By Scott Kauffman
Over the last 25 years, sparked by the Tiger Woods phenomenon, the golf industry’s leading associations made significant strides in making facilities and businesses more accessible and inclusive. The First Tee and National Alliance for Accessible Golf are just two initiatives/organizations reflective of the progress being made.
Nevertheless, there is still a lot of work to be done to make the game and business even more welcoming and representative of society today. One area of golf-related access that needs to be vastly improved going forward, according to NAAG executive director Dave Barton, is not necessarily facilities themselves, but the virtual world of golf – namely websites.
Barton’s observation stems from the recent ruling by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division that mandates that all state and local government websites must adhere to the “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) AA.” The DOJ’s final ruling announced April 24, which revised Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that became law in 1990, now requires state and local governments to make their websites and mobile applications accessible for people with disabilities.
The agency said it is adopting WCAG 2.1 AA technical standards, which requires 50 success criteria to make websites accessible. This includes converting pictures and documents so they can be read with assistive technology for individuals with vision loss and providing captions for live and pre recorded videos for individuals with hearing loss.
In their fact sheet, the DOJ has also listed exceptions to this rule, including archived content that is not currently used, pre-existing conventional electronic documents, content posted by third parties under certain circumstances, individualized documents that are password-protected, and pre-existing social media posts.
Though the recent DOJ ruling only addresses state and local government entities as defined under Title II, including publicly owned golf facilities for example, Barton and others believe it’s just a matter of time before all public courses will be under the purview of this recent DOJ ruling.
In fact, Access Design Studio founder/chief executive officer Dense Pane, a longtime ADA accessible website expert, published a blog on May 14 that said, “It is becoming apparent that the DOJ is going to make all businesses accessible to WCAG standards.” The basis for Pane’s opinion was the DOJ announcement May 8 that it reached a settlement agreement with the Springfield (Ill.) Clinic to resolve alleged violations of Title II of the ADA.
Under the agreement, the DOJ said the Springfield Clinic must make its website, patient portals, and mobile applications accessible for patients with visual and manual impairments. The DOJ news release went on to state: “Patients receiving medical care from the Clinic rely on its online services to access personal medical information, review test results, communicate with healthcare providers, and pay bills.”
In Pane’s blog she emphasized “Springfield Clinic is a private medical practice” and a complaint was filed against the Springfield Clinic "alleging that a patient with a visual impairment was unable to access their medical information online or pay a bill." Pane went on to note “approximately 65 percent of the companies that come to Access Design Studio for remediation of their website (making it ADA compliant accessible) are currently being sued or have been threatened with a lawsuit. They are stressed and facing large financial penalties and lawyers' fees. Given that the DOJ is moving toward requiring WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility for all businesses, I suggest skipping that part about being sued. Instead, be proactive about getting your website accessible and reap the benefits.”
Besides the “ethical and legal responsibility,” Pane added, the main reason for investing in a more accessible website is because it’s a “smart business move.” For instance, optimizing one’s website for accessibility vastly improves Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and taps into 61 million U.S. disabled individuals with a combined spending power of $654 billion. Globally, Pane says there are more than one billion people with disabilities, representing $7 trillion in spending power.
That explains why golf technology companies like Club Caddie and Club Prophet are taking notice and starting to integrate ADA-sensitive elements as part of their solutions. For instance, Club Prophet director of marketing Jacob Hite said the company’s new website platform, Engage, now has a number of new features, including an “Accessibility Dashboard” that course managers can use to “automatically fix” the majority of issues that might arise from ADA compliance in a more consistent manner versus using “one-time site audits or reviews.”
The new website platform also allows members/golfers to access on-screen widgets with adaptive features for those with different accessibility needs, such as enlarged text and cursor options, increased contrast, scroll tracking, font adjustments and more.
“We've seen several of our customers recently raise this issue (specifically in Colorado and California) and, to our knowledge, no other website platform in golf is providing this type of technology included within the base level offering,” Hite said. “Many offer a one-time assessment or support, but nothing ongoing and native within the management system.
“We believe in accessible golf because expanding the game to new golfers has no downside. A rising tide raises all ships, and if we can help our customers welcome and serve more golfers, the entire industry succeeds.”
Barton, a former NGCOA executive and career PGA Professional, couldn’t agree more and stresses NAAG offers a number of free resources and ADA-related training for the golf industry. One of the more valuable tools is participating in a free self-assessment of one’s facility, including the website.
“It’s basically a checklist that says if you can do these things you’re basically demonstrating your commitment to welcoming golfers,” Barton said. “We’re not a certification agency but we’ll give you a certificate that says you’re a nationally recognized accessible facility. And that’s a list people are going to want to be on. They don’t want to not have this.”