A clever membership and a lot of arithmetic
Your club introduced a flexible category to attract people who cannot play every week: working parents, younger golfers, people who travel. They pay a smaller fee for a bank of points. A weekday round costs fewer points than a weekend morning. Twilight costs less again. Guests can be paid for in points.
It sells well. But the tee sheet was not built for it, so the office keeps a spreadsheet. Each week someone goes through the tee sheet, finds the flexible members, works out the points for each round from the time and day, and updates their balance. Members email to ask how many points they have left. Someone cancels in the rain and asks for their points back. A member runs out in August and wants to top up.
Why points memberships create so much work
The pricing is the attraction and also the problem. Points vary by day, time, season and sometimes by how far ahead the round is booked. A person applying those rules from a printed table will get some wrong, and each mistake is a conversation with a member.
The balance lives in a spreadsheet that members cannot see, so they ask. The cancellation rules are fair but fiddly: points returned if cancelled in good time, not if cancelled late, perhaps half back if the course closed.
And the club struggles to see whether the category works. How many points are left unspent at year end, which times flexible members use, and whether they later move to full membership are all questions the spreadsheet cannot easily answer.
What manual points tracking costs
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Points worked out by hand | Errors and disputes with members |
| Balance only in the office | Emails and calls asking what is left |
| Cancellations handled case by case | Inconsistent refunds |
| Top-ups taken manually | Payments to match and record |
| No view of usage | Hard to judge whether the category works |
Flexible categories are often how clubs bring in the next generation of members. Admin that makes the category unpleasant to run can sink it before it has a chance.
How we automate the points
- Your points table goes into the system: the cost of a round by day, time band and season, and any guest or buggy costs in points, exactly as your club sets them.
- When a flexible member books through the tee sheet or our booking layer, the points are shown before they confirm and held against their balance.
- If the round is played, the points are taken. If it is cancelled, your cancellation rules decide what comes back, and the course status feeds in so closures are handled the same way every time.
- Members see their balance, history and upcoming holds on their phone, and get a message when the balance falls below a level the club chooses.
- Top-ups are bought online through Stripe or GoCardless, in the bundles your club sells, and added to the balance straight away.
- The office has a ledger of every member's points, and a report showing usage by time band, unspent balances and flexible members who have moved to other categories.
Some tee sheet systems now support points or credit memberships. If yours does, we help set it up properly before building anything alongside it.
What a flexible member sees now
A member opens the booking page on Wednesday evening, sees that Saturday at 2.30 costs fewer points than 8.30, books it, and sees the balance drop. When the course closes on Saturday because of rain, the points come back automatically, with a message. In July they get a note that their balance is low, and top up in two taps. The office no longer touches any of it.
- Points applied correctly every time
- Balances members can see for themselves
- Cancellations handled by the rules, not by negotiation
- A clear view of how the category is used
For the committee, the usage report answers the question they actually care about: whether flexible members fill quieter tee times and whether some go on to join full categories.
Signs your flexible category needs this
- The office keeps points balances in a spreadsheet.
- Flexible members ring or email to ask their balance.
- Cancellations and refunds of points are argued case by case.
- Top-ups are taken by phone or at the counter.
- You cannot easily tell how the category is being used.