The Middle Pin vs GolfNow for Business · checked 8 October 2026

GolfNow, or something you pay for in money instead of tee times.

GolfNow for Business runs the biggest tee-time marketplace in golf and sells software alongside it. Many courses pay for that software with tee times rather than cash. That trade is the whole question for a small course, so this page is mostly about it.

Work out your cost Sign up for free

Monthly fee: $0
A card payment: 5% + 30¢, all in
Contract: None
Companies compared: 7, with sources

Your cost, in two taps

What would you pay?

1What do you use now?

2Card sales in a month

$8,000

3What they charge a month

Fine-tune with your own quote

Average sale $ Their card rate % Plus per sale ¢

The Middle Pin $0 5% + 30¢ a payment · no monthly fee

Them $0

A month, before tax. Cash costs nothing on either side. Hardware is not included. Where a company does not publish a figure, the calculator says so and uses a typical one — put in your own.

Choose GolfNow if

You have empty tee times most days and want a large marketplace pushing golfers at them.
You would rather give up some tee times than pay for software in cash.
You want a phone-answering service and marketing handled for you.

Choose the Middle Pin if

You would rather pay nothing a month and a small share of each card sale, and keep every tee time and every green fee.
You want to set your own rates without promising anyone they are the lowest.
You want the register, memberships and online booking in one login, with nothing to sign.

01 · Side by side

What each one publishes.

Their column says only what GolfNow or a review site has published, with the source. Where nothing is published, it says so.

Price Cash prices not published. Payment can be cash, trade tee times, or both.^1,2 Free. No monthly fee, no setup fee, no per-booking fee.

How you pay Trade Times: four rounds each, sold by GolfNow, who keeps the revenue. Current US terms cap sales at 31 Trade Times (124 rounds) a month.¹ 5% + 30¢ on each card or bank payment, and nothing else.

Contract Set in each order form and “non-cancellable except as provided”. A $500 a month charge per product if trade times are not provided. Cash prices can rise by the greater of 5% or CPI each year.¹ None. Nothing to sign and nothing to cancel.

Your rates Trade times must be priced “at least as favorable” as any rate you give another third party.¹ You set them. No rate-parity clause.

Card payments GolfNow Payments; rates not published.¹ 5% + 30¢ a payment, all in: Stripe’s processing is included. Cash and checks cost nothing.

Online tee times Included, plus listing on the GolfNow marketplace.³ Included.

Website Websites and apps available.³ Keep your own, or we build and host one for $99.99 a month.

02 · About them

What GolfNow does well.

GolfNow for Business, owned by Versant (spun off from Comcast in January 2026), sells a tee sheet, point of sale, websites, marketing and a call-answering service, and lists courses on the GolfNow marketplace. Courses can pay in cash, in “Trade Times”, or a mix. A Trade Time is four rounds that GolfNow sells and keeps the money for.⁶

Where it is strong

Reach. GolfNow says it works with more than 9,000 courses and millions of golfers, and nobody else comes close. For a course with a lot of empty inventory and no marketing budget, putting that in front of golfers is real value, and some operators are happy with the trade. It also rates well on Capterra (4.6 from 19 reviews).^3,2

What operators say

Operators describe heavily discounted “Hot Deals” pulling revenue down and teaching golfers to wait for a deal; one course estimated it gave up more than $116,000 a year in tee times.⁴
The National Golf Course Owners Association’s 2020 “Beware of Barter” report found barter usually works against operators and called success stories “exceptions, not the rule”.⁵
Under the terms, GolfNow owns the personal data of golfers who book through their GolfNow account.¹

What our course data shows

2,645of 12,230 public courses booked online through GolfNow
316of them are 9-hole courses
401moved off it between 2022 and 2023, 112 back to phone-only booking
181moved onto it in the same year

From the 2022–23 dataset of public golf courses in the US and Canada we work from, which lists GolfNow’s booking under NBC Sports Next, its parent division at the time. It shows which company each course used for online tee times: a snapshot, not a live count.

03 · Straight answers

Where we fall short.

We are one of the companies on this page, so here is what we do not do, and the questions people ask.

We are a small, young company. The companies on these pages have been doing this for years, with far bigger teams.
We have no network of discount golfers to fill empty tee times the way GolfNow does.
No handicap (GHIN) integration and no dynamic pricing yet.
Our 5% + 30¢ is more per card sale than the bigger companies’ published card rates. We charge nothing a month instead, so a course with a lot of card volume can pay less overall elsewhere. The calculator shows where that line is for you.
We are built for small public courses. A private club with a full kitchen and complex member billing is better served elsewhere.

Is GolfNow free for golf courses?

Not in the way it sounds. Many courses pay for GolfNow’s software with Trade Times instead of cash: tee times GolfNow sells and keeps the money for. The current US terms define a Trade Time as four rounds. Whether that is cheaper than paying cash depends on whether those rounds would have sold at your full rate anyway.

Can I leave GolfNow?

The length of a GolfNow agreement is set in each course’s order form, and the terms describe it as non-cancellable except as they provide. Check your order form for the end date before planning a switch.

Can I use the Middle Pin and still list on GolfNow?

Not yet. We do not connect to GolfNow’s marketplace today.

What does the Middle Pin cost?

Nothing a month. There is no subscription, no setup fee and no contract. We take 5% + 30¢ on each card or bank payment, and that includes Stripe’s processing. Cash costs nothing. No tee times are traded.

Nothing a month. Your course.

Sign up and have it running today. It costs nothing to start and nothing to keep — we take 5% + 30¢ when a card is used. Or take a 30-minute walkthrough with the person who builds it.

Sources

Checked 8 October 2026. Prices and terms change, and most of these companies do not publish theirs, so ask each one for a written quote. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email kevin@themiddlepin.com and we will correct it. Company names are trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify them.