Regarded as one of the best courses in Spain, Club de Golf Alcanada is a Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed course located in the northern part of the Mediterranean island of Mallorca.

In November 2019 Club de Golf Alcanada hosted the European Challenge Tour Grand Final, with the Italian Francesco Laporta claiming victory. The PGA EuroPro Tour announced that the 2021 Tour Championships will be held at Club de Golf Alcanada on October 20-22, 2021.

We chat to Kristoff Both, Director of Golf at Club de Golf Alcanada, who shares some insights into his operations and how they are preparing for this year’s PGA EuroPro Tour’s Tour Championship.

1. How would you describe your morning routine to kickstart your day?

I start my day by doing an indoor rowing workout while watching international news, followed by a shower and quick breakfast, and finally, head off to work while listening to Spanish news in the car.

2. How would you describe your ideal golf experience?

Great course conditions, good pace of play and great service, but most importantly good friends to play with.

3. What is your dream golf destination? Why?  

I would love to play at some exotic golf destinations like Mauritius or the Dominican Republic, but I wouldn’t mind going back to Scotland or Ireland for some links golf. Again, it’s all about the people you play with, who can make the experience a little more enjoyable!

4. Since the implementation of the Tagmarshal system, how has the technology helped improve pace and field flow over the years?

Absolutely! All staff members are a lot more aware of what is happening on the golf course and it is a lot easier to provide preemptive support to possible slow play issues. Plus it’s a great management tool in case there are problems or customers require feedback regarding slow play.

5. What is the impact of Tagmarshal’s technology on the efficiency of the course at Alcanada?

As mentioned above, we can use our team more efficiently and we are able to better identify “problem areas” on the course where we might need to make changes on the course such as difficult rough areas or trim bushes, use easier pin positions on busy days, etc.

With the introduction of the Tagmarshal Analytics Hub, we can see in more detail where problem areas are found on the course that may course traffic, and make better-informed decisions more than ever before!

6. How does this result in cost savings and revenue-generating opportunities?

Here at Alcanada, we utilize Tagmarshal a customer retention tool. Excellent pace and flow of play means happier golfers that are more likely to return to our course.

At the same time our Caddiemaster staff, who also act as Player Assistants, bag drop, and starters can be used for different tasks, other than just managing pace of play on the course since we have implemented the Tagmarshal system. 

They only act as Player Assistants, to help players when there is a problem or before issues arise on the course. They can give better service on tee 1 or at the bag drop, or do additional maintenance work around the clubhouse.

7. How have your guests responded to the overall on-course experience at Alcanada?

They love the system! They are glad to know that everything is under control even though they don’t see Player Assistants all the time. I think it is important for the players to know that the course is looking out for them.

8. Describe Tagmarshal in three words.

Course Management Revolution!

9. Alcanada will be hosting the 2021 Tour Championships in October. How is your facility preparing for this PGA EuroPro Tour event?

Having hosted the 2019 Challenge Tour Final, as well as hosting the Copa del Rey a couple of years ago, our team is all set for the final event of the EuroPro Tour in October 2021. 

Our greens are usually putting above 10 on the Stimpmeter so we don’t have to do a lot of extra work to get the greens to the desired speed for the event. Additionally, October is a great month in Mallorca, and therefore, the course should be in great condition!

The North Berwick Golf Club, at North Berwick, is the 13th oldest golf club in the world, founded in 1832, boasting breathtaking views of the Firth of Forth and islands of Bass Rock.

Its iconic West Links course is a true championship links course, having the hosted Final Qualifying for The Open Championship and both Gentlemen and Ladies Amateur Championships. An excellent test of golf awaits you. 

In this edition of our Quick 9 series, we catch up with Stuart Martin who is the Golf Operations Manager at North Berwick. He shares his daily routine, favourite sport and more.

1. How would you describe your morning routine to kickstart your day?

Wake up with the birds, let my French Bulldog pup out whilst I make a coffee, quick walk then it’s in to the club to get the operation in full flow.

2. Has golf always been your first love? What other sports/team are you a fan of?

Golf has been a love from a young age however, football (soccer) is my other sporting love which I played to a relatively high level before choosing golf as a career. My one and only team is Celtic.

3. What is your favorite/greatest round of golf experience?

I have so many to decide between. I played Loch Lomond (my dream course growing up) for the first time in a competition at the age of 14 with my Papa caddying was amazing. I then went on to work at Loch Lomond for many years. Then I also have my first time playing at Cypress Point, and wow, the fog lifting in the sunrise when we were on the 1st tee and then standing on 16th tee was pretty special.

4. Where does Pace and Flow of Play rank as an industry priority? Top 3?

Definitely Top 3. Good pace and flow of play makes every golfer’s experience all the more enjoyable and stress-free. It also allows them ample time to enjoy the other aspects of the club without being in a rush to get somewhere else.

5. Why has your course decided to invest in Tagmarshal?

As we have a figure of 8 course layout we have a number of pinch points where golfers could be held up by waiting on people putting out or teeing off on other holes. Add into the mix outside influencers such as weather and walkers enjoying the coastline we’re on, it all makes for potential problems. 

Before Tagmarshal, our course marshals would simply drive around different groups and check on their progress but not necessarily always reaching the right group at the right time. 

Tagmarshal not only assists the club in ensuring a good pace & flow but also enables us to manage the daily journey of our staff to ensure that the best levels of service are delivered to our members, their guests and our visitors.

6. What are the top benefits of incorporating Tagmarshal into your daily operations?

It’s providing the club’s staff with evidential proof on player rounds which aids them with their duties. The data collection and analytics have given me further insight into how effective our tee time profiling is and how the course setup has and can affect the pace & flow. 

The staff are able to deal with situations regarding pace and flow efficiently (in a friendly manner) with the data given. As a result of Tagmarshal’s integration into our club’s operation, more staff time can be spent providing additional levels of customer service in other areas of the operation. Investing in Tagmarshal at the start of the pandemic has also been a fantastic tool in allowing us to ensure social distancing measures were being adhered to.

7. Since the implementation of the Tagmarshal system, how have your customers responded to the on-course experience?

At first, it was met by some with some skepticism however, once they realized that the devices were there to enhance their experience rather than track them in a negative manner, they have all really embraced it. Tagmarshal and pace of play are now certainly the topic of many of our member and customer conversations.

8. What is your dream golf destination? Why?

North Berwick of course! ???? When the sun is shining on the East coast of Scotland there really is no place better than being by the ocean on the links.

9. If you could be a caddie on Tour, whose caddie would you like to be and why?

Oh wow, this is a tough one! My two golfing icons growing up have been Seve and Tiger. BUT…I guess Seve would maybe just pip my decision though. Imagine the shots you could learn and the different places on a golf course he would have you calculating yardages from!

Slow pace of play continues to be a key negative experience factor for golfers and course operators, as well as impacts on revenue opportunities for owners.

On this episode of The ModGolf Podcast presented by Colin Weston, Bodo Sieber, CEO, Tagmarshal, shares his entrepreneurial journey and how Tagmarshal creates innovative solutions to improve pace and flow of play, while delivering excellent player experiences and cost-savings.

Listen to the podcast below:

Listen to podcast here.

Tweet

About The ModGolf Podcast 

The ModGolf Podcast talks with golf’s top influencers, entrepreneurs, innovators and disruptors about their vision and solutions to re-imagine, transform and grow the game. Host Colin Weston explores the future of golf through conversations with the visionaries and influencers that are shaking up the sport.

Visit ModGolf for other interesting golf podcasts.

Tagmarshal, the leader in on-course optimization, has introduced Tagmarshal Go, a simple and affordable solution providing full line of sight capabilities to enable golf course operators to manage traffic and field flow as well as their cart fleet, at an accessible price point.

With Tagmarshal already offering full on-course optimization within its portfolio of Tagmarshal Track and Tagmarshal Premium Optimizer products, a gap existed for a product such as Tagmarshal Go to cater for courses that needed basic cart or walker tracking only.

“We are proud to launch Tagmarshal Go which provides golf course operators with an efficient and affordable cart tracking solution, underpinned by the same expertise and excellent service our more than 300 global partners have come to expect from our company,” said Bodo Sieber, CEO, Tagmarshal.

Sieber also noted that with 2021 promising to be as busy as 2020, many golf courses are looking for technology-supported products to deliver ways to save time and money as well as ensuring excellent player experience during the round.

Tagmarshal Go features include a live map supported by Tagmarshal’s proprietary Pace of Play algorithms providing full real time course oversight to manage pace and field flow, as well as their cart fleet, effectively. Real time Geo-fencing is also included, enabling courses to keep golfers safely on paths and boundaries within the course.

Both Cart and Walking courses can benefit from Tagmarshal Go with the clip-on Classic Tag or Classic Installed devices. These are self-managed and self-installed, making Tagmarshal Go fast and cost effective to implement.

Moreover, the system is viewable across as many devices as needed –whether a mobile phone, tablet or laptop and all data is stored in the cloud for three years.

Tagmarshal Go is a simple, affordable and effective solution for courses looking for full operational line of sight to effectively manage their course traffic better, at the cost of only $9.90 per walking unit and $11.90 per cart unit, T & Cs apply.

Tagmarshal technology has collected over 1 billion data points from over 15 million rounds of golf. It has partnered with more than 300 clubs, private, daily fee and resorts, including 30 of the Top 100 US courses.

To learn more about how Tagmarshal Go will benefit your course this season, visit: www.tagmarshal.com/go

Company Contacts:
Bodo Sieber – CEO  b.sieber@tagmarshal.com
Natalie Davidsson –Marketing Manager  natalie.davidsson@tagmarshal.com

Media Contact – Les Schupak  laschupak@gmail.com  914-774-6060

View original article

By Adam Stanley

It’s likely you’re thinking about pace of play every time you prepare for a round of golf.

Tagmarshal—a golf course intelligence system installed at some of the world’s finest courses including Erin Hills, Carnoustie, Whistling Straits, Bandon Dunes, Pebble Beach, National Golf Links of America, and more—is a true gamechanger. It’s helping golfers enjoy their rounds more, because they’re playing quicker.

Bodo Sieber, Tagmarshal’s CEO, says 300 clubs around the world, including 30 of the top 100 courses in the U.S., are members and many have signed on for multi-year agreements. So far Tagmarshal, whose American office is in Atlanta nearby East Lake Golf Club, has tracked close to 20 million rounds, equating to roughly over one billion data points, and it has helped some of the best golf courses on the planet become better at moving golfers around and driving revenue.

The system is straightforward enough—transmitters are placed on carts or given to caddies or golfers themselves and pace-of-play information is collected, stored in a cloud-based system, and shown on the operators’ dashboard to allow them to see what’s happening on the course in real time. Clubs then know exactly where rounds are slowing down on the course and can go directly to a problem group to encourage them to pick up the pace.

Occasionally, the problem isn’t the players, but the course—in a piece for PGA Magazine, Jim Morris, PGA Head Professional at National Golf Links, wrote of how Tagmarshal helped them identify a problem area during a tournament for members. Walking around a pond at the 13th and 14th holes caused delays; seeing this on Tagmarshal, the club added shuttles for players on the holes which accelerated the pace of play and allowed National Golf Links to increase its field size at future tournaments.

With Tagmarshal, pace-of-play situations can be handled in real time with data-based feedback, not just speculation.

National Golf Links of America, 13th hole (photo by L.C. Lambrecht)

“We train the marshals on the best practice of telling golfers they are ‘out of position.’ Golfers have a better time computing that without being offended and when they are shown the data, it’s easy to have a fact-based conversation versus an opinion-based conversation,” says Sieber.

Sieber laughs when asked how easy Tagmarshal is because it’s color coded to show where those bunch-ups happen.

“Even my 8-year-old would say, ‘well that looks bad,’” he says.

So, what does this mean to some of the best golf courses in the world?

For one, it means a more enjoyable experience for golfers—many of whom are paying hundreds of dollars to play. But the increased efficiencies also mean a better-run business overall.

According to data provided by Sieber, Destination Kohler’s Whistling Straits increased its number of rounds by nearly 800 from 2016 to 2019. The percentage of rounds that were deemed “on pace” also improved from 58 percent to 71 percent.

Congrats to this week’s #PaceSetter @kiawahresort! Find out how the 2021 PGA Championship hosts use Tagmarshal’s 2Way technology to optimize the pace and flow of play, providing their golfers with the best on-course experience: https://t.co/GvQesqgaXZ #kiawahisland #pgachamps pic.twitter.com/vaU31N8Zgo

— Tagmarshal (@tagmarshal) February 19, 2021

Sieber, who lives in South Africa, has been in business intelligence solutions for more than a decade. About six years ago, some friends came to him after a frustratingly slow round of golf. There had to be a way to create some sort of technology to make the experience better.

“To me, it’s just a business and traffic problem. It’s something you could use data visualization to make sense of. It’s a traffic space, like what Google Maps does,” says Sieber. “We can do that, of course.”

Tagmarshal sought to showcase their idea as a new exhibitor at the 2015 PGA Merchandise Show. There was some interest, but most everyone was still asking the key questions: “You guys are new, are you even going to be around next year? Does this actually work?”

But then the group got a call from Erin Hills. The Wisconsin club was getting ready to host the U.S. Open in 2017 and Sieber says his partners—the true golf guys—were “jumping up and down.”

Erin Hills gave the system a test run after telling Tagmarshal it was exactly the kind of thing they wanted to install. The product now, Sieber says, is 100-times better.

“We’re very good at systems and smart software, but we weren’t specialists in the space—that was the golf managers,” says Sieber. “The tables have since turned.”

View original article

Golf cart tracking software is not usually associated with cross-border police tracking! But in December 2020 this changed, when Tagmarshal received a call for assistance from the National Golf Club of Louisiana, a top 5 public course (as voted by Golfweek), based in Westlake, Louisiana. They’d been alerted to a serious Geofence breach that indicated the theft of two golf carts. These were the events as they unfolded…

On 8 December 2020, the Tagmarshal support team received a call from the Director of Golf David Kaspar, requesting urgent assistance – the team had seen two carts trigger their geofence and then disappear from view off the property, leading the team to believe that they’d been stolen.

Kaspar, who gives an account of the events, said:

“Two men cut the chain to our fence gates after 2:00 a.m. on Dec 8th. The men somehow were able to start two of our golf carts (no keys were in carts at the time of theft) and drove them off the property.”

“We had just begun using our Tagmarshal system at the time and were still getting used to the new system. That being said, we didn’t have our Geofence system setup properly to trigger the after-hour call that the carts were moving and I didn’t notice the carts missing for a few days,” continued Kaspar.

When Kaspar had noticed that the carts were no longer in rotation, he used Tagmarshal’s ‘Current Location’ to find that the carts were both in a driveway somewhere just south of Fort. Worth, Texas. The police as well as the Tagmarshal Support team were notified immediately, and the search was on.

The Tagmarshal Support team jumped into action, requesting help from Tagmarshal’s Senior Developer, Simphiwe Shongwe.

Upon receiving the request, Shongwe assisted in initiating the investigations from HQ, saying:

“When we retrieved the tag numbers, we noticed that the tags still received updates as a result of the tags’ battery life being in good health.”

“The data collected by the tags was transmitted to our cloud servers, where we were able to extract the geolocation data. The result, we were able to pinpoint the carts’ every route and exact location, from the day they were stolen,” concluded Shongwe.

Based on the data received from tags, Tagmarshal was able to see that the stolen carts were now located in Fort Worth, Texas almost 360 miles from their original locations. The Tagmarshal team shared this information with the course and the local police department. 

The information was detailed and sufficient enough to launch a thorough investigation, leading to 4 arrests being made. 

David Kaspar, Director of Golf, National Golf Club of Louisiana, added: 

“Because of the Tagmarshal tracking of the carts, our Police Department was able to find the exact locations that the carts, which were loaded on a truck, traveled that night and have since made four arrests with several others under question. It’s highly likely that we were stolen from a very organized crime theft ring.” 

“Tagmarshal was able to help identify locations such as driveways, truck stops, house garages, and streets driven for the entire time the carts were traveling to the final location of the pings.”

Unfortunately, the felons noticed the GPS tags and removed them from the carts. At this stage, the recovery of the two carts remains doubtful, however because of the arrests, the police were able to identify other items stolen by this group and possibly some stolen items from the course before.

“The Tagmarshal team did some very neat stuff to help our Police and the Sheriff’s office from Fort Worth. If other golf courses are thinking of Tagmarshal as only a pace control feature, I would be one that says they are missing out on another very important feature – safety!” concluded Kaspar.

A great team effort between the course, Tagmarshal and the local police force, lead to a positive outcome for all!

Tagmarshal’s Golf Cart Tracking Technology paving the way for modern-day golf course management

There are a number of benefits for tracking golf carts to golf course operators. Having Tagmarshal’s classic tags or 2Way golf cart devices installed helps golf operators to optimize their on-course operations, driving efficiency and revenue, and enhancing player experiences through the pace of play and field flow.

Additionally, the GPS tracker, together with its geofencing technology and real-time automated notifications means golf operators will always know exactly where their golf carts are, preventing cart theft on the course.

Tagmarshal’s tracking technology is trusted by 30 of the top 100 USA courses and 300 other private, daily fee, and resort courses.

“The system is phenomenal. The data is fantastic, extremely insightful, and valuable. Plus, the value it adds to due diligence and management reporting. The service and support have been great too, couldn’t ask for better. I really can’t see any course out there not using it,” said Jim Morris, Head Golf Professional at National Golf Links of America.

How the Golf Cart GPS Tracking feature works:

The golf cart GPS tracking feature was designed for golf operators to accurately display real-time notifications and alerts when there are Geofence breaches, to ensure player safety, player compliance and reduce damage to areas or areas under course maintenance, and more importantly cart security from theft.

When the Geofence is breached, messages are automatically sent from the system notifying golfers that they are breaching a geofence zone. Golfers can then respond and acknowledge it, confirming whether or not they need assistance, by sending a text message or a  popup, to every operational staff user. 

To find out more about how the golf course intelligence system works book a demo today with our product specialists.