Sunday, October 29, 2017

Golf tee time intervals analyzed

When setting up an event with TeeTimeHelper we estimated that the default interval between tee times was ten minutes. Now that TeeTimeHelper has been organizing events for over 5 yeas we sampled our data to find out what was the most common tee time interval.

Using a range between 5 and 12 minutes we sampled our database and created a histogram of number of events for each tee time interval from 5to 12 minutes.  Below is the chart of what we discovered:




It turns out that our initial default value of ten minutes was the most common tee time increment used on our site. The second most common tee time increment is eight minutes, with nine minutes coming in third.

Given that tee time increments can vary TeeTimeHelper automatically determines your tee time interval based on previous events you have organized. This means if you set up a tee time at 10:10 am and a second tee time at 10:08 TeeTimeHelper will remember this course setting  and will give you an eight minute increment in the future.

TeeTimeHelper also pre-fills your first tee time on subsequent events to save some keystrokes if you play at a regular time.

These little enhancements for setting up events will help the golf group manager organizer golf events faster.

Happy Golfing
The TeeTimeHelper.com Team


Thursday, September 14, 2017

Here's a tip your PGA Pro won't give you


PGA Pro's are great for giving golf advice. They listen to you, analyze your swing. Tell you what you need to do in theory. But sometimes you just need some down to earth practical advice. 

So, here's a tip which you WON'T get from your PGA Professional.  And if you have more tips like this please leave them in the comment section!



Always throw your club in the location you need to go!

Happy Golfing!

TeeTimeHelper.com

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Cut down the e-mail clutter with TeeTimeHelper.com

Rid your golf group of  tee time spreadsheets

Most golfers know what a hassle it is to be part of a golf group sending CC'd e-mails around and keeping tabs on what is going on. Too many e-mails!

And there's always that one person who hits "reply all" and sends the non-pc jokes you've seen a hundred times before.

TeeTimeHelper solves the spreadsheet problem, the cc'd email problem, and lets the organizer control what's happening with the golf event. Less e-mail for everybody is a good thing!

Now even more e-mail control for the golf event admin

We make it even more convenient for the golf event administrator to receive only the e-mail he wants to see. For example, the admin can get an e-mail for every RSVP or choose not to receive them at all.

But as usual, our rogue programmers took it one step further and added an option to receive e-mail confirmations for only those who RSVP "yes".

So, in other words the golf event organizer can choose the level of event confirmations he or she wishes to see.

Check it out at TeeTimeHelper.com

Happy Golfing!

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Randomize and lock your golf event at the same time

At TeeTimeHelper we are all about making things easy for the golf event organizer and golf group members. We've add a nifty option  for randomizing your golf event which will do two tasks at the same time.

First, let's explain effects "randomizing" does to your event. We just don't aggregate everybody, mix them up, and take the number of players per group and assign them tee times. We try to be a little more clever, to not allow one golfer left over with no partners. Also, if the groups don't break down evenly then the group with the lowest number of players plays first - they will probably be the fastest and not hold everyone up.
Now we move on to locking your golf event which means only the administrator can make changes. This is a great way to not let people change their RSVP. This means golfers in your club cannot change from "yes" to "no" and vice versa. Plus, they cannot change their preferred tee time.

So the natural thing when one randomizes their event is to not allow anyone to make changes. Take the example of someone doesn't like the assigned partners, they could bail out or change to a different tee time if the event was unlocked.

In many cases, this would not be the desired result as it wouldn't be random anymore. So we came up with a solution which adds the "Lock Event" option directly from the randomize page. This is a convenience in most cases because it would save an extra step for locking the event.

Plus, as per the philosophy with TeeTimeHelper to be maximally flexible, as the administrator you could always unlock the event if desired.

We hope these little touches to TeeTimeHelper benefits your golf group!

Happy Golfing
The TeeTimeHelper.com Team

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Link to TeeTimeHelper and we'll remove the ads


There are so many benefits to using TeeTimeHelper that we won't even get into the details on this post. Let's just say TeeTimeHelper is a great tool to organize golf events and requires no payment whatsoever.

However, your golf group may see ads when they RSVP for outings. But there's good news! Your golf group can go ad-free which would give you free usage of TeeTimeHelper without any distractions.

To go ad free for your entire golf group simply have your golf course web admin make a link to TeeTimeHelper using the following HTML:

<a href="http://www.TeeTimeHelper.com">We support TeeTimeHelper</a>

After the link is made let us know what website you made it on we will disable ads for that golf course!

Happy Golfing

TeeTimeHelper.com

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Cancelling a golf event with TeeTimeHelper.com

Cancelling a Golf Event

As the administrator of the golf group you have the option of removing a golf event. There are some considerations before actually doing this, though.

For starters, if the event is upcoming it may cause some confusion with your golf group. Perhaps you entered the wrong date or golf course name - in this case a better option is to edit the fields in question and TeeTimeHelper will send an update to your golfers.

Plus, when you delete an event you are removing not only the event details such as tee times but also the golf members who RSVP'd for the event. If you do remove the event it and create a new one it will be started from scratch, meaning golfers would have to re-RSVP and that could cause confusion for your group.

Removing an event also takes away your ability to clone the event. Cloning the event uses your current event and pre-fills the fields (except for the golf event date) so you can easily create a future event. Obviously, if you delete the event you will not be able to use one of the most powerful features of TeeTimeHelper which is cloning the event.

There are some good reasons to remove an event, such as if you accidentally made a duplicate event (our software tries to prevent this from happening, however) or the event is actually cancelled. We allow you to send a message to your group during the cancellation process in order to inform them of what happened.

In cases such as these we try to make TeeTimeHelper as user friendly as possible so we encourage you to leave a message to avoid unnecessary confusion.

Happy Golfing!
The TeeTimeHelper.com Team

Monday, July 10, 2017

TeeTimeHelper: solving the plus one issue


As TeeTimeHelper matures we are always trying to improve the system. One thing that we noticed is some golfers RSVP "Yes" with the comment like  "+1" or "Harry will join". This puts two people RSVPing for one slot.

You can imagine the problems the golf group organizer has when 5 golfers are listed for a foursome or too many people RSVP yes for an event.

We have implemented a system to alleviate this situation by detecting when someone indicates another golfer will join the group. From there, we will give a noticeable warning message saying that the additional golfer  will need to be invited separately to make ensure their spot is held.

If you have any comments or more suggestions for TeeTimeHelper please let us know!

The TeeTimeHelper.com Team