Golf course’s new website hits Day 1 snag
Staff writer
Marion Country Club’s new website was supposed to debut Saturday but it hit a bump out of the gate. The web address, golfmarionks.com, resulted in a message that the site was unregistered.
The site was working by Monday.
Gene Winkler has been semi-retired for several years and was looking forward to the new website — one he didn’t have to maintain.
“Who knows what’s going to happen to me,” he said. “If I get hit by a truck then our website, nobody else knows anything about updating it.”
The country club’s championship was Saturday, so the course was closed to those not signed up anyway.
Remaking the site took a month and included new features like being able to pay online. Winkler thinks that will be helpful so people can pay with credit cards instead of needing cash.
Rural Hillsboro resident Mike Unruh played in Saturday’s tournament at Hillsboro Municipal Golf Course.
He didn’t see a need for Hillsboro to follow suit with online payment options but said he might not dislike a change in the future.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Unruh said. “I think it’s fine the way it’s been. Online would be fine, too. I’m not looking for a change, but that wouldn’t be bad.”
Winkler hopes Marion Country Club’s new site experiences a boost in traffic because it will be in a database with multiple other courses.
One of the changes he was looking forward to was being able to take a virtual tour.
“The guy came out with his drone and flew over the whole golf course,” Winkler said. “There’s a video on every hole, showing from the tee box clear to the green, and the pictures look really nice.”
Winkler still is able to make changes like adding to the members list but no longer has to maintain the site.
Hillsboro doesn’t have a website for its golf course, as that information is included on the city site. Making a site specific to the course would have to be decided on at a city council meeting since it is a municipal course.
“We’ve talked about doing a website but we have it on our Facebook page and on the city website,” course supervisor Gary Andrews said.