TrackMan vs Uneekor vs Foresight for Commercial Golf Venues

TL;DR

ForeFront Simulator Solutions founder Cliff Stevens says TrackMan and GolfZon are the two platforms with fully integrated business management, covering door access, bay management and tournaments, which makes them the natural starting point for a commercial venue. Uneekor, Foresight and ProTee VX paired with GSPro deliver accurate data and a strong playing experience at a much lower cost. A commercial TrackMan runs about $24,000 per unit against about $8,000 for a Uneekor EYE XO.

• Cliff Stevens identifies TrackMan and GolfZon as the two systems with a fully integrated business management platform, which matters most for a bar or lounge.
• TrackMan’s commercial tools include door access, bay management, QR code check-in that loads a player’s profile and shot history, and leagues and tournaments run inside the software.
• Uneekor, Foresight and ProTee VX all provide accurate data and pair with GSPro, which offers about 2,800 courses, but operators must layer on separate management software.
• A commercial TrackMan retails around $24,000, Foresight around $12,000 to $14,000, and a Uneekor EYE XO about $8,000.
• On a six-bay facility, ongoing costs run about $3,000 a year with Uneekor and GSPro versus closer to $7,000 with TrackMan, plus TrackMan’s fees on credit card transactions.
• Stevens frames the choice as a trade-off: you either pay for management in the platform or pay staff to handle it manually.

What matters most in a commercial golf simulator system?

Cliff Stevens: It becomes so much more relevant in this space. In a residential space, all you’re really thinking about is, I want to get good data about my ball flight and improve as a golfer. I want to play fun courses. In the commercial space, there’s so much more to think about.

Some of our customers want to create more of an autonomous facility. As a customer, they can book online. They can create their membership and pay their membership dues online. They can book a bay, which then gives them a door access code to get in at the appropriate time. At ForeFront, we’re actually building some of the software ourselves as well to help our commercial clients, where it’s bay management and opening up the bay and turning it on to the right things and simplifying that for the customer.

It’s everything you’ve got to think of from the customer’s perspective of membership, booking, door access, simulator bay access, management of that bay during and after their round. Some of the launch monitor and golf simulator software providers are better at the commercial space than others. Uneekor, GSPro or Foresight don’t have as many tools and features that are focused on the commercial side of the business as the others.

For example, TrackMan, there’s others, but they’re pretty far and away at the top when it comes to commercial management of a simulator environment. They have door access. They have bay management. Customer scans a QR code when they get to the bay. It loads their profile. It has all their previous shots and data of their rounds. You can run leagues and tournaments directly within the software. The customers just show up and use them.

Our customers that don’t use that, if they want to go run a tournament, they’ve got to have some way to manage it. Maybe they get a Golf Genius or a spreadsheet. And then when the customer shows up, they’ve got to go in, log the customer in, create their name, make sure they set up the round with all the right settings, because it’s not fair that that guy got to play from the red tees while the others play from the blues if some of these have money on them.

That’s stuff we help you through from day one. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to accomplish. Does my budget support one of these platforms? Because it’s a trade-off. You’re either going to pay for it in the platform, or you as a business owner are going to have to manage that on the day to day yourself or your employees. You’re either paying for the software that helps you do it, or you’re paying people to go do that manually.

There’s a whole suite of software tools that help manage some of these things. TrackMan has it built in, or you can get some of these other providers that don’t, and then you supplement it with software. Now we’re going through a software selection process, which can be really complicated, and you’ve got to think through a lot of details. We’re here to help through all of that as you go down that journey.

Which golf simulators include built-in business management?

Cliff Stevens: It’s a super complex topic. We probably have a whole session just on this. The first thing I’d look at is the management of the business. How central to managing your business is that golf launch monitor hardware and software? How does it help you run your business? There’s two in the market that have a fully integrated business management platform associated with them: TrackMan and GolfZon. If you think commercial, you’re starting to think about them from the beginning, especially if you’re talking about a bar or lounge.

Then you’ve got things like Uneekor, ProTee VX, Foresight, others that are more just about playing golf, enjoying the experience, and they don’t layer in that added business management within the tool. Good news for those is there are software providers out there that are trying to address that gap in the market. In that case, you’re layering in software on top of the platform. But it’s not going to work as natively or as easily. You’ve got to have some integrations. It puts more pressure on your staff and your customers to manage it.

Are Uneekor, Foresight and GSPro good enough for commercial venues?

Cliff Stevens: As far as accuracy, they all provide really good accuracy. What customers really care about is, is it going to measure my shots correctly? Do I trust it? Can I play fun golf courses? And they all provide that. If you’re looking at Foresight, Uneekor, ProTee VX is probably a good bucket, they all pair really nicely with software called GSPro. You’ve got really accurate data from the launch monitor. You’re playing courses or online tournaments in GSPro on 2,800 or so courses as of today.

But in this scenario, you’re working across two platforms. In the Uneekor example, you have the Uneekor and GSPro, and they have integration between them to let you play golf courses on GSPro. In a commercial setting, that feels a little more disconnected. It feels more consumer or residentially focused. We have customers that do that all the time, and they have a thriving business. Customers love it.

But going to a GolfZon or a TrackMan, it’s one integrated experience, one piece of software. You click one button, everything opens. You run your tournaments all within it. The business management experience can be better in those platforms, as well as the playing experience for somebody that may not be using it every day in their home. They may not know how to click all the buttons.

How much more does TrackMan cost than Uneekor or Foresight?

Cliff Stevens: Usually a premium, smoother experience, you’re going to pay more for. Hard numbers: the commercial version of a TrackMan retails somewhere in the $24,000 range. A Uneekor EYE XO, which is a great product, is about $8,000. You’ve got about a $15,000 difference just on the launch monitor. If you’re building a five or six bay facility, you’re starting to talk about real money between those two things. I understand why a lot of more independent commercial facilities are going to go with a Uneekor, because the startup costs are way cheaper.

Additionally, the ongoing costs are very different. TrackMan, in round numbers, is somewhere in the $1,100 a year per bay. And they also add on fees to your credit card transactions that flow through it. It can be reasonably expensive if all of your POS is going through there and you’re getting 3% credit card fees plus their negotiated fee on top. A six bay facility, you’re talking about $6,000 or $7,000 a year in fees plus your credit card add-on.

Whereas Uneekor paired with GSPro in a commercial facility is $450 a year. And then you add in some of these other management software, call it $100 a month. But that’s for the whole facility. On a six bay facility with Uneekor and GSPro, you’re spending, call it, $3,000 a year. With TrackMan, you’re spending probably closer to $7,000. There’s a big difference on the upfront cost as well as the ongoing cost.

Foresight’s a little more. They’ve got a couple different products, but Foresight might be $12,000 to $14,000 versus $8,000 for the Uneekor, with TrackMan being $24,000. Pretty big spread there.

Edited for length and clarity from a recorded conversation with Cliff Stevens.