A new smartphone app developed by British firm PinPoint Golf promises to revolutionise the way golf courses provide hole location information to players.
Released officially in January and available for both Android and iOS devices, MyPinPoint enables greenkeepers to enter flagstick locations on their phones as soon as the hole is cut. The application then transmits the data back to the office, making the production of pin sheets for golfers much easier and quicker.
The real power of MyPinPoint lies in its ability to provide that pin location information straight to players. When the greenkeeper enters the hole locations, MyPinPoint publishes the data direct to the cloud. Players can download a free ‘Golfers Edition’ of the app to their own smartphones and use this instead of a printed pin sheet. When hole locations are changed, so is the data on the app – so there's no danger of players getting incorrect information. MyPinPoint is believed to be the world’s first direct-to-smartphone solution for the provision of hole location information.
“For clubs, costing only £250 per year, MyPinPoint has the potential to pay for itself very quickly, just in savings from printing pin sheets,” said Marcus Lovelock, the company’s general manager. “But, more than that, it allows golf courses to provide a far better service to their players.”
A substantial range of well-known courses, including Bearwood Lakes, Broadstone, Royal Dornoch, Turnberry and Walton Heath have already installed the app as part of its testing process. But the most high-profile approval of all has come from the Home of Golf itself. Gordon McKie, course manager at the Old Course at St Andrews, said: “We have been working with PinPoint Golf at St Andrews Links for a few years and recently upgraded to the MyPinPoint hole location system, which we have found very simple to use. The system is reliable, user friendly and since the application is controlled through a smartphone, pin positions can be set and downloaded from anywhere on the course. This makes the greenkeeper’s life much easier.”
“Our goal is to make pin location information as common as scorecards,” said Marcus Lovelock. “Even apart from the benefits to golfers, though, the MyPinPoint app has huge potential for clubs. The app keeps a complete log of all pin locations selected since its installation. Greenkeepers have told us this will be of great benefit to them – they will be able to see immediately if certain parts of greens are being overused. The application works in both metres and yards, and so can be used off the shelf by courses anywhere in the world.”
The MyPinPoint Greenkeeper application can be purchased online at www.mypinpointgolf.com. Individuals can download the free MyPinPoint Golfer app from the Apple AppStore or Google’s Play store.