Bethpage adjustment reservation system to fight my bots

Signs directly in front of the Bethpage State Park club greets the players with a bold announcement.

“The People’s Country Club. “

It is an attractive premise, and Bethpage has lived up to it for most of its 90 years, donating public golf players of the Long Island Utopia, world -class Long Island club. But in recent years, reality has been a little bolder.

like Not being paved ‘S Kevin van Valkenburg Reported for the first time in a January investigative podcast, the essential values ​​of Bethpage of Bethpage’s access and capital have been tested in the digital era, as the public course reservation system appears to have been bombed with illegal “bots” built to mark in front of the masses.

A Bethpage time is a coveted price for obvious reasons. Black coursewho will host the Ryder Cup in September, remains the Jewel of the Times access crown in the Metro New York area. on 80 dollars in peak seasonIt is also more affordable. The four remaining park courses are nowhere near so famous, but with nearly $ 50 per player, they represent a convincing value.

The problem is that access to a time in the most prestigious New York Golf course seems to have fallen into the hands of a smaller group of improper actors. When the Times of the Times of the park goes directly to its internet booking at 6 pm every day for 7 days ago, they are swallowed immediately. When cancellations are re-entered into the reservation system, they are abducted just as fast.

The source of the problem seems to be the practice of “Time Time Agriculture”, where online software programs, or “bots”, select Tee Times immediately, making regular players with regular computers.

Now, however, the state seems to be fighting again. On Saturday afternoon, Bethpage State Park sent a letter to all registered players informing them of a series of changes to the park reservation system aiming to cut my bots and restore capital in the reservation process.

According to the letter, the state will start uploading an irreversible $ 5 reservation fee for each time reserved on the website, reduce the number of canceled per month for acceptable account, and introduce a $ 15 “fee without display” for those who do a good time but do not reach it for it.

Some players have criticized the changes as they do not go far enough to fix the bot problem. The best way to ensure that people do not cancel their time, have suggested critics is to force those who buy a great deal of time to pay the full amount of their bill at the time of reservation – or make fines and penalties for those who cancel. By comparison, a $ 5 and $ 15 reservation fee without display is more of a rapid collision than a complete wall protection wall against illegal website use.

“This changed … Nothing?” Wrote an account named Nik Bando. “Phantom Band-Aid.”

However, it seems clear that the bot is getting a bigger emphasis on Bethpage while the park prepares for its attention of Ryder Cup in September. For years, demand has exceeded the supply to the black course, and this is expected to increase only in the pre -(and subsequent) Cup.

The road to rescuing the online booking may still be far away, but after Saturday, it seems that things at the people’s club club are in tend … far from the bots.

(You can – and should – listen to the full kVV Undoing Podcast about the Tee Times issue below.)

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