Tweets join birdies as social media take hold on golf

Aiming to facilitate the newer style of “conversations”, Silicon Valley-based Allsquaregolf.com, a social network for golfers, is being trialled in Scotland and due to launch in the US in the autumn. It has agreed a partnership with the Scottish Golf Union, which is urging the country’s 576 golf clubs to “go social” and promote themselves to international visitors before the Ryder Cup, at Gleneagles on September 26-28.

The site has 500 courses fully registered. It works like a Facebook for golf, where clubs and individuals have their own personal page on which they can write posts, upload pictures and videos including a Rate My Swing feature, show what equipment they use and display the courses they have played by clicking on a map. Users can book a round at clubs registered on the site and “check-in’ when they arrive, so letting others users know the course they are playing.

Co-founder Patrick Rahme, a former national golf champion of Luxembourg, hopes to integrate so-called “core golfers” – those who play a round twice or more a month – and golf clubs as well as players and associations in the professional game in a worldwide golfing network.

“Ninety per cent of beginners give up the game after two years due to lack of integration with core golfers,” Rahme says. “All golfers around the world will now be able to integrate in a global extension of the clubhouse.”

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