Golf App for East Tennessee Children's Hospital

My app is running the ETCH AM charity #golf event this morning. https://golfeventscores.azurewebsites.net/PublicScores/SingleScoreMultiplePlayersSummary?TournamentId=31774 Check out the flights at the bottom of the scoreboard, pictures, video, and other great features for your charity, course, and club.  

Sql Server Cursor

I had to write a sql server cursor.  I tend to put things into my blog so that I can keep them around for my own memory.  Here is one that I wrote:
begin
Declare @TournamentId bigint, @token uniqueidentifier
declare tourncursor cursor for select Tournamentid from Tournament where Token is null
open tourncursor
fetch next from  tourncursor into @TournamentId
while @@fetch_status = 0
begin
update Tournament set token = NEWID() where Tournamentid = @Tournamentid
fetch next from  tourncursor into @tournamentid

end
close tourncursor
deallocate tourncursor
end

Why did Sears (and other established companies) Fail?

This isn’t just a sears problem, but seems to be a problem across the board with many companies, not all, but many.

The issue is that companies find something successful and they start to grow. They can get really big. For example, sears at one time was the largest retailer in the US, much bigger than Walmart. Then the founders, and those that are associated with the initial growth move on. It could be old age, wanting new challenges, whatever. Who fills in the spots? It’s not people with the same type of thinking. It’s typically MBAs and people that are accountants, or at least lean that way. The result is typically that growth grinds to a halt. These people try to optimize the business. In the really old days, this was called Morganization, after JP Morgan. Many times this means trying to sell and do things for no other reason than for trying to increase profit margins. When these people win, and shareholders always love these stories, sales start to fall. Why? Because customers tend to not buy on price, but on value. When the value of the product falls, they tend not to buy. Customers want more value for less money. Not less value for the same money.

AT the same time, other companies find out things and give these features to customers. The market place tends to change. If you don’t change with the marketplace, you end up with problems.

Big companies tend to have problems with innovation. Not only is there the Morganization going on, but there is the general problem of innovation in a large company. Sustaining innovation is hard. The finance department and hr tend to be against innovation. The finance department is about controlling costs. Hr is about hiring for known jobs. Both are really hard to do under innovation. In many companies, the hr and finance departments win this battle.

It wasn’t just sears. GM, Chrysler, and ford have this problem. Many retailers have this problem. Ibm is on this trail. It is much more common than people think.

Making your Golf Charity Scramble Memorable

You really want to make your charity/foundation golf scramble a memorable experience.  You want people to come back year after year.  You want to expose your sponsors to people in more ways. You want your golfers to clear the golf course as quickly as possible.  Your golfers have lives.  Sure, they love talking a bit after golf, but they don't like waiting around 90 minutes for the scores to be tallied.  You and your staff of volunteers have been at the golf course since 6:30 am.  They are hot.  They are tired.  They want to go home.  The golf pro staff is human.  They make mistakes.  They have been at the course for many hours.  They are hot and tired as well.  They really don't want to then spend the next 90 minutes chasing down scorecards and then having to total them up.     And when there are ties, they aren't looking forward to going through the work of the USGA tie breaking system. 

What you need, is the Tournament Director Scramble application to make your event truly memorable.  Here is a video of this at the Boys & Girls Club Phillip Fulmer event.  Watch the video as the players input their scores on the course in real time.  Your sponsors get full attention on the scoreboard.  Sponsor logos are displayed prominently in the header.  Each reload of the screen results in a new sponsor being displayed.  The scoreboard updates after each hole.  Ties are broken via the USGA recommended tie breaking algorithm.  Now, there is no fuss in getting this done.  Everything is handled automatically.

Tournament Director, LLC software is available on a subscription basis as well as on a per event basis.  Please contact us via our website.

Stableford Real Time Scoring

We revamped our scoring for a golf stableford scoring system.  The problem with Stableford is that it is in general hard to figure out during a round how your team is doing in relation to your quota.  The scoreboard is fast and shows the scores as well as your position within the event relative to your quota.  The performance is also lightening fast.  check out the video.  This shows the display of the scores over each hole per group and the scoring is updated per the USGA guidelines for tie breaking.  I'm quite proud of this.

Night Golf - Video, Commentary, Scores and a Lot of Fun

We recently had night golf at our club.  Night golf is played as a scramble at our club.  We started about 9:30 pm or so and our group finished about 11:30 pm.  It was great fun.  The tees, the golf holes, the flags, and the golf carts are illuminated.  There is a lot of laughing at each other.  It is much harder to hit a golf ball when it is dark with no light than you think.

Here are a few things to high light in our application:

• Because the scoreboard is on the web, you can send links to any one that you want to.  Your family at home can see the scoreboard.  Fyi, my family loves it because they can watch the team my son is on and their scores.
• The video.  Even thought it was dark, it is possible to watch the golf ball in the air due to the golf ball being lit.  We have some great videos from that night.  One is Alan White's ball ending up about a foot from the hole on the third hole.
• Pictures.  
• Player commentary.  I'm not saying it is trash talk, but there is the ability to make comments from within the app and the commentary is displayed on the scoreboard and for other players to see.

This is definitely something that you want on your course and your club.  Contact me to see how to license Tournament Director for your golfing fun at your club.  

Multi-Round Stroke Play Golf with Markers, Rulings, Video, Photos, and Commentary

This past weekend, our golf course had it's Medal Play Championship.  It was a two round event (Saturday and Sunday June 2nd and 3rd, 2018).  The inclusion of our application gives the event a real high level experience not only for those that are playing, but for course members that are at home.  This is a first rate experience for everyone.

Markers

Markers are an important part of golf.  "A 'marker' is one who is appointed by the Committee to record a competitor’s score in stroke play. He may be a fellow-competitor. He is not a referee."

a. Recording Scores
After each hole the marker should check the score with the competitor and record it. On completion of the round the marker must sign the score card and hand it to the competitor. If more than one marker records the scores, each must sign for the part for which he is responsible.

b. Signing and Returning Score Card
After completion of the round, the competitor should check his score for each hole and settle any doubtful points with the Committee. He must ensure that the marker or markers have signed the score card, sign the score card himself and return it to the Committee as soon as possible.
But what happens where there is a conflict between what the player thinks that they scored and what the marker thinks that they scored?  You shouldn't have to wait until the end of the round.  These should be checked at the moment that they occur. When a player and their marker disagree on the score a player enters, our application

• Lets the player and his marker know that there is a disagreement in scores.
• Detects the difference via a report in our system. The golf pro staff does not want to disqualify a course member unless it is absolutely required. Instead, the pro staff would prefer to let the players know that there is an issue and let them resolve the issue before a dq becomes necessary.
• Displays the difference when a user attempts to sign our electronic signature application.

The last thing anyone wants is to be disqualified because of a simple misunderstanding between the player and their marker.

Media

The following is our basic summary screen.  It shows the players, ordered by their current score relative to par for the event.  Their name is shown, their place in the event, their score for today, how many holes that they have played today, their current total score, and finally what hole that they are on.  Please note that the hole that they are on and how many holes that they have played can be different.

So, this is all well and good, but what about commentary?  I dog food everything in our service.  That means I am out there.  I spent two years at our golf course every weekend in 2015 & 2016.  I know how nearly all golf events are run.  I did this to make sure that our customers are successful.  There's no throwing the software into the app store and saying "Good Luck" from me.  The commentary, photos, and video are me testing everything out.  I have a TD Media app that I have created.  This app allows for a club member or golf staff to enter comments, pictures, or videos into our service.  These are shown right below the score of an event.  The comments, pictures, and videos are available to every event.  Comments & pictures are available on every scoreboard (yes, we do have words that are not allowed).

Video

Video is available for those that are not at the golf course watching, or can be for watching these events afterwards.  Here are all of the videos in the event.  In this top level video, it is Ryan Greer making the final birdie on 18 to finish at -4 for the event, and win.  The videos are available from a PC as well as a mobile device.

From a PC standpoint, you can get some better detail.  For example, I've captured Ryan's shot from the bunker on 11 to 4-5 feet.  On a PC in full screen mode, you can watch the ball and see it stop right up at the hole.

Reception

I love our golf pro and I love my fellow players, but sometimes, the reception is funny to see.  On the first tee, I'm talking with our pro.  I mentioned several of these new features (they aren't really new, just not sure he had heard about them).  He says he's not sure about the comments or the video and didn't want people using their phones like this on the course.  After the two of us were watching the last group for about 5 holes, he says something about "It would be great if people could make comments and stop people from making overly rude comments. And what about a staff member adding in some video while on the course?  What about some pictures?"  We had a good laugh.  I showed him the video, comments, and pictures I had already put on the scoreboard.  Once I had more of a chance to explain what I had done, he was really positive on this.  As we got to the back nine and people started seeing the scoreboard, the response was even more positive.  Everybody really loved the feature set.

Your Course

What about your course?  Just contact me, and let's talk about we can add this to your course, raise the value to your club members.  Our office phone number is 865.693.3004.  Lets take care of your course and improve the quality of golf at your course.