BoxGroove - Anyone Tried This Service? Thoughts?

[bcp]

I appreciate the response. I will drop you a note.

[McRedmond]

BCP - thanks for the nice note and we look forward to you trying the service when you travel.

[BlueRidgePro]

Seemed like a good idea.  I registered but could find no courses other than a couple of off-peak openings at low-enders that were way overpriced. And to get that, I had to use an odd search path.

The search function needs a lot of work.  It would be nice to find a club for which tee times are available close to a specified address or zip code.  Optionally specify a desired date/time range. Why they show hundreds of courses that don't participate is beyond me - just clutter.

It's a good concept & I hope that they survive, but I'm not optimistic,

[McRedmond]

Hi Blue Ridge Pro

First, thanks for joining Boxgroove.  We certainly like having you as part of the Boxgroove community.  I will try and address all of your concerns or points you mentioned.  We have nearly 750 private clubs in 3 countries now.  Certainly, we do not have the Oakmont’s or Merion’s of the worlds as Boxgroove Affiliated clubs.  We never started out working with those caliber clubs. However, since golf is a great social game and we are a social site there are quite a few clubs that have members using our service that are of the caliber of the Oakmont’s or Merion’s of the world.  Take a peek at the member affiliated clubs – there are over 1200 of them.  You’ll see some pretty special names on this list! Our premium members can ask to be hosted by these club members.  So we started with clubs that were NOT in the 5 star category or maybe as you called them the Low-enders.  However, we think Donald Ross when he designed his courses did some really nice work regardless if it was to host a major or not. Some of these may be classified as Low Enders unfortunately but are wonderful golf courses and clubs. Each club controls the price they charge on Boxgroove.  Boxgroove does NOT touch the price.  We are not a discount site or about discount golf.  What we are providing our members is the opportunity to play a private golf course that they may have never played before, play in mostly under 4 hours and in better condition than most public courses and you can warm up for 30 – 60 minutes on the range and not hit your 40 golf balls from a green mesh shag bag for an additional $5.00.  Besides, many of these balls look like they have been hit down I-5 for 3 years.  We hope this may be worth $15 - $50 more for golf on occasion from what you may normally pay? Of course these times are not going to be the peak times as the dues paying members are there.  If you are retired (have a lot of free time) or traveling or even at home you can adjust your schedule to try something new?

As for the search path - recognize it could be better and have this addressed in our version 3 of our software this coming fall.  Right now you can use the clubs tab and search by State and City or by course name in our search bar.  Plus if you log into your account, right from the home page (at the bottom) you can see the local courses participating inside Boxgroove within 50 miles of your home address.  Plus you can see your favorites you have marked as well in this list.    Private clubs work differently than public golf courses.  Private clubs don’t post tee times as their members call or use self-service scheduling software to reserve a time.  So that is why our clubs want our members to make a request.  These dates/times you can see when making a request and you can see the exact price before you make the request as pricing can change by day of the week or season.   Most clubs only take requests 2 – 14 days out from today’s date as most private club members cannot make a tee time more than 14 days out at their own private club. Version 3 will allow one to search by zip code if you would like.  I can tell you when I travel from Seattle for business to Oklahoma City I don’t know the zip (s) of where I’ll be staying in the city.  I just know the rental car name for the car pick up and the name of the hotel I’ll be staying.  But certainly we understand the desire some may want to search on zip.

Lastly, not every golf course participating with Boxgroove will be accessible by all golfers.  The private clubs have a very elaborate set of parameters they can set and control everything on Boxgroove.  One month something may not be available to you the next month it may.  Some golfers may be able to make a request to one club but not another.   With the legend on the clubs tab we are trying to make it very clear how the private clubs are participating with us.  There are three ways a private club is on Boxgroove.  First is:  they are Boxgroove Affiliated – almost 750 of these clubs.  We list these first in the search and they are designated with typically the club’s logo and the Boxgroove orange golf club’s logo.  The second way a club is on Boxgroove is:  Member Affiliated.  This club has the blue silhouette of a golfer (anybody know who this iconic golfer is?).  This club is NOT using our service but one too many of their members have joined our social network.  Our premium members can use our system to submit a request to be hosted by these members.  These members may or may not decide to host you. However, golf is a great social game and we see many of our members hosting other Boxgroove members.  No this round is not free…you will pay your host.  The third way is No Affiliation.  This club is marked by the universal red circle with a line thru it.  The reason we list all private clubs inside Boxgroove is to help somebody with their research on a private club.  If you relocate to North Carolina you can select the State North Carolina and the city Raleigh and now you can see a quick reference of all the clubs in this city.

Almost 5 years into to it and it’s very hard what we are doing but we think we are helping the golf industry.  Certainly, we would love to have you as an ambassador of Boxgoove and become optimistic.  Have a few of your golf friends join our site as members.  It’s free to join.  Book a round at one of our courses when you travel. We have clearly noticed a pattern that as more golfers have joined Boxgroove more private clubs are taking an interest to be in front of these avid golfers. And this is what our community would like - more golf courses participating.  We still have no advertising and no spam.  We want the golf community to enjoy the site and hopefully enjoy a new experience at a private club.  Who knows you may even join that club after you try it?  Feel free to reach out to me directly at customer.service@boxgroove.com and I’ll see if we can make our service better for you.

-McRedmond

CEO/Founder www.Boxgroove.com

[BlueRidgePro]

Thanks for the reply Mc.

I was not intending to run down your service.  I'd like to see it succeed.

I was looking at it as a way to easily expand local course options, assuming that private clubs want to quietly sell unused tee times to stay solvent in these tough times for the industry. I f one could easily grab posted free tee times at private clubs, it would be great.  No hassle, no drawn out 'requests', just see a time & book.  The price should be reasonable - these after all are unused tee times that are lost revenue otherwise. That business should grow as more and more courses fall on hard times.

As for travel, If I want to play a specific club while travelling, I just have my club pro make a phone call.  This has gotten me on all but a couple of very exclusive courses that I wanted to see. Obviously, one can't overuse this for more than a few trips per year.  I've also had hotels get me on private clubs in a couple of cases for last minute golf.

For search, I still maintain that zip code is the way to go.  One always knows or can easily find out the zip code of destination hotels or companies when travelling.  "I'm going to be in zip code 'xyz' on these dates - what do you have open within x'x' miles? One click to book, like Amazon.

Rather than travel, I see the potential customer base being golfers who want to expand their local play choices for the occasional change of venue.

[McRedmond]

Blue Ridge Pro:

No worries.  Like you, I see your point about the excess capacity etc. but changing a private club to think differently when for 80+ years they were full, had a waiting list, could raise dues or assess made life kind of easy and some even became complacent. Compound this with multiple boards for the decision making process and it can be really long and arduous to get a club to adopt something new!  A club didn't need to change when you had these luxuries.  Trust me we are trying to encourage them to post a few times so it's easier for our members.   Certainly, I would like to talk to you about your club and how they can join Boxgroove.  After all, the strength of the network is getting more private clubs to participate.  Can I get you to send me an email to customer.service@boxgroove.com so we can discuss what Boxgroove can do for your club!   We will have Zip Code search functionality in our next release this coming fall 2013 so searching for clubs by zip code will be easy.  Again, we certainly hope many of The Sand Trap golfing community will join us and help us expand the network.

-McRedmond

[David Harrison]

To Anyone thinking about using this service:

BEWARE! McRedmond will not refund your tee time NO MATTER WHAT and will claim the Golf Course already has the money and there is nothing he can do. They do not play the courses or even do research, payed $80 per golfer, wasn't greeted and course was in horrible condition, I don't blame the course, I blame BoxGroove! Mcredmond will waste all of your time with metaphors about golf that will make you like him and then tell you after wasting your time that he cannot refund your money.

I am a good golfer who just enjoys a well maintained golf course and good service. Use a different service or just ask around, you won't end up $210 in the hole like I am.

David Harrison

[Dr Dave]

From my experience it's Bull. you request a tee time and wait 24-48 hours for approval. The site says 95% acceptance rate. I waited and was denied . The keep your deposit in a "wallet" and you can't get it back even if you are denied. There is only one course in my area that takes Boxgroove basically Boxgroove just took my money.

Stay Away.