How can a golf club get noticed by AI assistants?

Question.marketing card reading "Will AI Assistants Recommend Your Golf Club?" with the line "Simon Young in The Golf Business".

This piece first appeared in The Golf Business, the UK trade magazine for golf club managers, on 1 November 2026. What follows is my summary with a few short excerpts. The full article, as edited and published by The Golf Business, is here: How can a golf club get noticed by AI assistants? (The Golf Business). My thanks to the editor, Alistair Dunsmuir, for running it.

Why I wrote it

In June, The Golf Business reported on a study by AI Score that tested four UK multi-site golf operators with realistic golfer prompts on ChatGPT and Perplexity. The same club could be missing on one assistant and listed on the other. St Mellion Estate, for example, did not appear on Perplexity for "best golf club in Cornwall", while ChatGPT listed it with an accurate, positive description.

For a club manager, the lesson is that there is no single AI ranking to check. I work in answer engine optimisation (AEO) and I am not in the golf industry, so I wrote it from the outside in, and tried to be clear about what is established and what is still evolving.

What is established

Answers differ between assistants and between prompts. That means:

"one prompt run is an anecdote, not evidence." (Simon Young, The Golf Business, 1 November 2026)

My second point was that an assistant can only pass on what it can find. Visitor rules locked in a PDF, or membership details that say one thing on the website and another on a booking platform, leave it with little it can repeat reliably. My third was that nobody can promise a club a place in the answers, because none of the major assistants publishes exactly how it picks which clubs to name.

How to monitor

Question.marketing card reading "Ask the Same Questions Every Month." with the line "Log what each assistant says about your club".

I suggested a simple routine. Write down a handful of questions golfers really ask (the club office will know the real ones), covering things like visitor rounds, beginners, society days and membership. Ask the same questions of more than one assistant once a month, and keep a log: the date, which assistant, whether the club came up, where it came up and what was said, including anything wrong. A few months of that gives you a trend you can act on.

What to publish

Question.marketing card reading "Specific Detail Beats Adjectives." with the line "Days, times and how to book".

My suggestion was a single, plain page, dated and written by the club, that sets out the basics a golfer asks about: the course, booking for visitors and societies, guidance on green fees, practice facilities, membership categories, dress code and the clubhouse. Whatever it says should match the club's listings and booking platforms.

"Specific detail beats adjectives. 'Welcoming' is easy to say and hard to repeat with confidence." (Simon Young, The Golf Business, 1 November 2026)

A visitor policy that gives days, times and the way to book is the kind of thing an answer engine can pass on with confidence.

What is still evolving

Some things are still moving. Nobody outside the assistants knows how each one balances a club's own website against reviews, press coverage, directories and booking platforms, and that balance changes. A study of four operators is useful to start from, but it is not a rule. Most clubs will also struggle, for now, to tell how many enquiries come from AI assistants rather than from Google.

What to realistically expect

Clear and consistent information gives any assistant a better chance of describing a club accurately. It does not guarantee a recommendation, and any change may take weeks or months to appear, or may not appear at all.

"The honest measure is the monthly log: is your club appearing more often, and is what is said about it right?" (Simon Young, The Golf Business, 1 November 2026)

Key takeaways

The thread running through the piece is that a club cannot control what an assistant says, but it can control what there is to find, and it can watch what comes back over time.

There is no single AI ranking. Check more than one assistant.
One check is an anecdote. A monthly log of the same questions is a trend.
Publish one plain, dated page with the facts golfers ask about, consistent with your listings.
Specific detail (days, times, how to book) is easier for an assistant to repeat than adjectives.
Nobody can guarantee placement, and results may take weeks or months, if they come at all.

FAQ

Is there a single AI ranking a golf club can check? No. A study reported by The Golf Business in June found the same club could be missing on Perplexity and listed on ChatGPT for the same question. Answers differ between assistants and between prompts.

How should a golf club monitor what AI assistants say about it? Pick a fixed set of real golfer questions and run them once a month on more than one assistant. Log the date, the assistant, whether the club appears, where, and what is said, and note anything inaccurate. After a few months you have a trend worth acting on.

What should a golf club publish to help AI assistants describe it? One plain, dated page in the club's own words covering the course, how visitors and societies book, green fee guidance, practice facilities, membership categories, dress code and the clubhouse, kept consistent with listings and booking platforms. Specific detail, such as days, times and how to book, is easier for an assistant to repeat than adjectives.

Can a golf club guarantee an AI assistant will recommend it? No. None of the major assistants publishes exactly how it chooses which clubs to name, and changes may take weeks or months to show, if they show at all. The honest measure is whether the club appears more often in the monthly log, and whether what is said is right.

This is a summary of an article first published by The Golf Business. Read the original on The Golf Business