Go to Green offers enhanced safety alerts and lighting solutions for golf courses and tournaments

Golf courses and tournament grounds can stretch across hundreds of acres, with players, spectators, staff and vendors spread far from a central building or shelter. When lightning, severe storms, wildfire smoke, or another emergency threatens play, sounding an alert is only the first step, the greater challenge is quickly directing thousands of people toward the nearest safe location without creating confusion or dangerous situations.

New safety technology is showing how real-time alerts, outdoor lighting and dynamic visual wayfinding can help golf facilities turn sprawling grounds into clearer emergency routes. By using changing light patterns and red and green light guidance, course operators can direct people away from danger, identify safer paths as conditions evolve and help emergency personnel respond across unfamiliar terrain.

Go To Green is a visual emergency response platform designed to help people in understand where danger is occurring and where to move during a crisis. The system combines detection sensors, cameras, specialized communication software, mobile alerts and color-coded lighting to provide immediate, easy-to-follow direction when every second matters, according to the company.

Golf courses and tournament grounds can stretch across hundreds of acres, with players, spectators, staff and vendors often spread far from a central building or safe shelter. Plus, weather shifts can quickly turn dangerous when outside in the course. Lightning, severe storms, wildfire smoke or other emergencies can threatens play, and sounding an alert is a noble first step in protecting those on the grounds. The greater challenge is quickly directing thousands of people toward the nearest safe location without creating confusion or dangerous situations, according to the company.

New safety technology is showing how real-time alerts, outdoor lighting, and dynamic visual wayfinding can help golf facilities turn sprawling grounds into clearer emergency routes. By using changing light patterns and red and green light guidance, course operators can direct people away from danger, identify safer paths as conditions evolve and help emergency personnel respond across unfamiliar terrain.

Threat detection

In an unlikely but still real indoor emergency, Go To Green can detect gunfire and identify the area where a threat is unfolding. Red lighting marks the danger zone and helps direct police and other responders towards it, while green lighting illuminates safer hallways, stairwells and doors so occupants can evacuate without unknowingly moving closer to the threat. Purple lighting instructs people to hold in place when movement could create additional risk. By translating complex emergency information into familiar colors, the system is designed to reduce hesitation and make the safest available route easier to recognize under pressure. 

Outdoors, gunshot-detection sensors use triangulation to measure the direction, distance and elevation of gunfire across large venues, including golf courses. Exterior building lights can flash yellow for 20 seconds to alert people in nearby buildings that aren’t directly involved in the incident, giving them time to move toward a safer location before the threat spreads or responders secure the area. 

Multi-use QR codes

Go To Green’s patented QR code feature adds location-specific support for medical emergencies and drills. Each sensor carries a unique QR code. If someone experiences a seizure, injury or other medical crisis near a sensor, a person at the scene can scan the code to identify the exact location, notify local EMS services and connect with building communications. Red and white lights then blink at the sensor to help responders locate the patient quickly, while purple lighting can signal others nearby to hold and keep the response area clear.  

The QR code feature can also be used for fire drills. Staff can scan a sensor and designate that exact location as the simulated threat. Instead of rehearsing the same evacuation route every time, the system can illuminate alternate safe pathways, helping organizations prepare for the possibility that a familiar hallway or exit could lead directly toward a fire or other danger. 

Real-time alerts and communication 

The Go To Green Staff App provides push notifications to iPhone users, with Android support in development, giving authorized staff an additional channel for rapid alerts and live communication. Cloud-connected software helps coordinate information across occupants, administrators and emergency responders so that visual guidance can reflect what is happening in real time. 

Moving beyond traditional lockdowns 

Go To Green was created to address weaknesses in traditional emergency planning — people may know that danger exists without knowing where it is or which path is safe.

“During an emergency, people shouldn’t have to guess which direction is safe,” said Ernie Williams, founder and CEO of Go To Green. “Our goal is to give occupants, staff and first responders clear information so they can make faster, more informed decisions when lives are at risk.” 

Founded by Marine veteran Ernie Williams, Go To Green was shaped by real-world combat and crisis-response experience.