Golf course fly-through questions, answered

A golf course flyover video is an aerial flight down a hole, from the tee to the green, showing the line of play, hazards and approach. FLYTHRU finishes each flight with a slow orbit of the green and presents the whole course as an interactive hole-by-hole tour on the club's website.

Community clubs pay £29 a month with no setup fee. The Commercial Club plan is £995 setup and £99 a month, and Club + Web Takeover is £1,495 setup and £149 a month. Championship is priced on application, from £4,995 setup. Annual billing gives two months free.

On most plans there is no filming visit. Each hole is built from Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles, so nobody needs to come to the course and play is never disrupted. Drone footage is captured at the course only on Championship plans. Once a course is mapped, most clubs are live within a week.

Most FLYTHRU plans need no drone, because they use 3D Tiles. For drone work, UK operators follow Civil Aviation Authority rules and Irish operators follow Irish Aviation Authority rules under EU regulation 2019/947. Rules are updated periodically, so anyone flying should check the current requirements before every job.

In the USA, commercial drone flights fall under the Federal Aviation Administration. Pilots generally need a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate, the drone must be registered, and flights near airports need airspace authorisation, for example through LAANC. Most FLYTHRU plans use 3D Tiles, so no drone is flown at all.

Clubs place the fly-through beside the tee-booking link so golfers watch a hole and book in one visit. Membership secretaries send hole links after enquiries and open days, society organisers share the link in group chats, and Clubhouse mode keeps the course on the bar screen for members and guests.

Every plan includes a cinematic fly-through of each hole, with a tee-to-green flight and green orbit, embedded on the club website beside the booking link. Features include The Caddie chatbot, the monthly results email and Clubhouse mode. Higher plans add the Web Takeover, quarterly re-flights, drone capture and tee plaques.

The club keeps its footage forever, even if it cancels. There is no hostage arrangement where the video disappears when the subscription ends. That gives a committee confidence to start, because the money spent always leaves the club with a lasting record of its course that it can continue to use.

There is no long contract. Plans are monthly rolling, so a club can cancel any time with no exit fee. That suits clubs whose budgets are set annually at the AGM, and it means FLYTHRU has to keep earning its place each month rather than relying on a lengthy tie-in.

Yes. Annual plans give two months free compared with paying monthly. Many clubs prefer a single annual payment because it fits neatly into the financial year and is simple for a treasurer to approve. Clubs that would rather keep flexibility can stay on monthly rolling billing and cancel any time.

When the course changes significantly, such as a new green, a rebuilt bunker complex or a rerouted hole, the affected holes are re-flown so the tour stays accurate. Club + Web Takeover and Championship plans include quarterly re-flights, which suits venues with ongoing course works or a busy tournament calendar.

In the UK, FLYTHRU links and integrates with BRS Golf and intelligentgolf tee sheets. Elsewhere, the fly-through links to whatever online booking page the club already uses, so golfers move from watching a hole to booking a tee time without the club changing its booking system or its existing processes.

It is added with one line of script on the club website. There is no rebuild and there are no plugins to install or maintain. Whoever looks after the website pastes in the line where the fly-through should appear, usually beside the tee-booking link, and the hole-by-hole tour appears there.

Because the embed is a single line of script with no plugins, it can be added to most club websites that allow a code or embed block on a page. If the club's website cannot accept it, or is due for replacement, Community + New Website provides a new club website alongside the fly-through.

Clubhouse mode is a 16:9 auto-cycling loop of the course fly-throughs, designed for the screen in the bar, foyer or locker room. It plays continuously without anyone operating it, so members and visitors see the course at its best while they wait for a tee time or relax after a round.

The tee plaque QR programme puts a plaque with a QR code at each tee. A golfer scans it with a phone camera and that hole flies on screen before they play. Plaques are included as standard on Championship; for other plans, the programme is discussed on a demo call to suit the club.

The Caddie is a website chatbot that answers visitor questions about the club and the course, such as how to book or what to expect on a particular hole. It helps golfers who arrive on the website out of hours, when the office is closed and nobody is free to reply to an email.

Each month the club receives a results email showing how many times the course flew and which holes got most views. It gives the committee a plain, regular report on interest in the course, and it shows which holes deserve a place in social posts, newsletters and membership campaigns.

The Community track is for member-owned and community clubs, and includes the Community Fly-through with no setup fee and Community + New Website. The Commercial track is for proprietary, resort and tournament venues, with the Club, Club + Web Takeover and Championship plans. If a club is unsure where it fits, ask on a demo call.

Prices are shown in pounds sterling on UK pages, in euro on Ireland pages and in US dollars on the USA page. Displayed prices are a guide for comparison; the invoiced amount for any club is confirmed at quotation, so the committee knows exactly what it will pay before agreeing.

Yes. The free sample at /demo/ flies Sample Links, a fictional demo course rather than a client, and includes an embeddable iframe snippet. The St Andrews Old Course showcase at /st-andrews/ presents the famous links hole by hole; it is not affiliated with the R&A or St Andrews Links Trust.

FLYTHRU is a division of The AI Media Centre, based in Dundee, Scotland, serving clubs mainly across the UK and Ireland, and in the USA. To get started, book a demo. On the call FLYTHRU flies the club's opening hole free, and once the course is mapped most clubs are live within a week.