BMTT / The Story
In the beginning...
Let me tell you a story: many years ago I was a teenager in need of a summer job. I was fortunate enough to land a spot at Garland, one of Michigan's top golf resorts. Quite honestly it was the best time of my life. I fell in love with the golf culture. It just so happened that all of my friends also worked in the golf Mecca of northern Michigan at neighboring courses, so I played quite a bit. I golfed so much that I actually began keeping score (which is where this all began). Of course that was then. Nowadays, it seems I end up putting a checkmark instead of a number on my scorecard. Actually I believe golf legend Lee Trevino said it best: "I spend enough time in the woods that I can tell you which plants are edible"
But getting back to the story. This was all in a time when America Online basically was the Internet. I would have to wait many years before technology finally caught up with me. Now, fast forward to around 2002-2003. After moving to Grand Rapids, I was looking through a few left over boxes when I came across a few of those old score cards (with numbers, not check marks) These score cards made me want to golf. I had golf fever really bad. But, since it was the middle of a Michigan winter, I went out and bought a video game so that I could pretend I really was golfing.
So picture this: it's freezing outside and my best friend and I are sitting there playing an all-out golf tournament with a box of chicken nuggets on the line (it was the only place still awake with us at 2am). Talk about cabin fever!
Having that entrepreneurial spirit, we began tossing ideas of how to make an online community for golfers to share stories and stats, and even book tee times with other players for online leagues and golf events. That was it, it all made sense. We put down our controllers and grabbed our keyboards and began our designs.
The Dream
Imagine if you will: you're sitting there at Starbucks on a Sunday morning with nothing to do. Yeah, I know, but we are imagining here, right? Anyway, just imagine that you're curious whether your favorite local golf course has any tee times open later today. It might be a nice way to spend an afternoon. So you pull out your phone and sign onto bookmyteetimes.com. You select your favorite course and begin viewing tee times. You're in luck; they have an opening in a few hours. Just enough time to run home and grab your clubs. You press the button to book a tee time, confirm the date/time, and the reservation is made. Next you visit the online pro shop and order a bucket of range balls and two sleeves of new balls (because you read it was a tough course from other golfers in the community) and a new wedge (because your old one is at the bottom of one of the ponds on the last course you played) and add them to your shopping cart. You check out and are given a confirmation number. You run home, grab your clubs, and arrive at the pro shop in plenty of time. You give the pro shop your confirmation number and they already have your range balls, wedge, and new balls ready to go. You pick up your order and jump in the cart on the way to the driving range.
The Reality
It's that easy no matter where you are; visiting relatives, on vacation, or maybe a business trip, anywhere! Even if you are not familiar with the area you can easily search and find courses around you using any postal code, name, or city. Over the last few years we've collected information on over 35,000 courses in over 34 countries around the world. This information is growing every day as golfers submit their local pro shops, golf courses, and even score card updates daily. So as you can see, for us, it's a dream come true. With members in countries from around the world, BMTT is the community driven golf experience we've all been waiting for. BMTT, your tee times online.
