By byCarvalho · · All guides
The short answer
There are three places a golfer can book: a marketplace like GolfNow, which sells many courses’ tee times side by side; the course’s own tee sheet on its booking company’s website; or the course’s own website. In our study of Ontario course websites, just over half send golfers to the booking company’s site and only 3% to a marketplace. Marketplaces can bring in new golfers but cost tee times and the relationship; a booking company’s page keeps the booking but loses the visit. For most courses the goal is the same: make your own website the easiest, best-value place to book.
Where do golf course websites send golfers to book?
We checked the websites of 292 public and semi-private golf courses in Ontario in October 2026. Nine in ten link to online tee time booking. Where that link goes:
- The course’s own tee sheet on its booking company’s website: 53%. Tee-On and Lightspeed Golf (Chronogolf) run most of the booking we could identify.
- Booking built into the course’s own website: 27%, plus 8% with a booking page on their own site.
- A marketplace that sells many courses’ tee times: 3%.
- No online booking link: 10%.
So the common question isn’t “GolfNow or not?” It’s whether golfers book on your website or leave it. A booking company’s page is still your tee sheet and your green fee, but golfers leave your site to use it, see another company’s branding, and the visit drops out of your analytics. A marketplace is a different deal, covered below.
How does GolfNow work for golf courses?
GolfNow is a tee time marketplace. Golfers search for times across many courses and book through its website and app. Courses list some or all of their tee times there. GolfNow also sells tee sheet software (TeeItUp), which runs a course’s own tee sheet; using that isn’t the same as listing on the marketplace.
Courses pay for this in different ways. The best known is barter, also called trade: instead of paying cash, the course gives the platform a set number of tee times, commonly one to three a day, which the platform sells (often as discounted “Hot Deals”) and keeps the money from. Industry reports and sample contracts also describe cash and commission arrangements. Terms are negotiated course by course, so your own contract is the only reliable source for yours.
What does barter really cost a course?
Barter can feel free because no invoice arrives. The cost shows up in other places. An NGCOA article on barter agreement language points to several clauses worth checking in any agreement with a tee time platform:
- The tee times you trade: rounds you could have sold yourself, every day of the season. Some contracts count each traded time as a full foursome.
- Unsold trade times rolling over: some language lets the platform carry unsold trade inventory from one day to the next.
- Rate parity: some agreements say your own website can’t be cheaper than the platform, while the platform’s discounted trade times aren’t held to the same rule.
- Customer data: golfers who book trade rounds through the platform usually aren’t in the data you can export.
- Auto-renewal: agreements often renew automatically unless you give notice in time.
The NGCOA, the golf course owners’ association, has long argued for contracts that give courses control over which times are traded and at what price.
When does a marketplace make sense?
A marketplace can be worth it when:
- Your course is new or little known, and you need golfers who don’t know you yet.
- You regularly have tee times that go unsold, like weekday afternoons or the shoulder season.
- You can’t yet offer good online booking on your own website.
The useful question isn’t “is GolfNow good or bad?” It’s “are the rounds it brings in worth more than the tee times and margin it costs us?” Your tee sheet and booking reports can answer that.
Why make your own website the best place to book?
Golfers who book directly are your customers. You know who they are, you can invite them back, and you keep the full price of the round. That only works if booking on your site is as easy as booking on a marketplace:
- A booking button on every page, not buried in a menu.
- Booking that stays on your domain: embed your tee sheet’s booking page, or run it on a subdomain like book.yourclub.com, instead of sending golfers to the booking company’s site.
- Booking that takes a few taps on a phone.
- A reason to book direct, where your contract allows it: your best public rate, member perks or packages a marketplace doesn’t offer.
- Your course showing up on Google and in AI answers, so golfers find you before they find a listing.
How do you move golfers to book direct?
Start by measuring. Find out what share of your rounds comes through each channel, and what your traded tee times would have earned at your own rates. Then make direct booking easy, promote it in your newsletters and on your website, and read your marketplace agreement well before it renews. The off-season is the time to do it.
This is the work we do: tee time booking on your own website, built around the tee sheet you already use, with reports that show where every booking came from.
Sources
How we can help
- Tee time booking
- Golfers book on your site, not someone else’s.
- Analytics & reporting
- See where every visitor comes from and what they do on the site.
- Websites
- Built to show off the course, not hide it.
