It’s been nearly two decades since TeeTime Golf Pass last published Clubhouse Golf Guide. Back then, the annual publications were printed on newsprint and distributed regionally at courses, practice ranges and local golf retail shops. It was our way of highlighting and promoting many of the facilities that participated in our popular passbooks.
Similar to what a lot of newspapers and magazines experienced, Clubhouse Golf Guide — which had been published every year since TeeTime Golf Pass debuted in 1992 — became less of a necessity and more of a burden by the mid-2000s. Folks just weren’t reading print media as much, due primarily to the internet. It became easier and quicker for golfers to visit a course’s website to get the information they needed. Clubhouse Golf Guide, in our estimation, had become obsolete.
TeeTime Golf Pass has grown and expanded significantly since our last Clubhouse Golf Guide. We now partner with nearly 1,000 golf courses in 14 states and produce five regional passbooks that cover the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Upper Midwest, Lower Midwest and Northeast. Our passbooks are also now available digitally, as well. It would seem our decision to get out of the golf magazine business was the right one.
Or was it?
Much of the success we enjoy today as a company is owed to the roots we established “back in the day” when Clubhouse Golf Guide was one of our primary marketing tools. In fact, I’d be willing to bet many of you reading this still remember picking up copies of the print magazine at your favorite TeeTime-affiliated course. In truth, our decision to bring back Clubhouse Golf Guide this year in a digital flip book format has very little to do with promoting/advertising our passbooks and everything to do with a nostalgic desire to shine light on a sampling of the fantastic golf courses that participate with us. And keeping it real, we’re also convinced we can do a much better job at writing course feature reviews than some heartless, AI-generated software program.
We hope you enjoy this reincarnation of Clubhouse Golf Guide powered by TeeTime Golf Pass. With any luck and if the machines don’t take over, we are committed to making it an annual publication again. And while you won’t have to worry about getting ink stains on your hands like before, we believe you, too, will appreciate our “old school” approach to celebrating the game we all love so much.
Bud Key, Publisher
Clubhouse Golf Guide
