How open is it?
5 tests for any club system
An API is a door one system leaves open so another can read or send information to it, with permission. “Open API” is used loosely: some suppliers mean anyone can connect, some mean partners they approve, some mean a few partners they connected themselves. 5 questions cut through it, and any supplier should be able to answer all 5 in writing.
- 01
Is the documentation public?If anyone can read how the API works, your other suppliers can check before you buy whether they can connect.
- 02
Who approves a connection?Can a supplier you choose get access, or must the platform approve each one? Approval protects members’ data, but it should be quick and clear.
- 03
Does it cost anything?Is there a charge per connection, per partner or per use? No golf supplier we studied publishes one either way. In hotels, Mews says its API is free.
- 04
Are other systems told when something changes?A webhook tells your other tools the moment a booking is made or a member joins, instead of them checking every few hours.
- 05
Can a partner only read, or also write?Reading can show tee times. Writing can take a booking, update a member or enter a competition.
What each publishes
3 of the 11 publish an answer
The other 8 publish nothing on any of the 5 tests. That doesn’t mean they can’t connect: they connect through partnerships announced one at a time, such as BRS with Golf Genius for competitions. The question is whether the next tool your club wants will be able to connect too. The national handicap system shows it can be done: DotGolf’s supplier API is public and sends webhooks to licensed systems.
Which route suits you
Start from your club
Find the line that sounds most like your club: where to look first, and which of the 12 questions in the toolkit matter most.
4 clubs that changed system
What changing was like
Suppliers’ pages say what a system can do. Clubs’ own accounts say what changing was like. These 4 come from what each club, its supplier and the trade press published, one for each of 4 suppliers. We have left the clubs’ names out.
01 Golfmanager · 2026
A Scottish club with 4 kinds of tee time customer
Why it changed
The club sells tee times to international tour operators, overseas visitors, local guests and members, each with its own booking windows, prices and privileges. Building a new clubhouse, it also wanted one system for membership, the shop and food and drink.
What changed
It announced the move in September 2026. One platform now runs the tee sheet, membership (with the club’s own profile fields, lockers and bag storage), the pro shop with stock in more than one place, and food and drink with player accounts. The supplier visited before and after the agreement, and the club calls the move smooth.
How it landed
No figures yet. The general manager says the platform simplifies the club’s booking rules.
Take from it Write down every kind of customer and its booking rules before you talk to suppliers. That page is your real specification.
02 BRS Golf · 2023 and 2024
A Yorkshire members’ club that moved everything onto its booking system
Why it changed
Members already booked tee times on BRS, but the bar card, the bar and shop, and competition scoring each ran on something else. The board wanted to cut costs and office time.
What changed
Announced in December 2023 and live in January 2024: a BRS wallet for the bar and shop (the only way to get the members’ 10% discount), a competition purse that takes the entry fee when a member books, and the BRS scoring app.
How it landed
No figures published. From the end of January the club paid competition winnings straight into members’ accounts.
Take from it Ask your current supplier what else it could take over, and tell members exactly what to do and when.
03 Club Systems (ClubV1) · 2018 and 2019
A club that rebuilt its systems after a fire
Why it changed
Fire devastated the clubhouse in September 2018. The club decided to rebuild its office systems and members’ technology at the same time.
What changed
The general manager researched the market and chose Club Systems. By August 2019 the club ran ClubV1, new tills (some handheld) and the members’ apps, with the tills linked to its second course 35 miles away. The clubhouse reopened in 2021.
How it landed
No figures published. Most of what was published came from a trade title owned by the supplier’s parent company.
Take from it If you run more than one course or venue, link the tills and accounts across them from the first day.
04 Chronogolf, now Lightspeed Golf · 2018
An Irish operator that moved 5 venues onto one platform
Why it changed
The operator had invested heavily in technology but still had no one system across its venues, which serve more than 3,000 members and 40,000 visitors.
What changed
After what it called an exhaustive international search, it moved all 5 venues by July 2018. Members book online and see one account across golf, the shop, snack bars and restaurants.
How it landed
At one club more than 900 members were using it in 2018, and the club’s president said booking was easier and quicker than before.
Take from it Members judge a new system on 2 things: how quickly they can book, and whether they can see their account. Lead with both.
Your data
Your members’ data, if you leave
Your club, not your software supplier, decides how members’ details, booking history and subscriptions are used, and answers for them. In data protection terms, the club is normally the controller and the supplier a processor working on its instructions.
That matters most when you leave. Under UK GDPR Article 28 the contract must require the supplier, at your choice, to return or delete all the personal data at the end. Check now, not when you give notice, that yours says so, and says in what format, how quickly and at what charge.
You may hear about data portability. That is your members’ right against the club, to get their own data in a common format. It doesn’t give the club a right to take its database from a supplier: the contract does that.
- Before notice
Ask in writing what format your data comes back in, how quickly and at what charge.
- On notice
Ask for a full export, and check it opens and is complete while the old system still runs.
- At the end
Ask for written confirmation that members’ data has been returned or deleted.
General guidance, not legal advice. Your club’s solicitor can review the contract.
Booking
Every channel needs the live tee sheet
Visitors now book through the club’s own website, national booking sites and tour operators abroad. GolfNow reported more than £7.8 million of green fees for UK and Irish clubs in the first half of 2023, with bookings up 17% on the year before. Every one of those channels has to see live availability and take a booking without double booking a slot, and that works through APIs.
Ask your supplier
- Which booking sites and tour operators can see our tee sheet today?
- Can our own website take and charge for bookings directly?
- Can we choose which partners see which times, at which prices?
- Does a booking made elsewhere appear in our tee sheet straight away?
AI assistants
AI arrives at the front desk
In September 2026 Golfmanager connected its system, in beta, to AI assistants including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Staff can ask an assistant to book a tee time or add a member to a competition, and it acts with the same permissions as the person using it, with every action logged. It works because Golfmanager already had an API: the assistant uses the same door as any other partner.
- 1
Someone asks an assistant for something
- 2
The assistant asks the club’s system, through its API, with that person’s permissions
- 3
The system checks live information and acts
- 4
The answer comes back, and the action is logged
Albatross makes one of the assistants that answer for clubs, Capture Concierge, so we should say how it works. It answers only from a knowledge base of the club’s own information, which the club reviews, and it takes a booking only where the club’s system supports a verified connection. Otherwise it gives the booking link and passes the enquiry to the team. It is one reason we care about the 5 tests.
You don’t need any of this today. But a system you choose now may run the club for 5 to 10 years, so ask how it will work with assistants, and how that permission is controlled.
Other industries did this first
Golf isn’t the first to open up. Mews, a hotel system, publishes a free API with more than 1,000 connected tools. OpenActive gives sport and leisure providers a shared standard for booking data. Open Banking let customers use approved apps with their bank. Each time, access came with rules: certification, a shared standard or regulated approval.
