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Fairway vs Lightspeed Golf

Tee sheet + POS + payments$295–$800/mo (estimated; not published)

Probably the best point of sale in golf, wrapped around a strong tee sheet. Excellent at what it does; the economics live in payment processing.

The short version
Choose Lightspeed Golf when

Retail and food-and-beverage matter to your revenue and you want the strongest POS available.

Choose Fairway when

The crew, the schedule and the machines are what you can't see clearly. Run both — they don't conflict.

01Where Lightspeed Golf beats us

This section is first on purpose. If one of these is the thing you actually need, buying Lightspeed Golf is the correct decision and we'd rather you made it than churned in four months.

  • Point of sale — genuinely best-in-category, with real retail depth, inventory and hardware. We don't have a till at all.

  • Tee sheet, online booking and the golfer-facing booking experience: a stranger can find a time and pay for it without ever speaking to your shop, which is something we simply don't do.

  • Payment terminals, receipt printers and the physical side of taking money at a counter — none of which we sell or support.

  • Reporting on rounds, revenue and retail performance, built by people who have watched a lot of pro shops.

  • Food and beverage service with the till behind it, rather than the kitchen ticket rail we offer.

02Where we'd argue we're the better fit

Almost all of this is the same thing said several ways: the maintenance operation is the product here, not a module inside something else.

  • The entire maintenance and labor side.

  • Transparent platform fees with a published cap, rather than economics that mostly live in the processing rate.

  • A product the maintenance crew opens daily, not just the counter staff.

03Row by row

Fairway and Lightspeed Golf, side by side.

 
Fairway
Lightspeed Golf
Price published on the website
Money
Four tiers, all numbers, no form
Quote only
A free tier that isn't a trial
Money
Up to 12 crew, forever
Month-to-month, no contract year
Money
Usually annual or multi-year
Fits a municipal parks budget
Money
Crew & shift scheduling
Maintenance & labor
The core of the product
Job board with photo proof
Maintenance & labor
Geofenced time clock
Maintenance & labor
Equipment & service log
Maintenance & labor
Certification expiry tracking
Maintenance & labor
Blocks unlicensed spray assignment
Spray records & re-entry timers
Maintenance & labor
Course map with operational layers
Maintenance & labor
GPS on carts, member-facing
Tee sheet & booking
Front of house
Real sheet for members and the pro shop. No public online booking, no dynamic pricing, no GolfNow
Genuinely excellent
Point of sale & inventory
Front of house
A reader can settle an invoice at the counter, and members order to the turn. No till, no drawer, no inventory
Best in the category
Member dues & statements
Front of house
Plans that bill on a schedule, invoices, aging, card payment. No stored-card autopay, no minimums
Member portal in your club's colours
Front of house
Your name, your mark, one line of ours at the foot
Events & tournament sign-ups
Front of house
Capacity, waitlists, guests
Food & drink ordered from the course
Front of house
A kitchen ticket rail, not a POS
With the till behind it
Handicap index on the member's record
Front of house
Typed in from GHIN by a person. No automatic sync — the USGA licence is the club's
Full club accounting / GL
Front of house
Not attempted. Use your accountant's system
Live in a morning
Getting in & out
Weeks to a quarter
Self-serve full data export
Getting in & out
One click, no support ticket
Usually via support
Open API and signed webhooks
Getting in & out
Scoped keys you make yourself, in about ten seconds
Usually a paid integration project
Calendar feed of your own shifts
Getting in & out
An .ics link for Apple, Google or Outlook
Imports a photo of the whiteboard
Getting in & out
Needs the AI helper connected
Works on the crew's own phones
Fit
Member app, yes; crew app, no
Shared labor pool with nearby courses
Fit
Nobody else offers this
Several courses from one login
Fit
Championship tier — a switcher and a rollup across every property
Single sign-on with your own directory
Getting in & out
Championship tier — OpenID Connect, token signatures verified
Payroll-shaped export from the clock
Maintenance & labor
CSV with overtime split out, and every punch behind it
Built for a private club with 800 members
Fit
It'll work. It isn't who we designed for

Assessed August 2026 from public product documentation, published reviews and reseller material. Where we couldn't verify a capability we've marked it partial rather than claiming it's absent. Corrections welcome.

04What you'd actually be using

This is the screen your crew opens.

Not a marketing render — the real job board, at the real size, on a Tuesday. You can open the same thing in the demo without giving us an email address.

Cost of finding out

Groundskeeper is $0 for a crew of up to 12, indefinitely, with no card. Whatever you conclude about Lightspeed Golf, evaluating this one costs you a morning and nothing else.

Tuesday · 15 August

Job board

64°FNW 14
+ Add job
11open
4in progress
3done
1 weather hold14h 25m planned
Greens & Tees05:15
Mow greens — front nine
Holes 1–9·95m·5/5 checks
MO
Mow greens — back nine
Holes 10–18·95m·5/5 checks
KO
Change cups & tee markers
All 18·75m
AB
Roll greens 1–9
Holes 1–9·60m·3/6 checks
TD
Verticut practice green
Practice Green·50m
JL
Fairways & Rough05:45
Mow fairways — 10 through 18
Back nine·180m·6/9 checks
PR
Spray fairways — preventative fungicide
Holes 4, 8, 15·150m
Wind 14 mph — hold
RV
Mow approaches & collars
Front nine·110m
DM
Trim around creek crossing
Hole 12 native·65m
IK
Detail & Bunkers05:45
Rake bunkers — north complex
Holes 6, 7, 11·90m·1/4 checks
WT
Edge bunker lips 6, 7, 11
North complex·120m
HG
Divot mix — range tee
Range Tee·40m
SO
Blow debris off cart paths
Clubhouse loop·55m
RF
Irrigation & Shop05:45
Repair head 42 — zone 4 short cycle
Pump house·90m·2/5 checks
KO
Hand-water hot spots 4 & 16
Holes 4, 16·45m
DM
Job board — the demo course, today