Digital Matters

Most agency newsletters are a little in love with themselves. This ain’t that.

Digital Matters is our semi-regular email featuring handpicked tech-first ideas and under-the-radar products that can help anyone who’s at a computer most of the day be more effective.

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GAP Golf

An iterative approach to improving their website supports the organizational growth and storied past of the oldest regional golf association in the country.

On February 5, 1897, seven men from four clubs – Belmont Golf Association (today Aronimink); Merion Cricket Club; Philadelphia Country Club, and Philadelphia Cricket Club – gathered at the Market Street National Bank in Center City and formed The Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP). Today, the association is the oldest regional or state golf association in the country. More than 330 Member Clubs and 99,000 individual members are spread across Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland. GAP conducts more than 200 competitions for males and females of all ages and skill levels. Its preeminent tournament, the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship, has crowned the region’s top amateur since 1887. Its cornerstone event, the BMW GAP Team Matches is the oldest interclub competition of its kind and annually signifies the birth of a new golfing season. GAP’s mission, has been, and always will be, to promote, preserve and protect the game of golf.

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Services

  • UI/UX Design
  • WordPress
  • Digital Strategy
  • Front-end Development
  • Website Support
  • API Integrations
GAP Golf Desktop and Mobile Menus

An iterative approach

As many of our clients do, GAP came to Think It First when they felt that they were no longer receiving the service and support they needed from their previous agency. They wanted a strategic partner who could step in and take over the management of their site while also helping them craft a roadmap for iterative enhancements for better user experience, administrative control, functionality upgrades, and growth/engagement going forward. The TIF team quickly stepped in and fixed some nagging design and performance issues and moved the site onto our upgraded Manage WordPress hosting solution for increased speed, security, and reliability. Think it First is the leading Philadelphia web design and web development company in the region. Whether we become partners for the long haul or just quick friends, you’ll be happy you took the time to speak with us.

GAP Golf Desktop layouts, staggered and layered on top of each other
GAP Golf Mobile Layouts

Earning trust to make a bigger impact

We quickly garnered GAP’s trust and zoomed out the approach to include bigger-picture design and functionality enhancements. We revitalized a failing design library that didn’t work well for the majority of their users who are on mobile devices. Their WordPress admin setup was also clunky and limited. We soon had a cadence of design and functionality enhancements happening every month.

From a revamped homepage to a custom mega menu for desktop and mobile to a rebuilt blog housing thousands of posts, we made it easier for users to get around and find all the previously hidden corners of the site. We have also made the site much easier to manage using a custom WordPress Gutenberg block editor experience that’s widely loved by the digital team. Our latest updates include new page templates for integrations with a custom API that tracks member data and scoring, GolfGenius software for event management, and a few other event and content management tools that help them better run the business.

GAP Golf Events Slider
GAP Golf Photo Slider

The future is in the work(s)

GAP is expanding rapidly in the region. They have merged with two other state associations in the past 5 years – (Delaware State Golf Association, DSGA, and Anthracite Golf Association, AHA). With every new business initiative comes a digital opportunity. And we’re happy GAP has continued to lean on us for support through it all.

GAP Golf CTA Banner
GAP Golf Page layout
GAP Golf Homepage
GAP Golf Mega Menu

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