Pro shop
How to take golf simulator bookings
By Caddyio · Updated
A simulator is an expensive room that earns nothing while it sits empty, and it empties fastest when booking it means phoning the shop. Selling it properly means hourly slots, a published price, a diary every member of staff can see, and a rule about how long one booking can run — because without that last one, two people book the same Saturday evening and somebody goes home.
- Sell it by the hour Nobody books a simulator for half an hour. An hour is the natural unit; allow two or three consecutive hours for groups and winter leagues, and cap it so one booking cannot take the whole evening.
- Price members and visitors Unlike the course, clubs routinely charge their own members for simulator time — it is a scarce resource with a real cost behind it. Set both rates, and consider a higher rate for peak winter evenings if demand justifies it.
- Decide whether bookings need approving A range bay rarely needs a human. A simulator on a Saturday might, particularly if you run leagues or coaching blocks in the same room. Approval is worth switching on where the room is contested and off where it is not.
- Record how many are playing One member practising and a fourball in for the evening are different things for heating, for food and drink, and for how the room is left. Capture the group size at booking.
- Block out leagues and coaching Winter leagues, junior sessions and lesson blocks should be in the diary as closed periods before members start booking around them.
- Join it up with the bar Simulator hours are food and drink hours. A club that treats a two-hour booking as only a room hire is leaving the more profitable half on the table.
Frequently asked
- How long should a golf simulator booking be?
- An hour is the natural unit, with two or three consecutive hours available for groups. Anything shorter is not worth the changeover; leaving it uncapped means one booking takes the whole evening.
- Should we charge members for simulator time?
- Usually yes. Unlike the course, a simulator is a scarce resource with a real cost behind it, and most clubs charge members as well as visitors — at different rates.
- How do we stop the simulator being double-booked?
- One diary that every member of staff can see, and bookings that hold the room the moment they are made. Double bookings almost always come from a notebook behind the counter that only one person is looking at.
Caddyio books simulators in hourly slots with your own prices, group size and optional staff approval, and checks availability across every hour a booking covers — so a two-hour booking cannot be taken when only the first hour is free. It books and prices the room; it does not read data out of the simulator hardware.