business tool.
