Golf courses and clubs are leveraging AI and big data to enhance operations and increase revenues.
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Overseeing 21 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area, Founders Group International is using smarter marketing strategies to connect with golfers based on who they are and how they play.
Frequent locals. Occasional nearby players. Potential members. Tourists.
Instead of sharing the same messages with each of its customers, Founders Group International is delivering tailored messages to certain audiences, resulting in more long-term engagement.
“AI and big data are helping the golf industry move away from broad, one-size-fits-all marketing and toward more personalized engagement with golfers,” said Justin Binke, director of marketing, revenue and sales for Founders Group International.
With a focus on the future, Founders Group International is striving to better analyze its customers’ behaviors across tee sheets, point-of-sale systems and digital platforms.
“This will help us fully understand who our customers are, how often they play and what drives their decisions,” Binke said.
Landscapes Golf Management has also been utilizing AI to enhance its capabilities. In December 2019, the company started acquiring a technology stack instead of a collection of standalone systems, migrating their data to Lightspeed Golf. Within a month, all data was then placed in a centralized data warehouse supported by Metolius Golf.
“We tested several platforms and ultimately selected Lightspeed Golf because of its robust API capabilities,” said Scot Wellman, vice president of sales and marketing at Landscapes Golf Management. “This allowed us to easily move data into a centralized warehouse and opened the door for more than 30 integrations with other technology partners.”
Wellman said cloud technology is the future and the partnership has enabled easier data storage and a more secure environment, eliminating the need for onsite servers.
Landscapes Golf Management has created business intelligence dashboards, leading to visibility across the company’s key areas. Numerous metrics have since been tracked, including CRM data, customer sentiment, performance against budget, revenue, rounds, social media activity, website performance and weather trends.
“Through our partners, we’re realizing the ability to use AI against our data warehouse,” Wellman said. “I always knew we would get there, but now that we are, it’s an exciting time for our organization.”
Boosting marketing, data and operations
Desert Canyon Golf Club in Fountain Hills, Arizona, has been using AI and big data. The club has two AI systems: Sagacity Golf and an AI feature from OpenPhone. According to General Manager Martin Ort, Desert Canyon has had more precise targeting for its marketing strategies due to these systems.
Legends Golf Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is focusing more on data than AI, with a primary interest in enhancing its data collection capabilities and organizing its data. The club’s goal is to be able to access and analyze its data faster down the road.
“The tools we use tend to fall more in line with machine learning principles than AI,” said Kyle Moorefield, director of sales and marketing at Legends Golf Resort.
Golf course operators are realizing how much AI can assist with everyday operational tasks including emails, social media posting and website content generation.
Wellman said that this is “just scratching the surface” when it comes to AI’s potential.
Over the last 18 months, Wellman noticed golf course operators using AI to analyze their financial statements and generate high-quality images for their social media pages and websites.
“AI capabilities have quickly advanced within our CRM platform, Pipedrive, where it can assist with writing emails and identifying deals that are most likely to close,” Wellman said. “Our email marketing platform, Pitch CRM, can also generate marketing emails directly from prompts.”
Wellman said the club has tested AI-powered phone services from CourseRev.AI and has begun partnering with AI Partners to query its data warehouse, using natural language prompts.
Attracting golfers, increasing repeat play
While reflecting on recent trends, Ort said that Desert Canyon’s website AI assistant ensures guests will directly acquire information about any questions they may have versus seeking the answers themselves.
“The AI assistant reduces the time it takes to book a tee time,” Ort said.
Aside from improving website users’ experiences, AI and big data are helping golf course operators better understand who plays during the week, books last minute and is considering membership.
Binke said AI-driven tools can be used to identify patterns and opportunities in this information more consistently.
“This information allows operators to be more proactive, rather than reactive,” Binke said.
Landscapes Golf Management is preparing to roll out an initiative known as AI Summaries soon.
Created to help the company deliver weekly insights to courses’ general managers, AI Summaries’ data will highlight any areas of opportunity, while also sharing recommendations on how to address them.
“If a public course has booked rounds for the upcoming week that are down by a certain percentage, the system can flag the issue and suggest potential solutions — such as promotional codes or targeted marketing tactics — to help drive demand and fill the tee sheet,” Wellman said. “In this way, AI and big data become valuable tools that help streamline operations and improve decision making.”
Landscapes Golf Management is also planning on releasing another innovation (yet to be named) that will leverage AI within a booking engine. In turn, course operations will be able to collect more consumer data, take tee times and integrate their information with a backend CRM.
Wellman said through this rise in data, courses will increase their play since they’ll have smarter revenue optimization.
Legends Golf Resort had already noticed a rise in transaction data insights prior to their initiatives, along with more access to financial data insights.
“Coupling that data with the efforts of partners like Metolius has allowed us to be much more targeted in our messaging approach,” Moorefield said. “Our open rates and engagement stats reflect that.”
Actionable outcomes
Although Binke said it’s too early to fully understand AI’s and big data’s impact on golf courses’ profits, one main aspect will likely steadily drive revenue generation: their capabilities to predict golfers’ behaviors.
“Going forward, operators will increasingly be able to anticipate demand, help automate marketing campaigns and customer touchpoints and deliver highly personalized offers that encourage engagement,” Binke said. “That kind of insight helps facilities optimize pricing, marketing timing and the overall customer experience.”
As an example of AI’s and big data’s influence, Landscapes Golf Management has observed a direct upturn in revenue, as more rounds are being played, customer service is improving and no-shows are declining.
“I believe it’s only going to get better,” Wellman said.
Due to its smoother tee time booking processes, Desert Canyon has increased its revenue as well. Its staff now has more time to focus on guest interactions without any interruptions.
“I don’t see us going back to a time before we used AI to enhance guests’ and staff members’ experiences at Desert Canyon Golf Club,” Martin said.
With AI and big data helping course operators better understand their customers, insights can be transformed into actionable outcomes that positively influence guests, members and bottom lines.
“The real opportunity isn’t just selling more tee times — it’s understanding golfers’ behaviors well enough to build long-term relationships,” Binke said.
To further build these relationships, AI and big data will enable golf courses and clubs to share more personalized messaging consistently.
“My hope is that we’ll soon reach a point where AI can interact with our customers regularly, helping deliver timely, relevant communication,” Wellman said. “We’re getting closer to that reality every day.”
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This article originally appeared in the May/June 2026 issue.
