English Golfers Search For Tee Times in Record Numbers

For nearly two months, golf courses across England were closed due to lockdown restrictions in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, but after the relaxation of rules, many venues reopened across the nation last Wednesday, with others following in the days since.

Unsurprisingly, there was a huge demand for tee times, something we have seen through the Golfshake Live Tee Time Search Tool, but these fresh statistics from GOLFNOW - the world's largest distributor of online tee times - illustrate just how unprecedented the rush for times has been despite many clubs understandably placing a priority on member play.

How to Find a Golf Tee Time This Week

GOLFNOW traffic hit a peak of 25,000 users in a single day with a total of 90,826 visitors last week – a 681% increase in sessions, year-on-year and smashing the previous record week of 34,777 (during The Open last year). Since 13 May, more than 6,000 rounds of golf have been booked at available courses in England.

Additionally, BRS GOLF, the business-to-business technology brand of GOLFNOW, is used by 3,500 golf clubs, many of those within England, ranking it as the most used tee sheet in the world. 

In the last seven days, clubs in England using BRS GOLF technology have sent 2 million member emails with over 2.3 million rounds booked or updated. Unique logins across BRS GOLF admin, members and visitors sites last week hit 687,000 users with over 14 million page views.

At peak traffic BRS GOLF saw over 36,000 member requests per minute last week – these include logins, tee sheet visits, bookings and booking updates. 

BRS GOLF’s senior director of product and technology, Phil Doherty, said: “This level of demand has never been seen before. The team here are working incredibly hard to ensure all our systems are running smoothly now, and in the coming weeks. People understandably are eager to get back out on the course, and we want to help golfers and golf clubs get back to doing what they love after a very uncertain couple of months.”

Courses in Wales reopened from Monday with Northern Ireland set to follow on Wednesday. The Scottish Government is yet to provide golf with the required green light to return, but that is anticipated to occur some time after the next review of lockdown restrictions on May 28.

Slowly, but surely, a rough sense of something approaching normality is coming back in view.

But for those living in England, the appetite for golf has been left undiminished by the shutdown.

Tee times aren't the easiest to secure right now, but keep updated on the latest through the Golfshake Live Tee Time Search, or visit GOLFNOW.

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