Reserve with Google: An Accurate Guide for Golf Operators About Their Tee Times

Google's venture into online tee time bookings is significantly impacting the golf industry. Since June 2024, Reserve with Google has rolled out new features and functionalities, aiming to simplify booking tee times for golfers while giving golf courses more visibility and a new customer acquisition channel.

To date, all participating vendors are enabling the search and booking features at no charge to golf courses. This represents a significant advantage for golf operators who have traditionally struggled to maintain control of their brand across marketplaces and booking engines.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of how Reserve with Google has affected golf tee time bookings, covering key developments, addressing conflicting information, and examining unique implementation cases observed in recent months.

Key Developments and Updates

Reserve with Google, initially launched for various service-based businesses, expanded to include golf tee time bookings in 2024. This feature allows golfers to discover and link to tee times directly from Google Search and Google Maps, streamlining the booking process and enhancing the overall search experience.

The "Book Online" button can either lead directly to a golf course booking engine, usually hosted by the course's preferred booking provider, or display a list of several marketplaces and booking providers. This initiative is part of Google's broader effort to connect with every golf course through its "Reserve with Google" capability.

The broader golf industry became aware of Google's golf-related mission after "BOOK ONLINE" buttons began appearing in golf course search results across Google Maps. Following industry publications on the topic, TenFore Golf CEO Jonathan Wride took the initiative to contact Google while collaborating with the NGCOA to organize a meeting with most North American tee sheet companies and Adam Jaffe (Partnerships Lead) from Google. TenFore ultimately became the first non-marketplace, USA-based GMS vendor to enable the booking button for their clients.

A notable enhancement is the ability for golfers to view specific tee time slots on mobile devices without leaving Google by using the "Tee times" chip, located next to traditional options like Directions, Call, Website, and Share. This feature functions similarly to a tee time booking engine, providing real-time availability updates. When selected, it directs users to the partner site to complete the booking.

While this streamlines the process, it still requires completing the booking on a separate website. It's important to note that the feed connecting the booking system with Google requires additional integration development for each provider. At the time of this writing, the feature was not available in many searches that had previously shown the option.

Conflicting Information and Clarifications

Based on data from smbGOLF (a golf industry analytics provider) and insights from a recent podcast featuring two Google employees, it has been confirmed that golf courses do not need to own or claim their Google Business Profile to have an active "BOOK ONLINE" button appear with their local and map search results.

In fact, according to smbGOLF data, more than 400 golf courses with a Book Online button have not claimed their Google Business Profile. This clarifies a common misconception among golf course operators about the requirements for participation.

Unique Cases and Observations

Several distinctive implementation patterns have been observed regarding the functionality and user experience of the "BOOK ONLINE" button:

Direct Website Booking

In some instances, the button sends users directly to the golf course website. Copper Rock Golf Course, for example, uses a golfscape booking engine placed in an iframe on their website. This provides a seamless booking experience without redirecting the user to a third-party domain. Additional benefits include increased web traffic and inbound links from high-authority sites.

Specific Booking Engine Integration

Another case involves Bryce Resort, where the button links directly to an EZLinks booking engine. In almost every instance (thousands documented), when a link to an EZLinks or TeeItUp booking engine was found, it appeared alongside a link to GolfNow.com. This suggests that GolfNow partner golf courses may have more control over what booking options are offered through the Reserve with Google integration than initially believed.

Private Golf Course Scenario

In some cases involving private golf courses, like Philmont Country Club in Philadelphia, a "BOOK ONLINE" button appears that sends users to a membership lead form hosted by GolfNow, rather than to actual tee times. This creates a potentially misleading experience for users who might expect a tee time booking interface based on the button's standard functionality. While private clubs typically don't offer public tee time bookings, the standard "BOOK ONLINE" button doesn't communicate this distinction, creating confusion for users.

Outdated Vendor Connections

We observed several instances where the "BOOK ONLINE" button directed users to tee time booking engines from vendors that the golf course no longer used, such as foreUP. In these cases, users would be taken to a booking interface where no tee times were actually available for booking. These findings, along with the private club scenario, indicate that the implementation and user experience of Reserve with Google for golf tee times are still evolving, with variations and inconsistencies that can create confusion for end users.

Approved Vendor Submission

For the "BOOK ONLINE" button to be activated and direct users to tee times, it must be submitted by an approved Reserve with Google partner. Golf course operators cannot enable this button independently. The partner (vendor) must also confirm they have an agreement in place with the golf course.

This verification process helps ensure booking information accuracy and reliability, and that the golf course is properly connected to the Reserve with Google system. While many booking vendors have expressed interest in integrating with Reserve with Google, some have reported delays in the agreement and integration process due to:

• Technical integration complexities
• Legal requirements
• The need to meet Google's specific integration guidelines

Google provides several resources for partners seeking to integrate:

• Reserve with Google for Partners
• Actions-center reservations documentation
• Actions-center integration policies
• Google agreement understanding documentation

The Importance of Opt-Out Forms

Google's terms and conditions related to Reserve with Google allow golf courses to manage their booking links and potentially remove or prioritize certain providers. Opt-out forms provide a mechanism for golf courses to exercise this control and ensure their preferred booking channels are prioritized in their Google Business Profile.

This control is crucial for maintaining ownership over customer data, branding, and revenue streams. While it may seem counterintuitive that opt-in is not available, this approach supports quick deployment. Google prioritizes improving the search experience for all golfers, and an opt-in strategy would significantly slow implementation.

Many operators may ultimately adopt the strategy employed by Bryce Resort: excluding all alternative booking options except the one tied to their white-label booking engine. The approach used by golfscape (directing users to the golf course website with an embedded functional booking engine) represents the optimal scenario, but this implementation is unlikely to be offered by most vendors ("Partners" in Google's terminology) due to technical limitations.

Partners would have limited control over how individual course web pages might change over time, potentially causing them to inadvertently violate their agreements with Google.

International Availability

While Reserve with Google is only available in certain countries and regions for businesses working with supported scheduling providers, Google's expansion is not limited to North America. Tiger GDS, golfscape, and Greenfee365 are vendors found through the Google golf experience in Europe, Asia, and beyond.

Insights from Google's Product Team

To gain further insights into Reserve with Google and its implications for golf courses, the Tech Caddie podcast featured Kathleen Oshima and Adam Jaffe from Google. In this 52-minute episode, host Mike Hendrix led a discussion covering:

• The origins of Google's interest in golf tee times
• The goals of the Reserve with Google program
• The integration process for vendors
• The potential impact on golf course operations

Oshima, the Senior Product Manager responsible for Golf/Tee Times, emphasized the importance of creating a seamless customer experience with minimal clicks. However, in many implementations, clicking the "BOOK ONLINE" button leads to a page requiring users to choose from various vendors, adding an extra step to the booking process.

This discrepancy highlights the need for further optimization and refinement of the user experience to align with Google's stated goals. It's worth noting that there is already an alternative way to add a booking link to a Google information panel, though it is less prominent, found under "Appointments."

Search Visibility Implications

A critical insight from the Tech Caddie podcast conversation with Google's Kathleen Oshima reveals potentially significant search visibility consequences for golf courses whose booking vendors haven't integrated with Reserve with Google. When asked directly about how a course like Jacaranda (which uses a tee sheet system not integrating with Reserve with Google) might be affected if surrounding courses have active booking buttons, Oshima explained:

"In general, the way our search ranking works is a giant black box... But I will say one of the things that does generally impact ranking is how engaged users are with your business profile. If you're searching for golf courses, and users are really drawn to the ones that you could make an online booking on, you know, over time... your result might kind of drop off just because people aren't engaging with it... users actually aren't engaging with this result. Maybe it doesn't need to be so prominent because the other ones are getting more engagement."

This represents a significant consideration for golf courses evaluating their tee sheet provider relationships. While not an immediate "penalty" for courses whose vendors don't participate, the reduced engagement with listings lacking booking functionality could gradually diminish search visibility compared to competitors with active booking buttons.

For facilities like Jacaranda with strong Google Business Profiles but tee sheet providers not integrating with Reserve with Google, Oshima suggested maintaining robust profiles with fresh reviews, updated hours, and complete information as one way to potentially counterbalance this effect. However, she acknowledged this might not fully overcome the engagement advantage that actionable booking buttons provide.

This creates an implicit business pressure for golf courses to select booking vendors that participate in Reserve with Google, regardless of other platform considerations, to maintain their search visibility and avoid potential traffic declines relative to competitors.

Conclusion: Balancing Opportunity and Control

The introduction of Reserve with Google for golf tee times presents both opportunities and challenges for the golf industry. While the program aims to simplify the booking process and increase visibility for golf courses, it also raises legitimate concerns about control, transparency, and potential impacts on direct bookings.

Golf course operators should understand that search results and business profiles, even when "claimed," are not owned by the golf course. Most of the user experience is controlled by Google, with portions owned by booking providers. The operator essentially owns nothing but can access certain management functions.

It's important to recognize that Google provides Reserve with Google at no cost because it aligns with their mission of enhancing user experience and increasing Google's search value. For golf course operators, the key is finding the right balance between leveraging this powerful discovery tool while maintaining appropriate control over their digital presence and customer relationships.

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