On this episode of the Club + Resort Talks podcast, Rob Thomas spoke with Jake Gordon, CEO & Co-Founder of Noteefy, about how golf courses can drive more revenue with less effort. KemperSports, Landscapes Golf Management, Streamsong, and Sand Valley, to name a few, have already partnered with Noteefy.
A few of the highlights:
– Drive incremental revenue: Noteefy gives every golfer their own personal assistant to help find tee times at your course. This enables golfers to play more, with less effort – delivering increased revenue;
– Decrease unfilled cancellations: By some estimates, over 20% of online tee times get canceled and go unfilled for busy daily fee courses. This is leaving up to $50,000 in revenue on the table for operators; and
– Improve customer experience: The process of endlessly calling and refreshing to find tee times is frustrating and archaic. With Noteefy, tee times are seamlessly delivered to the customers.
Rob and Senior Editor Phil Keren also discussed what the Robert T. Lynch Municipal Golf Course is planning to engage residents during the winter season.
Also, The Club at Olde Cypress is readying for a grand transformation. A multi-million-dollar clubhouse renaissance at the Naples, Fla. club will redefine luxury living in Southwest Florida. Among the many highlights of the project are the addition of a 2,500-sq.-ft. covered bar and dining area on the first floor and anew 2,000 sq. ft. kitchen to support the casual and fine dining options Executive Chef Caesar Fernandez and his team serve daily.
Cobblestone Creek Country Club in Victor, N.Y. unveils golf course transformations, clubhouse upgrades, and a new pickleball facility. Recent endeavors at the club have centered around a new vision that encapsulates their core values—remain a family-focused, golf-first club that offers a member experience unparalleled in the marketplace.
Last, but not least, Rob and Phil discussed the exciting Model Club initiative and encouraged viewers to visit www.clubandresortbusiness.com to learn more about the honored Pro Shops.
Hello I’m Rob Thomas and welcome to another episode of club and resort talks today’s episode is sponsored by Southern Pride for food service in clubs and Resorts success is often attributed to investing in the right employees and Equipment having Dependable equipment that can consistently deliver highquality product is Paramount for
Running a kitchen the dependability of a Southern Pride smoker offers peace of mind and Decades of profitability learn more at Southern pride.com now that we got that taken care of let me introduce you to Phil K and our senior editor Phil how’s it going I’m doing really well Rob
How are you terrific ter no complaints hey uh what’s going on in the news a lot of stuff this week some interesting uh stories going on um one there’s a course uh Brookline Massachusetts called the Robert T Lynch Municipal Golf Course just thought this story was interesting
Uh because they were uh looking at ways to um get residents interested in activities that are happening out at their facility when we’re outside of golf season as we are here in the north right now although it’s been a mild winter but we’ve kind of gotten used to
That cycle uh they’ve been they had a campaign going where they’re sending direct mail to Residents who live near the golf course property um just to find out what to let them know about events that are going on but also to find out what else they might be interested in
Seeing the course do uh I thought this part was interesting that they had said if Brook line Massachusetts gets enough snow this winter uh they would convert the golf course into a CrossCountry ski facility with about seven uh kilometers of Groom trails along the the hills of the
Property uh with ski and snowshoe rentals available for that um thought that was interesting and I was just as I was telling you a moment ago before we came on it brought back a memory for me um K on Hills golf course I’ll give him a plug their uh city-owned Golf Course
Up in an Arbor Michigan where I grew up here on Hills probably if I’m remembering right it’s probably the second golf course I ever played in my life after the the one with the club my family belonged to but in the winter time if there was snow on the ground um
They would be open for cross country skiing and they did if I’m remembering right they definitely rented skis there uh also sledding indeed Hills it’s quite a literal name there that there plenty Great Hills out there for sled riding for kids and it would be open for that
And I had memories of going cross country skiing with my family and also sled riding with friends out there I just think it’s a great idea the Robert Lynch course it would be interesting to hear from other places and particularly in our world with clubs whether they
Look at using their golf courses in an off seon for these kinds of activities um just be another way to to uh bring more people in and bring in some Revenue during the off season of golf so just thought it was an interesting story yeah it’s terrific my home course too grown
Up a Maple Ridge Golf Course in asht Ohio had similar uh when I first started playing uh they were open for cross country skiing but um they were family-owned so they were always there working in the clubhouse so made sense I suppose uh if you’re open you know whether the restaurant’s open or
Whatever and you have people staffed it’s a fantastic idea to keep uh Revenue coming in um if you have to open up specifically for CrossCountry skiing and you don’t get a lot of business then you’re paying somebody else’s salary and you know it can be price pricey but um
Certainly something worth to uh exploring sledding uh cross country skiing whatever and actually that I you brought up something when you mentioned the dining that I forgot to mention on that story they indeed do have a a restaurant there a Hemlock Grill that’s open as I understand Wednesday through
Sunday right now so they do have that that component’s already there as well so I think I think perhaps the idea is that again if they already have staff they’re working at the restaurant and that’s open and available for people perhaps you can have some other activity happening because I agree it would
Probably be difficult especially municipal course like that to only have um an activity that’s that let’s be honest relies on a certain kind of weather to occur and we haven’t really seen much of that snow this year anyway so that would be tough but to have it in
Conjunction with a an eery uh should help that out a bit what else is going on also to mention a couple uh projects I was seeing well let’s see one club that’s uh starting a project another club that has completed one recently uh we’ve talked about them a
Lot uh here at club resort business The Club at Old Cyprus in Naples Florida uh they’re going to have a big Clubhouse renovation project starting in Spring of next year in 2025 um plan at this point is to have it conclude in January of 2026 their current 34,000 foot Clubhouse will have
An additional 10,000 squ feet of indoor and outdoor space uh they’re going to have a 2500 foot covered bar and dining area also a 2,000 foot kitchen support casual and fine dining options as well Club House’s second floor is going to have a large expansion of its covered
Terrace and Sund deck um I thought this last part was interesting too they’re also going to add a golf simul later and they mentioned a movie theater experience which is kind of a new thing I haven’t seen uh clubs offer that very much and the simulator is interesting
Too I guess a lot of times again we’re in an offseason here I think about a golf simulator in terms of being in a cold weather place where you can’t play golf in the winter time but obviously the the simulator um experience can be offered anywhere and down there I’m sure
There’s times of year where it’s too hot to play golf very much and having the simulator there I think would be an added experience for members and guests and it looks like a great project happening down there in Naples yeah you know uh as far as the movie theater
Experience I know I have a simulator uh right above me actually here in the golf room uh and I can watch TV through that so I can imagine it’s something that could be um you know maybe kind of a part of the daycare you know you got a
Kids club going on there you know maybe it’s raining outside go into the golf room and uh you know into the simulator room pop in a a Disney movie and let the kids have at it for an hour and a half you know give them some juice boxes and
Couple cookies and they’re happy right I mean it’s good good thing to have absolutely kind of It kind of touches back on the the familyfriendly uh component of of clubs and which we had talked about during our webinar the other day as well so yeah nice to see that it’s an exciting
Project for them and I’m sure that’s going to be something that um members and guests are enjoy for for years to come um looking around here the as I was mentioning project finished Cobblestone Creek Country Club in Victor New York uh recently finished um enhancements to the
Golf course uh they also upgraded their Clubhouse and they’ve added a pickle ball facility the golf course again I’ve noticed the theme of a fewer bunkers on golf courses that’s actually something they did there uh Cobblestone Cobblestone head golf professional Neil REI said that uh they reduced about 25% of the bunkers and
Then rebuilt the remaining ones um a lot of the rebuilt bunkers have raised floors and green side bunkers were kind of POS reposition to be closer to the edge of greens so I thought that was interesting and they also mentioned um a notable change on the eighth hole they
Reduced the force carry penalty area from 60 yards to less than 10 yards um ultimately too he said and this was an interesting thing uh kind of balancing between having a golf course that’s good for skilled players and one that’s um playable for one for more casual golfers
He said even with these changes the the course rating which measures the challenge for a scratch golfer has stayed consistent but the slope rating which measures the challenge for a bogey golfer uh was reduced by Two Strokes or more from both the men’s and women’s tea
So again it’s showing how you’re kind of balancing between having uh something challenging for the skilled players the top level players and something more playable for I guess your kind of casual and weekend golfers so the other thing was Clubhouse upgrade um they made investments in new patio doors windows infrastructure the
Whole thing um just trying to kind of elevate the Ambiance of the clubhouse for the members and guests and they’ve added we talked about this a lot the other day in the webinar they added a pickle ball facility uh just to kind of diversify the the recreational offerings
Out there so exciting stuff to see uh changes in the golf course which are similar to ones we’ve seen in other places uh adding a state-of-the-art pickle ball facility uh because as we know there’s a lot of interest in that as well so a lot of good stuff happening
There Cobblestone well yeah you mentioned uh the webinar I want to tell people right now if you’re watching this uh go to the resources uh pull down hit webinars and you can watch it on demand and while you’re watching on demand you can still ask questions even though it’s
Already been recorded it’s already up there the questions will come to us and if we don’t have them you and I we will ask our experts which we had I guess five experts uh you know lending their their um expertise with uh the trends that we’re looking for in 2024 and
Beyond so um very good and that Victor New York course Cobblestone we’re going to get out there at some point this year some point in 2024 into a feature on them it’s not too far from us uh couple hours or so so uh you know maybe get out
There record some videos take some pictures they don’t have a lot of the um the weather’s kind of crummy as it is right now and but when the weather starts turning they’re going to get a lot more pictures for us and uh we’ll see what we can share those with you but
Also get out there in ourselves and experience it yeah sounds great sounds like they’ve done a lot of great improvements out there and I think uh think the members and guests will enjoy it um the other thing I was going to mention real quick too was uh we at club
And resort business just finished our model clubs issue the print edition of it uh we wrapped up last week and we have started that program this year where we are recognizing a set of clubs that we that we consider model clubs ones that we think other clubs should
Try to emulate their best practices uh we got the five categories Pro Shops patios rackets membership marketing and clubhouses uh 14 different clubs were selected and we’re going to be spending kind of the rest of this year to um get more specific about what those best practices are and feature them
Throughout the year you know through the print Editions online uh through uh podcasts webinars you name it we’re going to have all kinds of things like that throughout the year so it’s really looking forward to it uh we’ve gotten things off to a great start and should
Be great the rest of the year yeah it’s exciting we have all of them laid out for you uh you know bit by bit in the issue but also on the website Club resorts.com uh we have the uh the first ones up right now is the Pro Shops and
We have some pictures uh Atlanta Athletic Club University of Texas golf club and The Landings in s Savannah Georgia are all featured um as our first three model clubs but there’s G to be a lot more there’s a lot more going on out there as we know in the in the news
Every single day we’re seeing more and more Renovations more and more stuff clubs are doing to uh to really accommodate their their members and guests so um really exciting uh initiative we got going on there it is I’m excited about it I like what we’re doing with it um it’s um be a
Chance to to um feature these clubs maybe in a slightly different way than we have in the past too from what I can tell and I I like that I think it’s it’s always good to try some new things and see where that takes us yeah let’s keep
Telling their stories and ab speaking of telling stories uh we got following our little intro here I got Jake Gordon the uh CEO and co-founder of not uh it’s a um web Ser web website based uh service for clubs that um it it fills missing tea time so so
Often as Jake will tell you in in our interview uh somebody will call up and they’ll have a reservation if they cancel their Saturday tea time then um on like say Monday it can get refilled but if they cancel it on Thursday or Friday so often that tea time goes unfulfilled and
Um just as a loss to to clubs and I think it’s like $50,000 you can be spread out over the course of of a month of all these tea times that go unfilled uh a person who can just sign up for this and say I want to play this golf
Course uh Saturday or Sunday between 8 and 10 a.m. even though it’s booked if that tea time opens up you know 8 Minute 10 minute 12 minute increments if a tea time opens up in there they’ll get notification and one click boom I’m in so uh it’s something that’s easy for the
Golfer it’s it benefits the golf course uh so much good stuff right now and they’re looking to expand maybe getting it to a dinner reservations getting it to uh racket time uh Spa whatever uh if there’s stuff that’s going on uh Jake and his team are looking to expand uh
Right now they’re concentrating on golf they’re laser focused on golf but um that’s where what the uh the interview is and it was really entertaining uh very informative so hopefully stick by stick around and uh watch it it’s coming up right next Phil take care stay well have a great day you too
Rob all right we’re back and I have a question for you do you want to drive more Revenue with less effort well I’d like to introduce you to Our Guest Jake Gordon CEO and co-founder of notifi Jake welcome to the podcast Rob thanks for having me my friend hey thank you very
Much for for being here uh first off camper Sports Landscapes golf management uh big courses stream song Sand Valley etc etc etc they are partnering with notify and um I basically have three questions they ask you uh how can clubs Drive incremental Revenue how can they decrease unfilled cancellations and how
Can they improve customer service if you’d like let’s start with the first one driving incremental Revenue how can notify help clubs do that yeah absolutely I appreciate the questions uh so really when I think about who we are and why we exist I always anchor on two problems right the first being actually
For the golfer right and this is back to kind of my initial founding story with daythan and I you know it’s hard to get tea times at Great Courses straight up with the way that golf has experienced you know massive demand if I’m looking to play golf at one of those properties
You mentioned as a public golfer or even the municipal course down the street if there’s a good chance there’s nothing available until 3:00 4:00 and if I have to be back you know by noon there’s a good chance that there’s nothing available and if I’m a golfer and I
Don’t see the tea time I’m looking for most of the time I’m out of luck and that usually means go to another course or simply not play which is just a frustrating experience for the operator believe it or not about 20% of all tea times actually get
Canceled so what that means is if I’m a golfer at Rob’s golf course and you know I cancel my tea time on Wednesday for Saturday morning there’s a good chance you’re going to refill that tea time naturally but if I canceled my tea time on Friday afternoon for Saturday morning
Which we find about 20% of all off golfers do now all of a sudden that inventory is at risk you’re now as an operator hoping and praying and that somebody refreshes or calls right when that inventory comes online so you know those are two big problems in the industry right now that
Actually is a symptom of demand it’s a good problem to have but fortunately you know we’ve built the solution to fix it and so what notify does is it integrates directly into the te- sheet and alerts your golfers when cancellations occur within their desired playing preferences
So what that means is I could be a golfer and let’s say I live near stream song or Chambers Bay or Sand Valley or even you know a $30 municipal course down the street I can say as a golfer hey I don’t see the tea time but I want
To be notified when it comes available between 8 and 10: a.m. and the second something opens up I get a text and then I could book directly with that course and so in kind of those two problems right as the golfer I just found my dream tea time
Now I’m playing at the course I want and for the operator they just fill the last minute cancellation that may have been perishable inventory otherwise that that is terrific so uh I’m I’m here in Cleveland Ohio uh I see that you guys are you have a number of
Courses around the Columbus area if I just say hey uh notify I let me know if there’s a tea time at at 10: am on Saturday will you look at that Columbus area I mean can you can you look into that that little crystal ball of yours
And say hey here’s a course click right here and you’re booked yeah it’s a great question so believe it or not um the golfer does have to go to the course specifically that they’re looking for they don’t go to notify necessarily to find the time and that’s kind of how we’re different
We’re not a consumer Marketplace or aggregator that’s connecting golfers to courses in their area we are a B2B software company that helps operators number one fill those last minute cancellations with their own golfers we don’t want to take Rob and send him to the course down the street what we want
To do is we want to make sure that Rob can play at that course they’re looking for but you brought up a good point which is if we have one multi-course operator in a single area with multiple properties and they opt in to cross promoting we actually do that so we work
With keer sports in Columbus and we have something called the that they they promote called the keer sports uh Columbus Collective and what that means is Rob can actually select seven or eight different courses in the area on Saturday between 8 and 10 and then get notified for any of them if they
Open up so there is that kind of cross promotion crystal ball as you said but it has to be in lock step with the operator because we do not want to take your customer and send them somewhere else no that makes perfect sense and that’s fantastic for the golf courses um
You’ mentioned uh leaving up to $50,000 in Revenue uh with these with these unfilled cancellations uh I mean that’s that’s that’s a crazy amount of money right uh how can clubs then uh contact you to say hey I’m I’m sick of leaving these tea times wide open uh what’s the
Best way for clubs to get a hold of Jake yeah absolutely anybody could reach out on our website and just request a demo you can find me on link Lin or uh you can shoot me an email Jake notify doapp n tfy which is kind of a funny name um
But I’ll just respond real quick to that comment right uh what’s amazing is we look at the data and have found up to that 50,000 is inside 48 hours that’s not even the total amount that is the cost of cancellations that’s the amount of Revenue many courses experience
Within two days of a t time and we tracking that and can show the operator that you know that 50,000 has actually been rebooked and 100% of that revenue is going to the operator instead of being perishable potentially so uh yeah it’s it’s it’s been a lot of fun and
We’re fortunate to work with some of those great operators you you mentioned that $50,000 is is real money I mean that’s that’s the price of a of an assistant superintendent that’s you know taking the golf course that’s uh I mean so much can be done with that 50 Grand uh
10 grand 20 grand wherever you’re at uh I can’t imagine a golf course not wanting to um kind of like take that off of the books and and add that into the uh to the till um absolutely looking at looking down the road uh can you see not
Only what the industry is looking like because we’re in a boom right now fantastic and we haven’t we’re kind of maybe on the downturn of the covid boom but we’re still up above what we were five years ago 10 years ago when when things were sliding uh what where do you
See not only the industry in three years five years but where do you see notify down the road yeah absolutely maybe I could just give my own perspective on the first one which is where the industry is going um obviously notifies as a response we exist because of the
Bull market of golf if if there wasn’t challenges getting on the course you probably wouldn’t need a weight Lister automation technology so we definitely are grateful that there is with that said in my peer group you know a lot of uh friends of mine who are are young and have
Families everybody I know is excited about golf everybody I know it is cool and um you know Greg Nathan talked about it in his ngf kind of State of the Union which is the perception of golf on social media has never been stronger you’ve got um almost uh the general
Public when they think of they now think cool and because of that and what I see in the next generation is more youth signing up to play because of the coolness on social media because of the influencers getting into the game um than ever before and so I am bullish on
Golf I believe that it will actually be a long-term um strength to continue to grow and so with that said I’m I’m confident that hopefully courses will continue to stay full especially financially healthy as well making sure they’re using the right technology in terms of where we’re going you know
Obviously right now we’re focused on daily fee and public and and Resort um uh golf right so many of our customers are either Municipal daily fee or Resort properties but we would like to enter the private course domain in the near future obviously members at busy private courses are also struggling
To get on sometimes so that’s a problem we’d want to solve maybe the business case is a little bit less about you know uh the Topline and a little bit more about the member experience and efficiency and then next we are also interested in other aspects of the
Resort right you named several great resorts we work with uh we have 25 of the top 100 US Resorts as as customers and they deal with other forms of cancellation as well they deal with the spa they deal with you know uh the restaurant resturants they deal with
Lodging cancellations and so our goal is to continue to look into other ways that we can help operators Delight customers and make more incremental Revenue I was going to ask you about that I’m glad you brought that up so uh down the road maybe um you know hey I reserved a court
Uh racket ball squash paddle whatever uh that’s something that maybe notify can help out with huh that’s fantastic yeah I had a operator uh who who runs you know dozens of massive Resorts say to us uh yeah you know green grass grth that’s that’s interesting but
Do you know how much revenue we leave on the table from last minute Cabana cancellations um which just kind of CAU caught our attention we never think about it but they’re like yeah it’s $800 a day at a high-end resort to get a cabana and those get cancelled and
Unfilled every day so it kind of just piqued our interest we’re excited about where that could go we are laser focused on golf right now now we have 200 properties using our technology we’re really proud of that we want to continue to just improve this product and not get
To spread thin with other use cases but it’s certainly top of mind and we want to grow with our customers and continue to solve the problems they care about that’s fantastic yeah I’m happy to be part of the journey uh Jake thank you very much for uh joining us and real
Quick what’s the easiest way for uh clubs to get a hold of what’s the website basically yeah well you know we’ve got a little bit of a cringey name so you have to forgive us notify but spelled with the T in there n o t fy. apppp so you could
Find me there find me on LinkedIn or uh I’m sure you know reach out to Rob and you could put us in touch but I appreciate the time my friend hey cringe is okay cringe is in right now I know what’s going on if that’s the case then
I’m definitely gonna be cool all right thank you Jake have a great day
