Four golf industry innovators have partnered to create the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB), a directory of golf course information designed for businesses that need unrestricted access to complete, high quality information about the ~20,000 golf courses in the United States and Canada.
Apparation LLC founder Mike Dickoff, who previously founded and managed a software subsidiary of Accenture that fueled the proliferation of low-cost airlines, said, “When I entered the golf industry, I was surprised that certain basic infrastructure was missing, incomplete or trapped in proprietary products. The IGDB partnership is filling one of those gaps by providing a complete, accurate, transparent, usable and extensible directory of golf courses.”
Pellucid Corp. President Jim Koppenhaver comments, “The multiple industry sources for facility data that we’ve used over the years have proven to be inconsistent and have often disappointed on quality of facts and update timeliness. In addition, we need unconstrained use of the basic data, which today’s solutions don’t allow. The IGDB consortium and product addresses these current limitations for our purposes as well as the needs of the general industry relating to facility data.”
GolfCourseRanking.com founder, Bob Kennedy Commander, USN, Retired, served as the Theater Intelligence Production Manager on General Schwarzkopf’s Desert Storm staff. Kennedy says, “Maintaining course data is much like maintaining target folders. We need to get the data correct and then apply processes and procedures to monitor and revisit and update changes when noted. The IGDB partnership brings a full range of skills and assets to the table to make this work, including independently developed data, sophisticated software, and full time dedicated manpower.”
Never-Search, Inc. founder Keith Kreft, former VP of Engineering for a division of Snap-on Tools, has applied the experience gained leading the development of Snap-on’s most successful line of information-based, hand-held diagnostic products to develop the golf industry’s most cost-effective, sales-lead contact tools. Kreft notes that, “We can now focus more resources on improving our value-added data products, as IGDB provides a reliable core of golf facility information that seamlessly integrates with our proprietary data.”
Those wanting to learn more about the IGDB can contact one of the founding partners or submit a data request at www.theigdb.com.
About the IGDB Founders
Pellucid Corp. (www.pellucidcorp.com) is the recognized industry thought leader for key issue identification, intelligent analysis and actionable insight. Pellucid provides a wide variety of proprietary reports, data services and consulting services to golf industry operators and suppliers.
Never-Search, Inc. (www.never-search.com) sells the Never-Search for Golf travel planning software – an updateable, PC-based map, showing the exact location of every golf course in the US. Golf sales reps use the verified locations and optimized routing feature to squeeze in two extra calls a day, typically a 50% increase in productivity. The company also has an extensive database of US and Canadian golf course business contacts, all categorized by position at the course, which is used to build custom, filtered, business contact lists based on position of responsibility.
GolfCourseRanking.com‘s mission is to provide golfers with unbiased evaluations of golf courses made by other golfers who have paid to play at the course they review.
Apparation LLC (www.apparationllc.com) is a G3 company… obsessed with helping to Grow the Game of Golf. Apparation designs and builds easy-to-use software that connects golfers with opportunities to play, partners with industry innovators to provide great membership experiences for golfers and develops analytical tools that help golf course operators and golf industry consultants gain new insights that help them to be more successful.
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