Top 5 Websites 2020
Posted: 16th February 2021 in Website design
Thinking about updating your current website but not sure where to start? You’re in the right place. We have curated a list with some of our favourite MiClub developed websites from 2020. Browse our list and explore some new ideas for your next project.
A common trend in 2020 across golf and many other industries, was the transition to online service models. Many businesses had to find ways to operate online and stay connected to their customers. Online bookings, E-commerce, and digital communication have become increasingly important to stay operational with Covid-19 health restrictions. In the current business environment, websites are essential. They enable golf clubs and courses to accept bookings, manage memberships, communicate with golfers, and much more.
Throughout 2020, we have been pleased to assist many golf clubs and courses with the development of their websites. If you are looking to enhance your online presence with a website, we hope you enjoy this breakdown of our top five website projects. Please note the websites on our list are not ranked in order. They just represent five of our favourites. If you’re wondering how we chose our list, scroll down to read our criteria for a great website.
- Glenelg Golf Club (South Australia)
- Lake Karrinyup Golf Club (Western Australia)
- Lonsdale Links (Victoria)
- Victoria Golf Club (Victoria)
- Terrey Hills Golf and Country Club (New South Wales)
Benefits of a modern website
Centralised information
Websites act as a central location to communicate business information. The information is high-quality, detailed, accessible 24/7, and easily updated.
Streamlined booking management
With a website, golf clubs and courses can efficiently manage bookings for golf, functions, accommodation, events, or private lessons.
Digital marketing capabilities
Attract golfers with high-quality content that showcases your golf course and club facilities. Website’s can be used to grow a mail list, advertise on search engines, promote events, and learn more about your customers.
Enhanced member experience (MiClub)
Create a personalised experience with a members portal. The MiClub system allows members to login and accessing golf bookings, competition results, leaderboards, player statistics, and club news.
Golf shop sales (eCommerce)
Keep your golf shop open 24/7. With an online store, golfers can purchase or pre-order products from you without having to physically enter the store. There is also opportunity to tap into a much larger online market.
Strengthens branding
As a digital extension of your golf club, a website is a prime opportunity to brand reinforce positioning and messages. The more people visit your website, the more identifiable your brand becomes.
Device accessibility
A modern website is designed for interaction on different devices like mobiles, tablets, and laptops. Having a mobile optimised website allows golfers to access your website on the go.
What makes a great website?
A lot goes into developing an impactful website. Here is our performance criteria! Every website in our top five possesses the following qualities.
Design aesthetics
The overall look and feel of a website. To achieve business goals, a website must be visually pleasing and accurately represent the brand through use of design elements. Colours, logo, images, typography, iconography, and patterns, all come together to form a digital identity that represents your golf club or course.
User-friendly (UX)
The useability of the website. A designer must analyse understand the motives of users to create a website that is incredibly easy to use. These considerations impact the structure of a website, placement of information, and overall design.
High-quality visual content
Humans are very visual creatures. What we see impacts communication, learning, and memory. Engaging images and video content is what differentiates ordinary websites from extraordinary websites.
Concise website copy
The readability of the website. Most websites primary function is information. Therefore, the written words used are a major factor in determining the quality of a website. The key to great copy is relevance of information. Copy should be clear, concise, and extremely relevant to the user and where it is placed on the website.
Optimised mobile user experience
The mobile experience of the website. On average, over 60% of people visiting your website will be viewing it on a mobile device. Therefore, a focus on the mobile experience design is extremely important for every website. If people cannot comfortably use your website on mobile devices, then you’re missing out on a lot of business.
Glenelg Golf Club
Developer: Josh Polimeno, MiClub Creative Lead
Content: Dream Team Imaging
Located in Adelaide, South Australia. Glenelg Golf Club is a premiere golfing facility ranked among Australia’s top 40. Before approaching MiClub, Glenelg realised they needed a website that reflected their outstanding facilities and rich culture. A platform to interact with members and provide hospitality information for their Pinehill bistro, weddings, conferences, and functions.
Why did Glenelg Golf Club choose to upgrade their website?
- Needed a website that accurately reflected their brand and club.
- Previous website was outdated. Almost 10 years old.
- Previous website was not mobile responsive which heavily affected usability.
What makes Glenelg a great website?
- Displays great on mobile devices.
- Anchor tags in the navigation with organised site structure.
- Outstanding members area.
- Showcases the membership categories clearly.
- Membership application form.
- Beautiful design elements consistent with brand colours.
- The content is great! Effectively showcases the world-class course and facilities.
Client feedback
“Based on the positive feedback from our Members, visitors, Committee and staff, we believe it has been a very successful project. The changeover went smoothly and there was very little downtime or issues that needed addressing once it went live.” – James Lorenz, Marketing Manager at Glenelg Golf Club
Lake Karrinyup Country Club
Developer: Verushka Ciprian, Front End Web Designer/Developer
Conent: Gary Lisbon Golf Photography
Branding: Braincells
One of Western Australia’s best private golf clubs with a far-reaching history dating back to 1927. Lake Karrinyup Country Club has an internationally renowned golf course, hosting tournaments such as the World Super 6, The Australian Open, and the Jonnie Walker Classic. The club offers private functions, weddings packages, and corporate golf events. The facilities include a restaurant, golf shop, pool, and plenty of comfortable spaces for members to relax after a round. Karrinyup needed a website that could provide members with a way to interact with the club and communicate their outstanding membership value to guests.
Lake Karrinyup Country Club’s new website separates the member experience from the guest experience. Upon entering the website, members are guided to login to a personalised portal. Members can book golf, read latest news, view competition results, personal playing statistics and much more. As a private members club, this website functionality is extremely valuable. It saves administrative resources for the club and adds value to the membership offering.
Why did Lake Karrinyup Country Club decide to update their website?
Karrinyup’s previous website was 8 years old with limited functionality. They needed a website that accurately represented the contemporary facilities of the club, inclusive community atmosphere, and membership value for potential members. Updated club branding by Braincells agency was another reason the club commissioned a new website for release in October 2020.
What makes Lake Karrinyup an excellent website?
- Personalised member experience.
- Beautiful imagery.
- Visually pleasing, minimalistic design.
- Modern branding with traditional feel.
- Clearly communicated membership options.
- Well organised function package information.
- Unique content featuring the local flora and bird-life.
- Optimised mobile experience.
Client feedback
”I just wanted to acknowledge what a great job Verushka has been doing on our website. We all really appreciate what she has done.” – Damon Lonnie, General Manager at Lake Karrinyup Country Club.
Lonsdale Links
Developer: Tom Dorozenko, Front End Web Developer
Content: AirSwing Media
Lonsdale Links is an 18-hole public access course based in Victoria. This website was built with MiClub’s classic template and coincided with the launch of Lonsdale’s rebrand. After updating their branding, the club saw the opportunity increase to awareness by updating their website and course imagery. The club was also engaged in an 18-hole course and club house redevelopment at the time. A new website was perfect to showcase these developments.
Why did Lonsdale Links decide to update their website?
- Implementing the launch of their refreshed brand identity.
- Share the redevelopment of course and clubhouse facilities.
- Previous website 6 years old and not mobile response.
What makes Lonsdale Links a stand-out website?
- The promotional video by AirSwing Media.
- The unique brand elements.
- The golf booking journey – public bookings widget.
- Optimised for portable devices.
- Members portal with categorised news, accounts information, bookings, and leaderboards.
Client feedback
“Our previous website was quite basic and hadn’t been updated for a number of years. It had lots of different pages with overlapping information, so we decided to simplify this and condense everything… We wanted a website that was clean, fresh, eye-catching and user friendly” – Allie Crosgrove, Marketing Manager at Lonsdale Links.
Victoria Golf Club
Developer: Angelo Rossi, Front End Web Developer
Content: AirSwing Media
Victoria Golf Club is a private club hailing from Australia’s famous “Melbourne Sandbelt”. The course has hosted the world’s best players for major tournaments including the Australian Open, Australian Masters, and Australian PGA. The clubhouse is a heritage listed building with twin-share accommodation rooms, luxury members lounge and hospitality facilities. Victoria came to MiClub for a mobile responsive website, that accurately represented their club and improved the quality of member communication.
Why did Victoria Golf Club choose to update their website?
- Previous website was not mobile responsive.
- To improve the overall user experience.
- To improve the quality of member communication.
What makes Victoria Golf Club a great website?
- Optimised for portable devices.
- Exceptional user experience design.
- Engaging video content by AirSwing Media.
- Organised navigation and site structure.
- Members portal with categorised news, accounts information, bookings, and leaderboards.
Terrey Hills Golf and Country Club
Developer: Josh Polimeno, MiClub Creative Lead
Content: Gary Lisbon Golf Photography
Terrey Hills Golf and Country Club is a Sydney-based private golf club, voted among the best in the state by Golf Digest. The club offers an exclusive 18-hole championship golf course and facilities for 750 members and their guests. In 2020, a new website was implemented to address outdated online content and improve their member experience. Visual content, including drone video and images, were outsourced to Gary Lisbon Golf Photography to showcase the golf course.
Why did Terrey Hills choose to update their website?
- Previous website was 10 years old.
- Lacked cohesiveness with a mix of old and new content.
- Outdated branding, copy, and images.
What makes Terrey Hills an outstanding website?
- High-quality imagery and video content by Gary Lisbon Golf Photography
- Great mobile experience.
- Concise copy throughout the website.
- Branded website design.
Client feedback
“… Patience, professionalism and creativity. I was originally a little concerned that dealing with the creative remotely in Perth might be a hurdle. But nothing could be further from the facts. Josh, MiClub’s Creative Lead, had great ideas, implemented the design efficiently and fast, didn’t push back on changes and questions and was thoroughly flawless to deal with. I believe we achieved an excellent result and the MiClub crew have probably gone above and beyond normal, but I am so grateful on the result we have all achieved.” – Rick Schweikert, Committee Member at Terrey Hills Golf and Country Club.
Looking for a new website?
MiClub has number of website packages available, from compact websites to suit small and regional clubs to custom design to suit larger clubs with a focus on something unique. If you are interested in finding out more about a miclub website for your club, please contact your MiClub account manager.
| Chris Little | Elly Hazell | Phil Laurie | Andrew Naylor |
| National Account Manager (VIC/SA/TAS) | Account Manager (NSW/ACT) | Account Manager (QLD/NT) | Account Manager (WA) |
| chris@miclub.com.au | elly@miclub.com.au | phil@miclub.com.au | andrewn@miclub.com.au |