The Golf Club of the Future

It’s all about creating a compelling open plan concept that fuses retail, food and a check-in experience powered by technology

Roaming Hosts With Handheld Devices

At the centre of the golf club of the future is an all encompassing space called a living room lounge. The open plan concept welcomes golfers into a space that resembles a hotel lobby with roaming hosts that act both as check-in staff and food servers. This concept demands hardware and software in the cloud for hosts that delivers a level of hospitality that is friendly, casual and inclusive.

Takeaway: Create an environment that is more friendly and less formal. Golf is criticized for being stuffy with too many rules. The living room lounge turns the current golf club on its head.

Touch less Payment

Allowing customers to pay with ease and convenience makes them focus more on the experience and less on the utility of the transaction. This is great from an overall customer enjoyment perspective and data shows that average spend increases significantly by making the payments more frictionless. Contactless payment is also a space for innovation and services ike Apple Pay, Square and many others are currently in a renaissance period.

golfscape is also innovating in this space. Customers can save their booking confirmation to their Apple Wallet that enables them to check-in with touchless QR code scanning, which can also be tied to the credit card used at the time of booking. This technology provides the potential for the same code to also be used as a method of payment at the golf course when scanned in exchange for various goods and services.

Takeaway: Simple check-in and out makes for happier customers and it will be good for your top line revenue as well.

Pop Up Store and Delivery

The golf shop area is recreated as a pop-up stand, hosted by personal assistants within the living room lounge at the golf course, that allows for golfers to interact with screens which facilitates in the selection of their favorite apparel styles. This browsing selection data is fed back into their unique style profile along with size and price preferences. Further, golfers can select demo equipment and take it for a test drive on the golf course. During a round the golfer is quizzed periodically on the golf cart touch screen for demo equipment feedback.

When golfers return to the clubhouse after their round they can request for a delivery based on their profie preferences and the data that has been collected thus far. The next day golfers receive five hand-slected items featuring both hard and soft goods sent directly to their door. Customers keep what they want and send the rest back in a box. Shipping is free and easy both ways.

The items sent back are logged into the customer profile to make future recommendations more intuitive. Future visits the customer makes to the golf course provide additional opportunities to gather more data on their preferences and ensure future shipments are better aligned with the customer’s taste.

Takeaway: Golf courses can remove the costly overhead of inventory and sell the items that are most in-demand which customers actually want.

Soft Seating and Bistro Tables

The soft seating and bistro tables of the Living Room Lounge brings the all-encompassing lobby concept that helped revolutionize mainstream hotel chain lobbies. Folks are increasingly looking for space at the intersection of business and leisure where they can work on their laptops like they enjoy at Starbucks.

It needs to be inviting enough to conduct a business meeting or allow the golfer to catch up on morning emails before they hit the links for an afternoon tee time. The space also has to facilitate the in-and-out crowd in this fast paced lifestyle where they can grab a quick coffee at a standing bistro table while they check-in for their tee time.

Takeaway: Extend customer engagement time and make a space inviting enough that a golfer will conduct their morning work at the golf course before an afternoon tee time or vice-a-versa.

Coffee Bar and Artisan Grocer

Analysis shows that consumers are spending more on coffee, artisan goods and less on everything else in retail. That’s why the grab and go concept within a golf club enviornment makes sense in this fast paced new world.

This is a shout out to thought leaders like Emirates Golf Club in Dubai who announced recently they are opening an artisan cafe concept called Jones the Grocer in what used to be known as the Spike Bar & Restaurant. This demonstrates an astute capability of changing with the times and realizing customer preferences evolve and with it so does your business. In Emirates Golf Club’s case, the opportunity still remains huge to engage customers in a captive space that adds value in their life outside the golf club, while capitalizing on their location within the more affluent suburbs of Dubai to bring in new customer segments that might not have ever considered driving in the front gates.

Takeaway: Give people what they want.