What to look for in a tee time alert app
Golf tee-time alerting is a crowded, uneven category. Before you hand a course watch to any app — ours included — here is what is worth checking, and where we have drawn our own lines.
The category has a reliability problem
Search app-store reviews for almost any tee-time alert app and a pattern shows up: apps that stop letting people create new alerts, apps whose developer has gone quiet, subscriptions with no obvious way to cancel. That is not a knock on any one product — it is a real, checkable pattern across the category, and it is worth knowing before you trust a course watch to any of them.
What we do differently
- We publish how we behave on other people’s systems. The Fair Use Credo is on-site, in plain language, not a line buried in terms nobody reads.
- We only read — you book. There is a structural block in our code against ever reaching a checkout or payment page. We hold no money, no card details, and not your course password.
- We don’t sneak. A real, consistent identity on every request — no spoofing, no rotating addresses, no solving CAPTCHAs. If a course wants to shut us off, it can. Being blockable is the deal.
- We say what we actually cover, not what we would like to. A page that leads to “we don’t watch this one” is a broken promise, so we don’t write one.
What we won’t do
We won’t tell you a tee time opened “in real time” — we tell you the moment our recon spots it, which is the honest version of that claim. We won’t promise you’ll get the time; somebody else may be faster, and that is a race we help you win rather than one we can fix. And we won’t claim coverage, ratings, or a track record we don’t have.
Frequently asked
Does Birdie Recon guarantee I’ll get the tee time?
No. Nobody can. We don’t control the tee sheet and we don’t influence who books what — we tell you the moment our recon spots an opening, and it’s a race from there.
Does Birdie Recon book the tee time automatically?
No. We alert; you book, on the course’s own site, at the course’s own price. There is a structural block in our code against reaching any checkout or payment page.
What courses does Birdie Recon actually watch?
The nine NYC municipal courses and six Chicago Park District courses. We’re checking those tee sheets now, though alerts aren’t going out yet. The list is only the have genuinely built and shipped a watch for. We don’t list coverage we don’t have, and we say so plainly rather than let a page imply otherwise.
Is Birdie Recon’s behaviour on other sites published anywhere?
Yes — the Fair Use Credo, in plain language, not buried in terms: what we check, how often, and the line between reading a tee sheet and acting on your account.
Birdie Recon is watching courses now — alerts aren’t going out yet, so set a watch up and it’s ready the day they start. See where things stand, or mail us if you want to hear when recon starts flying. Or read the full Fair Use Credo.