Since the outset of the global coronavirus pandemic, clubs, organisations and professional Tours have been forced to navigate the ways they can provide golf to their players in a safe and sustainable way. This has made many look away from traditional event scoring and management tools and more closely at how ‘going digital’ can take golf forward.
Golf Genius is no new entrant to the market. As the leading provider of cloud-based golf tournament management systems around the world, Golf Genius proudly serves 9,805 clubs and associations in 59 countries. The company has made its name and reputation by offering innovative solutions to help deliver exceptional experiences for players while saving time and costs for the organisations who employ the software.
Numerous organisations worldwide have seen the benefit of Golf Genius’ time-efficient system, including high-profile tours and events. In response to the impact of the virus on professional golf at the highest level, Golf Genius collaborated with the European Tour to create a contactless solution to help manage the remainder of events in the 2020 Race to Dubai season.
At short notice, Golf Genius co-ordinated an online event solution for both registration and player management at the events. The system allowed players to book pre-tournament practice rounds remotely – eliminating the need for face-to-face contact with event organisers. Players simply accessed the event portal via the bespoke app, which opened virtually on the Sunday before each tournament and provided real-time tournament information that would previously have been distributed as a PDF.
This allowed the Tour to move their player registration and management experience into the contactless era and featured many of the hallmark Golf Genius elements available to any organisation. The European Tour’s Chief Technology Officer, Michael Cole, spoke about the role Golf Genius had in the restart of the Tour’s schedule: “The Tour’s return to its schedule marked arguably one of sport’s best showcases of resilient operations during the pandemic – running 27 events including 15 created from scratch was a phenomenal achievement.
“With Golf Genius’ help we were able to achieve the concept of a contactless environment, particularly for players, moving fast and innovatively to set up the digital noticeboard, practice round scheduling and communication tools required to safeguard our players and events. We will continue to work with Golf Genius in 2021 as we move out of the pandemic to develop this digital integration further which proved very popular with Tour administrative staff and players alike.”
Golf Genius’ relationship as a key technology supplier has continued into the 2021 season and expanded with the European Tour also bringing in Golf Genius across all their tours, including the Challenge Tour and Legends Tour. For other PGA’s in US, Canada and Australia Golf Genius offers a complete and easy solution catering for any innovative events or series setup. Benefits of using the software include a portal for registration and taking payment that keeps organisers, players and fans informed of the latest results, schedule and standings.
Now, more than ever, Golf Genius’ digital offering has come to the fore and the innovation hasn’t stopped. Seeing the market call out for contactless golf, the developers at Golf Genius have taken its contactless golf solution to the next level with the release of a ‘digital scorecard’ which allows the company to run amateur and professional golf tournaments without the need for traditional paper scorecards.
The Golf Genius digital scorecard removes the requirement for players to exchange physical scorecards in competitive rounds, instead providing a modern, contactless, and safe solution for tournament play. At the end of the round, the players can view both the marker and the player’s scores to ensure that they align, and resolve any differences. Both players can then use their unique Golf Genius IDs to sign and approve the final submitted electronic scorecard. When using the digital scorecard feature – which can be turned on or off for specific tournaments – a tournament administrator can easily control who acts as the marker for each player.
Among those who have already become customers of Golf Genius are the PGAs of Belgium, Holland and Portugal, who have been using the renowned tournament scoring solution to run enhanced events. Frank Kirsten, CPG Chairman and Director of the PGA of Holland, added: “By embarking on our own relationship with Golf Genius, we will be able to provide a significantly enhanced tournament service to our PGA of Holland Members in 2021. This newly-announced partnership between the CPG and Golf Genius is fantastic news for other CPG Member Countries and their members as well, and will enable them the opportunity to further their own tournament golf offerings in their respective countries.”
To mark the start of the partnership, Golf Genius is extending a free demo offer to create a digital PGA Event Calendar for any CPG Member, ready to go live when golf fully returns in the next few months. To enquire about Golf Genius, send an email to intlsales@golfgenius.com
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