Park, 61, a resident of Incheon, wages a "park golf booking war" every Monday at 2 p.m. He logs on to the Incheon Facilities Corporation's integrated reservation website in advance, waiting for bookings at a park golf course near his home to open. But when reservations begin, he typically fails to secure a slot by just a few seconds.
"Even when I pass by and see an empty course, I can't use it without a prior reservation," Park said. "Getting a single round of exercise has become as difficult as ticketing for a famous singer's concert."
According to industry sources on Wednesday, while the number of park golf enthusiasts is growing exponentially, the supply of courses remains limited, making reservations nearly impossible to secure.
As the season gets into full swing, crowds have grown even larger. In regions that have adopted online reservations, slots fill up within minutes of opening, turning bookings into a frantic click-race. A park golfer in Seoul's Yeongdeungpo district said, "These days, it's hard to get a chance to play a round unless your children or grandchildren make the reservation for you. I feel sorry toward my family, but without proxy bookings, it's difficult to secure tee times at all."
Park golf course reservations nationwide are currently handled through various methods, including online systems, phone bookings, and on-site first-come-first-served registration. While some local governments have introduced their own reservation systems, many facilities still rely on phone or on-site registration, or outsource the process to private operators. There is no unified reservation system at either the national or metropolitan level.
The patchwork of different reservation methods and platforms across local governments has made it difficult to book courses even in areas with relatively more availability. To play a round outside one's home region, users must create separate accounts for each area. Reservation rules and usage standards also vary widely. Some regions require real-name verification or operate membership tier systems, while others accept only first-come-first-served registrations.
Experts say it is urgent to build a government-wide or metropolitan-level integrated platform that consolidates the disparate reservation systems operated by local governments. Standardization of reservation systems and data linkage are also necessary. Shin Bong-tae, chief professor at Dongguk University's Graduate School of Police and Judicial Studies, said, "Some regions operate metropolitan-level reservation systems, but in many cases, not all facilities are included. There are also cases where autonomous district urban management corporations run their own separate systems, forcing users to navigate multiple channels to find how to book." He added, "Since integrating nationwide data all at once is physically limited, the realistic alternative is to build a metropolitan integrated reservation network by interconnecting the reservation systems currently operated by local governments."
There are also calls for consideration of elderly users who struggle with digital devices. The suggestion is to operate a "quota system" in parallel, allocating a certain percentage of slots through phone registration or on-site assignment rather than online or mobile channels. An industry official said, "Complementary measures that take into account the elderly with low digital accessibility should also be implemented. Offline support, such as kiosk training and dedicated guidance staff, should be strengthened together."
