When Lost Rail opened in Gretna, Nebraska in 2022, the vision was simple: golf first, hospitality always.

The fully private club was designed to feel intimate and personal, with staff who know every member by name. But as membership grew to more than 200 golfers and rounds climbed past 12,000 annually, expectations evolved. Members wanted more visibility into tee times and billing. Staff needed better tools behind the scenes. So the challenge was clear: add digital convenience without losing the human touch that defines a private club.

“We didn’t want automation for the sake of automation,” shared Blake Schroeder, PGA, Head Golf Professional at Lost Rail. “We wanted technology that supports service, not replaces it.”

Faced with finding the right organization to help them evolve, Lost Rail identified four key challenges they felt they needed to address:

1. The growing expectations of members who were seeking digital access

2. A desire to avoid no-shows and over-automation

3. The need to maintain staff who served as member touchpoints

4. Simplify the operational complexity across golf, retail, and F&B

Running separate systems for scheduling and payments would only create more complexity. The club wanted one connected workflow.

One Integrated Solution

Enter Whoosh and Lightspeed Commerce, two of the most innovative software platforms available to private golf club operators.

Whoosh offers Lost Rail:

• Centralized management of golf operations, balancing member transparency with staff oversight

• Cloud-based, mobile-friendly interface for staff, and an intuitive app for members to view tee times

• Robust course utilization and rounds reporting to enable better-informed decisions around staff scheduling, rates and course access policies

Complementing this, Lightspeed provides:

• A unified POS across golf, retail, and food & beverage

• Transparent, timestamped billing with support for house accounts

• Inventory, accounting, and staff-friendly workflows that streamline back-of-house operations

Together, these advancements would allow tee times, guest fees, cart fees and caddie fees to be charged more efficiently and accurately to member statements, provide seamless communication during delays and weather events, and and ultimately save the staff hours of time each week that was able to be reinvested into other parts of the golf operation. An added benefit would be that these combined capabilities would lead to easier staff training and mobility which ultimately results in improved member satisfaction.

Measure of Success

Since implementing both Whoosh and Lightspeed, Lost Rail has seen: 

• Faster, simpler daily operations

• A mobile friendly app that is efficient and intuitive to both members and staff

• Improved member visibility and satisfaction

• Easier staff training and mobility

• Stronger communication during disruptions

• Confidence in a system that “just works”

And most importantly, the club hasn’t compromised its culture.

For Lost Rail, the goal was never to digitize everything. It was to remove friction. By combining Whoosh and Lightspeed into one connected platform, the club gained the efficiency of modern tools while preserving the personal service that members value most. It’s proof that the right technology doesn’t replace hospitality, it protects it.