Junior Golf Hub (JGH) is the premier platform for connecting up-and-coming collegiate golfers with their ‘best fit’ university program. Digital Mettle has had the privilege of being a long term strategic partner for JGH, and has been integral to the system’s development from an idea to the robust platform it is today.
Goals
- Design and build a database and service to support junior golfers in creating a complete, verified, and robust online ‘golf resume’.
- Design and build a database of information about US colleges and their men’s and women’s golf programs.
- Allow junior golfers to search the database of colleges for a ‘best fit’.
- Allow college coaches to search the database of junior golfers for candidates for their program.
- Facilitate communications between junior golfers and college coaches for recruitment purposes.
Approach
- Provide strategic guidance and work iteratively with founding entrepreneur to turn the vision into systems documentation and specifications.
- Build a fully working prototype to prove out the concept and support building the business around a shared vision.
- Leverage and scale the work done in the prototype to produce a commercial grade system.
- Create a collaborative development methodology and culture to support future growth with minimal disruption.
Technology
- .NET Core
- Ionic
- Angular
- Azure SQL Server
- Azure Blob Storage
- Azure DevOps
Results
Development of the premiere system of its kind
Thousands of junior golfer profiles in the database
Thousands of college golf programs in the database
Data integration partnerships with Hurricane Golf Tour, PGA, and others
A multi-year expansion road map building from the existing platform
Starting from an Idea
Roger Knick, a Sports Performance Specialist/ Entrepreneur, has spent his entire 20+ year career developing and refining his knowledge and practical application of coaching. In 2015, Roger approached Digital Mettle with a challenge – help him build an online service that would assist junior golfers in finding the collegiate golf program best suited for them, and assist college golf coaches in finding the junior golfers best suited for their programs. Digital Mettle worked directly with Roger to take his ideas and vision and, within a few months, developed a fully functional system to get him to the next step. This process included many white-board sessions, reviews of spreadsheets and notes, and “what-if” discussions. Through many iterations, Digital Mettle produced functional and technical specifications, got Roger’s sign-off, and got to work.
From Prototype to Production
Once the prototype and business model had been completed and proven, JGH completed building out its business team of executives, product owners, and support staff. As this team established its own set of requirements and features, Digital Mettle was instrumental in not only building version 2, but also for creating a long-term technology strategy and implementing it, including: support for native mobile device capabilities, source control, agile processes, change management, version control, CI/CD, etc. The result of this second development phase was a robust, highly scalable, and highly manageable application, ready for mass consumption. The system is in use by thousands of golfers, sits on top of a highly complex but nimble database, and shares information with JGH partners and 3rd party systems such as the Hurricane Golf Tour and the PGA.
Helping JGH Grow
As it has grown, JGH has brought more technical capabilities onboard to their in-house team, including a CTO, an Application Architect, and a Visual Designer. In each case, Digital Mettle has supported this effort by helping these employees get up to speed ad contributing quickly. We continue to work collaboratively with them through daily communications and shared projects and tasks. Our teams now complement each other and strive to achieve the common goals set by JGH management.
Into the Future
JGH has aggressive plans to expand their system to support the operations of golf instructors, golf academies, and PGA professionals within a year. The system is expanding beyond a profile and resume system for golfers to be an indispensable tool for golf instruction and learning. Digital Mettle continues to increase its capacity for serving JGH in parallel with their internal growth.