GolfInvestors is a grass roots operations that was started small and continues to grow with hard work from one of the founders and lots of feedback from the users trading on the GolfInvestors stock markets. Here you will find the GolfInvestors' mission, a summary of the vision, information about the operations and operational timeline.

Mission

Established in 1999, the GolfInvestor stock markets provide an environment used to attract and engage golf fans in the activities of the professional golf environment.

The overall mission of the GolfInvestor stock markets is to help golf enthusiasts have fun using the Internet while keeping their competitive juices running high and their brain full of information on professional golf tournaments.

[back to top of page]

Vision

The initial development and operations of GolfInvestors is to provide a simulation of trading professional golfers in a fantasy game setting. During this phase GolfInvestors will be improving the concept and the technology to ready itself for the next phase of its life. The second phase of GolfInvestors, which will take time and will not happen over night, is to become a real stock market which is focused on providing an encompassing environment for professional golfers and investors (as well as other entities involved with supporting the professional golf industry) to raise money for and trade shares of professional golfers (and groups of professional golfers), and help tournament operations. Basically, to keep existing and attract new fans to the game of golf by keeping them more involved with the professional tournament aspect of the golf industry.

If the entire vision of GolfInvestors is realized over time the GolfInvestors system and platform will provide for a real trading stock markets with real shares of professional golfers traded and investors supporting and improving their financial portfolio.

[ view a more detailed explanation of the GolfInvestors vision ]

[back to top of page]

Operations

To accomplish the ultimate vision of GolfInvestors, it will take numerous individuals and companies, as well as time. However, every venture starts small and grows. John Mueller (initially with Mark Miller, who met at the University of Texas while taking graduate classes), through the GolfSolutions.com LLC entity, is leading the initial phase of GolfInvestors' vision. GolfSolutions.com, LLC which was founded by Mueller in 1998 to focus on technology solutions for the golf industry. The company is the owner of the GolfInvestors concept, trademarks, and the technology supporting the GolfInvestor stock markets. At this time, Mueller manages the GolfInvestor stock markets, technology updates, and the operations supporting the stock markets.

[ To learn more about GolfSolutions, goto golfsolutions.com. ]

GolfInvestors has been setup and continues to build up various methods to generate revenue to support itself. These revenue avenues include sponsorships, advertising, and golf-related product sales (through the association of player profiles on the web site). These various revenue methods can be turned on and changed at any given time depending on the situation. To diversify and improve the sustainability of the revenue-base, we continually evaluate different revenue opportunities over time and will implement them if they are a feasible and if they will add value to the GolfInvestors user-base. However, the main goal of GolfInvestors is to become main stream in terms of positive exposure for the concept and the stock markets which we operate.

You can play a part in the success of GolfInvestors by becoming a partner, advertising, sponsoring elements, private labeling GolfInvestors, and/or syndicating GolfInvestors content.

[back to top of page]

Operational Timeline

• 2006

Seventh year of GolfInvestors. Running the 2006 Season Market and 8 tournament markets.

Started two real markets: Development Market I and Seniors Market I. However, no offerings were made on these markets over the course of the year as we did did not market them fully to the public.

Fully covered all of the tournaments sanctioned by the major tours around the world. Namely added the coverage of the Ladies European Tour (LET) and European Challenge Tour.

Added several mini-tours (NGA Hooters Tour, Tightlies Tour, and Gateway Tour).

For the year, 434 tournaments were played which distributed $748.4 million to 7,086 players that played 165,653 rounds. Over 12.8 million strokes were hit. The average payout per player for the year was $105,319.

Have over 9,500 golf players profiled in the system.

For the year, the site had 1,049,362 page views shown in 337,083 sessions from real users (not robots, spiders, or crawlers). That is an average of 3.1 page views per session. It also means that on average there were 2,874 page views and 923 sessions per day.

Started the "GolfInvestors Blog".

Created an additional ancillary web site: Golfin' News.


• 2005

Sixth year of GolfInvestors. Running the 2005 Season Market.

Added female golf players to the system, along with their results. Several female players are traded (or will be traded) on the 2005 Season Market.

Added online Live Help to the site to be able to answer questions from users in real-time.


• 2004

Fifth year of GolfInvestors. Over 1,000 registered users (in April). Ran the 2004 Season Market. Ran tournament markets for the majors: the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. Again started the season market for the coming year in November (2005 Season Market).

Have over 3,500 golf players profiled in the system.

Added the ability to show live leaderboards for any tournament which is in the GolfInvestors system. Included this information in the Current Tournaments column on several of the pages, including the Gi OrderBook.

Added Quiz Questions to the allotment of entertainment of the site, with over 600 questions in the database.

Started charging a fee for the first time (for access to Advanced Trading Features).

Continue to add new features based upon user feedback.


• 2003

Fourth year of GolfInvestors. Ran the 2003 Season Market. Ran tournament markets for the majors: the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. Started the 2004 Season Market before the beginning of the 2004 calendar year (in November) to get the ball rolling early putting players on the market. This was a success.

Continue to add new features based upon user feedback.


• 2001

Second year of GolfInvestors. Launch of GolfInvestors new market technology.

Run a year long season market along with tournament markets for the majors: the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship.

There was a small increase in the number of active investors involved in these markets compared to the previous year. However, the most important accomplishment during 2001 was the ability to cement the new technology infrastructure for the market along with the addition of a large amount of user friendly features.

Continue to add new features to make the investor environment and the administration interface more user friendly.


• 2000

First basic GolfInvestors markets begins: Season Market and Tournament. With a positive reaction from this 1991 World Cup test market, GolfSolutions opened its Tour 2000 Season and Tour 2000 Tournament markets in January 2000. These markets started with the top 25 money winners on the 1999 PGA tour being traded. 3 additional players had IPOs during the first quarter of 2000.

Build player profile, news, and scoring technology around market technology to provide users more information which effects the decisions investors make in buying and selling golfers.

German technology partner has problems with their license of the technology they used for running GolfInvestors. Their problem takes down the GolfInvestors market. John Mueller decides to develop new market technology base. Doing so will allow GolfInvestors is not tied to another entity outside of the company regarding its core competency: the market. This allows for better integration of the player profile, news, and scoring technology that had already been built by staff from GolfSolutions.com (the owner of GolfInvestors). As well it will allow for better adaption to the golf environment rather than be a generic market interface.


• 1999

Test market with 1999 World Cup in November.

Enter into a partnership agreement with a German company. The German company had developed online stock markets for the 1988 World Cup held in France. They had success with their technology and Mark Miller knew the founders of the company.

John Mueller and Mark Miller come up with the idea for GolfInvestors.

[back to top of page]