2009 software rollout

PRODUCT FOCUS

Multi-use online event registration system with payment collection

Our online signup service which was integrated into Website Builder in 2008 is now integrated into League Manager, Handicap System and Tournament Manager. While the most obvious use of this online event registration service might be for registering golf tournament participants, you can use it in any number of other ways as well. What would you add to the list that follows?

TOURNAMENT MANAGER

Handicapping the unhandicapped in a tournament

Not everyone who wants to play in your tournament has a USGA handicap. What to do? How should the committee make it fair for the novice or occasional player who has no handicap? How can everyone have a chance to win a net score tournament?

The USGA developed an estimator of a player's ability called Second Best Score System or Second Best Handicap. This system is not a substitute for the USGA Handicap System, but it produces acceptable results. You can read about this system as well as others at the USGA website.

WEBSITE BUILDER

Key feature differences between Website Builder & Website Designer

• When you compare websites built using Website Designer (our earlier product) to websites created using Website Builder (our newer product) you will immediately notice the difference in look and feel. Take a look for yourself: 1) Website Builder sites; 2) Website Designer sites.
• Website Builder includes an interactive online event registration system that Website Designer does not. This is tremendously useful for streamlining your registration process for golf tournaments, league signup, banquets and other special events. Online credit card processing capability is included.
• Many of our customers' websites include member names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, etc. Given the public nature of the Internet, some organizations will want to control access to this type of information. Website Builder supports this desire by allowing the site administrator to password protect any page on their site.
• It's much, much easier for more than one person to share website duties using Website Builder. Since Website Builder is Internet based, there is no need - as with Website Designer - to pass data back and forth between website administrators. With Website Builder, more than one person can be logged into the same data simultaneously.
• Photos are much easier to work with in Website Builder. Website Designer requires you to keep the photo file size below a certain number and it can be a technical task reserved for computer geeks if your photo file size is too large. Website Builder eliminates the problem and offers various ways to display photos on your website.

LEAGUE MANAGER

Counting only the best X events out of total season events for season totals

Does your league keep season statistics? Some leagues choose to count the best, say, 15 events out of 20 season events to see who the season point total winner is. In this way, the league is comparing players' best performances, having discarded a few of the "off" days for each player. If your league chooses to do this, Tab 7. "Other" on the Point Calculation Parameters form is where you do it.

LEAGUE MANAGER

Using existing scores for initial player handicaps

Golf leagues are about to start up as spring approaches. It's good to have established handicaps to start off your league season. There are a number of ways to do this in League Manager 2009. As before, you can import your league data from last season's League Manager league into a new league in League Manager for this season. If you don't have data from a previous season, you can enter player scores from rounds previous to season start into the practice scores area of League Manager. New in the 2009 version, you can now import scores into the practice area if you have player scores in some sort of computer file.

WEB DESIGN TIPS

Web design tip #1 - Add local weather

Website Builder makes it easy to add your local weather...very important for avid golfers and others. Adding current local weather to your website including a golf guide with current conditions at courses in your area is a nice touch and service for your golf group members and others. See how. Click on the Weather link at the Ledges Golf Club website in South Hadley, Massachusetts to see one in action.

Web design tip #2 - Creating tournament brackets for your website

Have you ever wondered how you could create tournament brackets to put up on your website? One fairly simple solution is to use Microsoft Excel. On a spreadsheet, use the cell border tool to create slots or boxes for participants and the bracket lines. Save this spreadsheet - NOT workbook - as a web page and upload to Website Builder or Website Designer. View a sample sheet with brackets. You can shrink and expand bracket sizes as well as slots or boxes for names by working with column width and row height. If you don't have Excel, you can use Google Docs (free).

GOLFBYTE'S CUSTOMER WEBSITE RECOGNITION

ParBoiler Golf Club of Southern California

Notice how uncrowded the navigation menu is on their website. The golfer-webmaster accomplishes this by using index or sub-menu pages. Click on the "Stats and Standings" or "Tournament Results" menu link and you will see. If all of those links were on the navigation menu, it would truly be crowded. Although the signup page is password protected, they take advantage of the online event registration system built into Website Builder. Nice job!

GOLF QUOTATIONS

I’m the best. I just haven’t played yet.

- MUHAMMAD ALI

Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behaviour not otherwise excusable.

- SIR ALAN PATRICK HERBERT, British author

I have a tip that can take five strokes off anyone's golf game: it's called an eraser.

- ARNOLD PALMER