Alright, so I figured I’d jot down my experience tackling this “quint valley golf club” thing. It was a bit of a ride, not gonna lie.
The Setup: Basically, a buddy of mine wanted a website for his, well, you guessed it, golf club. He’s not exactly tech-savvy, so I volunteered (maybe a little too eagerly) to help him out. He had a domain already, which was a small win.
First Hurdle: Choosing a Platform. I initially thought about coding it from scratch. I’ve done HTML/CSS before, but quickly realized I didn’t have the time or patience to build something polished and responsive. Plus, he needed to be able to update it himself, adding events, scores, etc. So, CMS it was.
I bounced between WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. WordPress is powerful, but can be a pain to set up and maintain. Wix felt a little too drag-and-drop, limiting the design. Squarespace seemed like a good middle ground – clean templates, relatively easy to use, and good for showcasing images (important for a golf club!). I ended up going with Squarespace.
Template Selection and Customization: Squarespace has a bunch of templates. I spent a good couple of hours just browsing. I finally picked one that had a good layout for showcasing images of the course and a clear structure for events and membership info. The real work started here.
I swapped out the placeholder images with actual photos of the golf course. This immediately made the site look 10x better. Then came the fun part (sort of) – tweaking the colors and fonts to match the club’s branding. This involved a lot of back-and-forth with my buddy, who had very specific (and sometimes conflicting) ideas.
Content is King (or at Least Important): My buddy provided the text for the “About Us,” “Membership,” and “Contact” pages. I mostly just copy-pasted and formatted it. The real challenge was the “Events” section. He wanted a calendar that showed upcoming tournaments, clinics, and social gatherings. Squarespace has a built-in calendar block, which was helpful, but I had to manually input all the events and make sure they displayed correctly on different devices.
The Booking System Saga: This was probably the most complicated part. My buddy wanted people to be able to book tee times online. Squarespace doesn’t have a native booking system that’s perfect for this. I looked at some third-party integrations, but they were either too expensive or too clunky. We ended up going with a simple solution: a contact form that sends an email to the club’s pro shop. It’s not ideal, but it works for now.
Mobile Optimization: A lot of people browse websites on their phones these days, so I made sure the site looked good on mobile devices. Squarespace is pretty good about this automatically, but I still went through each page and adjusted things as needed.
Final Touches and Launch: After weeks of tweaking, testing, and bug fixing, the site was finally ready to launch. I showed it to my buddy, who gave it the thumbs up (after a few minor adjustments, of course). I connected the domain, submitted the site to Google, and crossed my fingers.
The Aftermath: The site’s been live for a few months now. My buddy’s been able to update the events calendar and add news articles without any major issues. He’s even gotten a few new members through the website. So, all in all, it was a success. Would I do it again? Maybe. But next time, I’m charging more!
- Lessons Learned:
- Squarespace is a decent option for simple websites.
- Content is more time-consuming than you think.
- Third-party integrations can be a pain.
- Always test on multiple devices.
- Don’t underestimate the importance of good photos.
