Brian Smith accepts that he was privileged to have been able to travel through the internet landscape long before most of us even knew of its existence. But it was his prescience in being able to see this virtual scenery’s opportunities that made him a pioneer rather than just a passenger.

Northern Irishman Smith, along with his brother Rory, would go on to create the UK’s foremost internet tee time management and online booking application, BRS Systems, because he had not journeyed far before: “it became apparent to me that the internet was going to become absolutely huge.”

He would not have been alone in coming to this conclusion, but it was his personal conviction that his future needed to be aligned with that of the worldwide web that set him apart.

“I decided around about the age of 26 that I would start a business and I wanted it to be an internet business, just because I saw the potential,” explains Smith, now 50 who, through his father, eminent mathematician Prof Francis J Smith, had gained both a love of computer science and access to “the biggest computer in Europe.”

“I grew up in a family of five children, three brothers and one sister, and our dad ran the data centre at Queen’s University, Belfast in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He was doing a lot of research into the stars and the formation of the world and even things like GPS, the early days of satellites and all that orbiting the Earth.

“So I grew up with computers in the house.

“We didn’t do a huge amount of programming when we were in our young days, but they were always there. We were very, very fortunate and our dad encouraged us to go into computer science and all four of us brothers ended up doing that basically.”

After getting a BSc first-class honours degree in computer science, physics and electronics at Queen’s, Smith was employed by BT as a software engineer while also working towards a PhD in digital signal processing. This was in the mid ‘90s and was the period when, as part of his PhD research, he saw the internet for the first time.

“They were very basic browsers and very basic search tools,” he recalls although this is no way deterred him nor diminished his sense of awe, and his fascination led to him teaching himself how to program on the internet.

Smith moved on to work for Nortel Networks, but when the communications company began to hit problems he volunteered for redundancy and his payout of around £12,000 plus £10,000 in savings gave him a modest financial platform that was underpinned by his belief that an internet business was his destiny. This is the stage where he showed both the nerve and the nous of a successful entrepreneur.

“What happened was that the Internet crashed in 2000 and I just saw that as the opportunity to get in,” he says. “Everyone else was running away from the internet and saying, ‘this is a disaster’, but anyone who was invested in and knew about the internet knew this was the opportunity you’d been waiting for.”

So he knew where he wanted his business – in cyber space – but in what field? The answer came aided by a friend’s father, who ran a painting business, who over a beer advised he should start a business in something about which Smith was passionate.

“That was why, when I started the business, I tried to combine the internet – which I had absolutely fallen in love with – with golf, which I had played since I was eight years old. I’ve grown up with a golf club in my hand.”

He elected to offer to build or improve on golf clubs’ websites and his initial foray earned him free membership at his home club, Ardglass, but with brother Rory on board they looked to attract more paying clients.

One of the first was nearby Belvoir Park, whose manager, while interested in their proposal, said what her club really needed was a new tee-time booking system.

“Bookings were coming into the office and the pro shop and duplicate bookings were happening,” he says. “They didn’t have a connected central system, it was all done on paper.”

So it was that the Smith brothers were alerted to the potential to provide golf clubs with a web-based system that allowed both members and visitors to book tee times on line. “We literally started writing the system that day,” he continues.

“That was about halfway through 2003 and we installed the system in Belvoir in January 2004, so within six months we had a system developed and installed. We were the first in the UK to market this concept of allowing people to book.”

Working from Rory’s home, they would expand the business from an initial handful of clients to 800 by the time they sold it to GolfNow in 2013 for a sum that Smith says “would have allowed us both to retire” had they wanted to.

Along the way two significant influences were fellow Ardglass member Brian McGee, who became their sales director and taught Brian the art of selling, and Wilma Erskine, Royal Portrush’s then secretary manager when the club became BRS’s 10th customer.

Erskine, a driving force behind Royal Portrush being awarded the 2019 staging of the Open Championship, was so enthusiastic about the system that she would refer people to BRS.

GolfNow, through which over six million tee times were booked in the first month after lockdown ended in March, retained both brothers as part of the buyout – although Rory is now semi-retired – and also built their UK offices in Belfast at the pair’s insistence. The workforce has grown from 15 people to 70 and Smith predicts it will become “hundreds.”

Smith, who is GolfNow International’s general manager, adds: “One of the things about NBC Universal GolfNow is the way we ran BRS with integrity and honesty and really looked after the customer, and this really lined up well with NBC Universal GolfNow and the way they treat their team, and the way they treat their staff.

“One of the things I’m most proud about that I’ve managed to do in the last ten years is create a really good culture within the business.

“I want people to look forward to coming into work at GolfNow and BRS and I want them to enjoy their day in work and Ieave with a smile on their face having enjoyed all the interactions they’ve had in the business that day. That is what I’ve tried to achieve for the team, and largely we have created this really, really great environment for people to work in.

“To have this brilliant big business invested in our product becoming the number one product in the world, it was kind of like putting a rocket on our back. It is now the biggest one of its type in terms of internet tee-time management products,” adds Smith.

“It is installed in 1,000 clubs in the US and growing. We are now going to expand into Australia and other countries.

“This business will continue to grow in Belfast over the coming years as we continue to roll out different products and services. It has been great fun, it has been a great experience. I obviously wouldn’t be here if I didn’t enjoy it still.”