Golfnow for Walking?

I walk nearly 90% of my rounds. I only ride when it is mandatory on the course or I am playing with some of my older buddies who need the cart.

I have tried to use Golfnow to book rounds, but I have only found a handful of them at a "walking rate". Anyone else have any luck using Golfnow for walking? I am finding it just about useless at this point unless I plan to use a cart. The walking rate available straight through the course is always cheaper than the "cart included" rate on Golfnow. Perhaps they could create a special discount for walking? Or maybe it exists and I can't find it?

The only times I've seen cart-free rates on GolfNow have been for courses that don't have carts at all. Their entire business model is based on bundling greens fees with carts and selling them together. I share your lamentation since the only time I get carts are when the golfnow deal with cart works out cheaper than the walking rate. It's basically the biggest reason I hardly use the site for my tee times. But I don't think we're their target market. I've made my peace with it at this point.

Agreed, although it's a bit disappointing as I do enjoy the ease of making a tee time with a quick click on my phone instead of calling the course.

The convenience doesn't do much for me; I tend not to make reservations when I play anyway. So I'm purely bottom line oriented with them. Last week I played Tallgrass on Long Island. Their walking rate is usually $45. I woke up in the morning, and their price with cart was $29. I checked back after breakfast and it was $19, so I booked it. I'd have been thrilled to walk the course for $19. They gave me a cart so I rode in the cart, haha. But I'm strictly price driven with them.

I didn't realize their prices fluctuated in a stubhub type manner as time passed. I'll have to be more mindful of the timing, maybe I can score a deal on one of the premiere courses in my area at the last minute. Most of my nearby "average" courses seem to be priced exactly the same all of the time, I stopped checking after a while. Even the "hot deal" price was above or equal to their walking rate.

I imagine it varies by course, but their hot deals in particular tend to drop as they remain unsold and the day / time of the tee time approaches. I believe courses have to give Hot Deal tee times to Golf Now for free as part of their arrangement, so Golf Now wants to make sure they actually sell them since it's pure profit wasted if it goes unsold.

With the exception of one course in my area I've only seen walking rates offered on executive or 9 hole courses. Would be nice to have that option but I doubt the courses would do well with a bunch of even cheaper tee times floating around on GN.

Same here, I've only seen Golfnow waking rates at executive courses in the area.

Maybe it's a Southern California thing, but I would say nearly every course around here that I've played has an online tee time service or app.  I agree that it's much more convenient than having to call a pro shop and having to listen to them sift through paper and sound put out by the fact that you had the audacity to force them to grab a pen, but luckily around here, even without having to use Golfnow, I can avoid that.

Also, it seems like a lot of courses don't necessarily hold you to any promises outside of the hot deals.  I say that because I've made "pay at the course" reservations online sometimes where I was quoted a price that included a cart, but the course didn't require them and still asked me when I got there, so I was able to save money and walk.  The Hot Deals, though, since they're already paid up, are pretty much set.

Right, the only walking rate that shows up in my area is a 9 hole course.

I can't see how it can hurt courses to offer walking rates. With a walker they have almost zero incremental costs, no need to prep a cart, no wear and tear, no one needs to be there to clean and collect the cart, etc.

Up here in MI the golf course websites are spotty at best. A few can make reliable tee times, but you are paying the full price rate online instead of a discounted rate on GN or even special rates for different times of day, etc.

Plus the aggregation of several courses in one spot makes GN convenient for searching. They are on the cusp of crowd-sourcing tee times in Uber fashion, they just haven't made that leap yet. They could fix the walking issue by simply having a portion of the rate be attributed to the cart that you can subtract through a walking option.

By the way GN responded to a tweet of mine with this section of their website dedicated to walking tee times - http://www.golfnow.com/goplay/play-walk - unfortunately there is not a single walking tee time listed in the Metro Detroit area for the next week. Not one.

My understanding is the hot deals change price since the course does not get money from those. So as it gets closer to tee time golfnow just wants to scoop up revenue.

I guess everyone loves their technology at this point, but what's so hard about calling the course. Getting a real live animal on the phone gives you the chance to ask questions (like how busy are you going to be?). It gives the course a chance to admit they just punched the greens or any other condition that you should know about.  How many times have people booked online and found the situation substantially different than they would have expected.

The only time I use Golfnow is if I'm certain that the deal is better than the rack rate is going to be. Usually that comes when I'm on vacation. Once showed up to the worst course in North Carolina (or maybe the country) to find an invasion of fire ants. Learned the hard way there.

I hope the same happens in the Detroit area, but I am not optimistic as there have only been a few scattered ones this summer.

This seems to be true for the courses in my area, however, this seems to only happen on weekdays during the early afternoon, which my job prevents me from capitalizing on, bummer. If I had a different schedule I could definitely cash in on the hot deals in my area.

I just finished an 18-hole round at a beautiful course that isn't even on GN. I called the pro shop and asked if they could accommodate a single on short notice. They said no problem and even gave me their "unlisted" after 2pm rate where the cart rental is basically free. I got a round in in under 3 hours for $25 at a $50 plus course.

Similarly, on the 4th of July I played a course that was advertising a rate of $32 on GN, instead of booking on GN I called the pro shop and they were running a special for the weekend - $20 w/cart. If I would've booked online I would've paid $35+ including GN fees. I no longer trust GN to give me the best price. Like you said, call and talk to a real human. Also, many courses are not on GN, so you are limiting your scope.

My overall experience with GN has been underwhelming thus far. I really do think they could improve things with a few small changes:

1. Charge the courses the fee rather than the golfers. Just like a credit card company, StubHub, eBay, etc. all do, they charge the seller, not the buyer.
2. Even better, go to an Uber style real-time system where all of the tee times operate on a demand based system, it needs to be more dynamic, faster moving.
3. Force courses that participate to offer all of their tee times on the system, not just sporadically, several courses in my area only appear on GN once every week or so.
4. Again, like Uber, make it all automatic, including the payment. When you book and play your round, your CC gets charged through GN, not a separate transaction at the course.

In mid-Michigan, there are some walking rates but that isn't the norm.    I use Golfnow when I wake up and it's nice outside and I want a Hot Deal within the next 2 hours.   I can usually find a tee time at one course or other.   I usually never pay over $20 per round.