"For the last two years I’ve used GolfNow.com to make most of my golf tee times and have received some hefty discounts. I’ve played a $90 course for $28, a $100 course for $35 and I passed on a really nice, high end Northern Michigan resort course that normally runs $160 that GolfNow had discounted down to $37. I also got a couple of greens fees at a mediocre course for $11 each; all of these fees are for 18 holes with cart. Both the online site and the mobile apps for both Android and iPhone worked well for me in 2013 and 2014.


However, the three times I’ve tried to use GolfNow’s website in 2015, it has been extremely buggy, it has caused multiple problems, and wasted a lot of my time. Three weeks ago I made a tee time for two, another friend changed his schedule to be able to join us, so I added one more person to the existing tee time, which still showed available for two. I hit “confirm and pay” and suddenly, the deal was no longer available. I figured some other twosome snagged those two spots a minute earlier. When the two of us showed up at the course, it was wide open, we played by ourselves, and the assistant pro confirmed that we were the only two people who reserved that tee time – our other friend could have played, but for GolfNow’s buggy website screwing him over.


Two weeks ago I had a lot of problems with the website, found that changing a little variable such a number of golfers, number of holes, or adding second local area completely changed availability and prices, and when I switched back to the original criteria a few minutes later, bargains I had just looked at were suddenly no longer available. I almost reserved and paid for a tee time at a not-so-great discount but then it occurred to me to check the course’s website. It was the same price. Actually, reserving directly with the course was several bucks cheaper because I avoided GolfNow’s fees (somehow they think sending out an automatic automated confirmation e-mail is a service for which they deserve to be paid, on top of the probably 50% commission they receive from the golf course for filling unused tee times).


Last week, during my lunch break, I tried again to reserve a tee time for two for Sunday and just wasn’t seeing the deals I had during my initial search – the site was buggier than ever. Eventually, after tweaking the variables a bit (but never once changing the date) I finally found the deal for the Sunday tee time I wanted and confirmed and purchased it. The next day I got an e-mail from GolfNow asking me how I liked yesterday’s round and would I post a course review?!? I discovered that GolfNow’s buggy site had changed the date from Sunday to Friday afternoon, the day I made my reservation.


I called GolfNow customer service and the guy was friendly and said he’d call the course to see what they’d do for me. Well, it turns out (at least according to the course) that the other twosome for that tee time had also reserved with GolfNow, had brought along two buddies, and all four played at that tee-time without paying the course a dime – the course tried to claim I was attempting a scam, despite the fact that I was sitting in my office all afternoon Friday, and I was one of the second two guys who showed up; I guess the course pro wasn’t smart enough to check names or the other two guys were lying jackwads who said “That’s us!” when asked if they were the “XYZ” twosome.


So the GolfNow CSR tells me their system has some known bugs they were working on, that I certainly wasn’t the first customer to whom he had spoken that day about the exact same problem – GolfNow’s system changing the date on them – and he’d talk to a supervisor to see what could be done for me. After putting me on hold again, he told me I could not have a refund but he could issue a credit for what I had paid, but it not only expired in 30 days but was for limited selection of greens fees, just their “Hot Deals” greens fees, which often are at undesirable times, like late afternoon. Altogether GolfNow’s problems with their system had caused me to waste over 1.5 hours in that two-day period and GolfNow would do nothing about my wasted time or hassles and offered only a limited solution to resolve a known, recurring problem that they acknowledged was their own responsibility.


In the past I used to like using GolfNow but this year it has been so buggy and the customer service has been so inadequate that I think I’m going to start shopping for deals on GolfNow and then call the course directly to see if they will match the price. I see no reason why they wouldn’t as they will actually get more money directly from the customer than they would after GolfNow takes its commission. So as of May 2015, I can no longer recommend GolfNow even though in prior years I referred numerous friends and people met on the golf course to that business.

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