Why Your Google Business Profile Might Be Hurting Your Tee Time Sales—And What to Do About It

Golfers Are Googling You. Is Your Course Ready for What They Find?

When a golfer searches for your course on Google, they don’t always land on your website. In fact, most don’t.

Instead, they’re shown an increasingly powerful section of the search results known as the Google Knowledge Panel—an information box that includes your tee time booking button, click-to-call links, photos, reviews, and more. This panel is often fueled by your Google Business Profile, a tool that many courses create but few actively manage.

And when that profile is out of date, unverified, or incorrectly linked, the first impression your course gives off can be broken—costing you bookings, damaging your credibility, and handing control of your business to outside platforms.

While a Google Business Profile (GBP) is incredibly important for many businesses, especially local ones, it's generally not the primary driver of a Google Business Knowledge Panel for all businesses.

Here's a more nuanced explanation:

1. Google Business Profile as a Strong Contributor (Especially for Local Businesses):

• Essential for Local: For businesses with a physical location or service area, a well-maintained and verified Google Business Profile is absolutely crucial. When someone searches for a local business (e.g., "bakery near me" or "ABC Plumbing, Upper Arlington"), the information displayed in the search results and on Google Maps comes directly from their GBP. In many cases, this GBP listing functions as their "local knowledge panel." It provides the immediate, actionable information customers need (address, hours, phone, website, reviews).

• A Key Source for Google: Google does use the information from your Google Business Profile as a highly trusted source for its Knowledge Graph. If you have an accurate, complete, and active GBP, it significantly helps Google understand your business and can contribute to the information shown in a broader Knowledge Panel.

• Reviews Integration: Customer reviews from your GBP are often prominently featured in both the local GBP listing and a broader Knowledge Panel, lending credibility.

2. The Broader Scope of the Knowledge Graph and Knowledge Panels:

• Knowledge Graph is the Foundation: The Google Knowledge Panel is ultimately powered by Google's Knowledge Graph. This is a massive database of facts about entities (people, places, organizations, things) and the relationships between them. Google builds this graph by constantly crawling and analyzing information from billions of sources across the entire web.

• Multiple Authoritative Sources: For a business to get a general (non-local specific) Knowledge Panel, Google needs to find consistent and authoritative information about it from multiple, trusted sources. These sources go far beyond just a Google Business Profile. Examples include:
  • Wikipedia: Often a very strong signal for notability and a common source for the main description.
  • Wikidata: A structured data repository that Google heavily uses.
  • Official Website: The business's own website, especially "About Us" or "Contact" pages, and the use of Schema Markup (structured data) on these pages.
  • News Articles & Press Releases: Mentions in reputable news outlets.
  • Financial Databases: Sites like Crunchbase, Bloomberg, Reuters, etc., for company financials, founders, and structure.
  • Social Media Profiles: Active and consistent profiles on major platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, X, etc.).
  • Industry Directories: Reputable directories specific to the business's industry.

Why the Distinction Matters:

• Direct Control vs. Influence: You have direct, granular control over your Google Business Profile (you log in and edit it). With a Knowledge Panel, you have limited direct control. You can "claim" it if one exists and suggest edits, but Google's algorithms will still verify that information against other web sources before making changes.

• Notability: A Google Business Profile is for any legitimate business. A comprehensive Google Knowledge Panel is typically for businesses that Google deems "notable" enough to have significant, widely corroborated information about them across the web. A small, brand new business might have a great GBP, but won't necessarily trigger a full Knowledge Panel until it gains more public recognition and mentions from authoritative sources.

• Types of Searches:
  • GBP: Primarily for local searches and when people are looking for a specific business with an intent to visit or contact it.
  • Knowledge Panel: For broader, more general informational searches about a well-known entity.

Think of your Google Business Profile as a vital piece of the puzzle, especially for local presence. It feeds crucial, verified data into Google's understanding of your business. However, for a business to appear with a comprehensive Google Business Knowledge Panel (the one that pops up for major brands or public figures), it requires a more robust and widespread digital footprint, with consistent and authoritative information across many different sources on the web, which Google's Knowledge Graph then synthesizes.

So, while GBP data is certainly a significant input, it's part of a much larger web of information that the Knowledge Graph uses to build a complete picture of an entity.

smbGOLF Scores and Tracks Over 12,000 Golf Courses—With Context That Matters

At smbGOLF, we maintain a living database of Google Business Profile information for more than 12,000 golf courses in North America. But we don’t just track this data—we score it.

Each course is evaluated across 10 detailed performance indicators, including:

• Booking button accuracy and destination
• Review volume and freshness
• Business verification status
• Use of subtypes and categories
• Image volume
• Profile completeness
• And more

But what makes the smbGOLF scoring different is that it’s contextualized.

Rather than assign flat grades, we calculate a course’s likelihood of outperforming others in search by comparing it to:

• Other golf courses in the same state
• Courses in the same county, metro area, or even ZIP code
• Courses of the same type (public vs. private)

That last point is important. We separate private clubs and country clubs from public golf courses to ensure fair, apples-to-apples evaluation. A semi-private course in a suburban market shouldn’t be scored the same way as a daily fee muni or a top-100 private club. We’ve built our scoring to reflect that nuance.

The Booking Button Problem Is Real—and Costly

Our analysis has uncovered dozens of cases where the booking link on a course’s profile:

• Leads to a 404 error
• Points to a vendor the course no longer uses
• Sends traffic to GolfNow, Supreme Golf, or another third party, even though the course prefers to take bookings direct
• Is simply missing altogether

In one case, a course owner told us he had asked his vendor multiple times to correct the issue. It was temporarily fixed—only to be broken again when stale data was re-submitted to Google. And here’s the worst part: Google holds the vendor accountable for fixing these errors, but if they resubmit bad data, the course has to start over.

This broken loop isn’t just frustrating—it leads to missed revenue and golfer confusion.

AI Is Changing How Golfers Discover You

The rise of AI-powered search assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude means golfers aren’t just searching “courses near me” anymore. They’re asking:

• “What’s the most underrated course in central Ohio?”
• “Where can I play 18 with a cart for under $60 this weekend?”
• “What courses are beginner-friendly in Louisville?”

In a recent Tech Caddie podcast, Zack Enriquez from Par 6 Media explained how AI platforms use patterns—repeated phrases, consistent reviews, fresh photos, and locally relevant content—to decide which courses to recommend.

And your Google Business Profile plays a starring role in that process.

“In 2025, reviews are digital word of mouth.”
— Zack Enriquez, Par 6 Media

Your profile needs to be accurate, fresh, and filled with real customer feedback. Google and AI engines notice when:

• You respond to reviews
• You have recent photos
• Your business hours are correct
• You include local amenities like “driving range,” “restaurant,” or “indoor golf”

All of these signals add up—and determine whether your course surfaces in search.

smbGOLF Has Built the Fix

That’s why we created our Google Business Profile Optimization Service for golf courses.

🔧 For $395/year, we:

• Score your profile against 10 proven data points
• Compare your course to relevant local competitors
• Fix errors once you add us as a Business Manager
• Suppress third-party booking links if possible
• Keep your profile updated monthly with fresh insights

📊 Ohio courses that join the OGCOA get this service free as part of their membership.

💬 For those looking to go further, we also offer:

• Review Response Management: $995/year
• Meta and SEO cleanup for your website
• Consulting calls to help future-proof your search presence

Don’t Wait Until You're Invisible

Too many golf courses have quietly fallen behind in local search—despite offering a great product. It's not because they stopped caring. It's because this stuff keeps changing, and no one has the time to babysit their Google listing. And the numbers back this up. In 2024, when Quick18 launched its Reserve with Google integration, booking data across hundreds of golf course sites showed that:

• 12.49% of RwG visitors completed a booking—higher than direct, referral, or organic traffic.
• RwG outperformed referral traffic by nearly 7%—because golfers could book without needing to visit the course website first.

Golfers are taking action on Google. The only question is whether your course is ready to capture that action—or letting it slip away.

That’s where we come in.

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📅 Or book a 15-minute consultation to review your course’s profile

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