Drive for Show, Putt for Dough

2003.

The unbreakable Nokia cell phone (IYKYK) had Snake as a defining feature. Tiger Woods was #1 in the world and you’d have to hope you got to your TV at home in time to see him. Oh how things have changed.

But maybe not everything.

2003 is also the last time 29 million Americans played golf on an actual course…

Last eight years however have been up and to the right.

Within shouting distance of the all-time record. And that’s just on-course – add in the driving-range-and-Topgolf crowd and the total hits 48 million.

Roughly one in seven Americans over the age of six touched the sport in some form last year.

Rounds played are up 21% over the pre-pandemic five-year average.

Juniors are up 58% since 2019.

Women are 28% of on-course golfers, tying the all-time high.

Pick your preferred cliche. “Golf is having a moment” doesn’t cover it. This isn’t a moment. It’s a structural shift.

The core product – a full round of 18 holes on grass, at a real course – is getting harder and harder to actually play.

Start with time. The average 18-hole round in the U.S. takes 4 hours and 17 minutes. A foursome on a public course? Plan for five. Add the drive, the warmup, the 19th hole. You’re burning most of a day.

Then there’s cost. The average public green fee is up 27% since 2019. Nearly half of golfers now say green fees are “too pricey.” Private club initiations are setting records. Tee sheets at popular muni courses fill within an hour of release. There are now multiple venture-backed waitlist startups whose entire product is “help you grab a tee time someone else canceled.”

Now stack supply on top. Net new course openings have finally ticked up, but closings still edge them out. The U.S. has fewer 18-hole courses today than it had a decade ago.

More golfers. Roughly the same amount of grass.

So demand is exploding, prices are rising, wait times are brutal, and supply is flat. A real estate dream, right?

Not quite.

Not everyone who plays golf wants five hours, a dress code, and a huge bill.

A lot of them want a beer, their buddies, and 90 minutes after work.

That product – the middle ground between a driving range and a full 18 – has been drastically undersupplied in the U.S. for decades. Most muni short courses got bulldozed for housing in the 80s and 90s. The par-3 tracks that survived were usually afterthoughts. Mowed rough, chewed-up greens, the course the superintendent forgets about.

But the short-course renaissance has been real and it’s been loud. Pinehurst dropped The Cradle in 2017, a 9-hole par-3 that people travel to play. Sweetens Cove went from a bootstrap project in rural Tennessee to a cult brand with Peyton Manning on the cap table. The Park at West Palm. Winter Park 9. The Loop at Forest Dunes.

Golfers will pay real money to play short-form golf if the product is good. They’ll go out of their way. They’ll tell their friends.

And yet almost none of this format exists in a way that normal people can actually access on a Tuesday night in their own city.

The market is starting to respond. Not with one silver bullet, but with a few different product shapes.

More par-3 courses, some on natural grass and some using synthetic turf to shave build and maintenance costs and push rounds later into the night. Indoor and simulator-based venues – climate controlled, no weather, no daylight, swing for 30 minutes and grab a drink. Driving ranges with good food and drink where practice is the goal, not just games. New golf leagues like TGL are pulling eyeballs to completely different formats than what traditional golf fans grew up with.

Different shapes. Same thesis. Give people golf without the parts that have been pricing and time-boxing them out, and they show up.

We think it’s interesting.

Not just because Andrew loves to shoot 87s. And Jonathan the same but just on the front 9.

We may have to redo some of our sayings here, because this is literally your grandpa’s real estate. But the folks playing it today aren’t your grandpa. They’re juniors, they’re women, they’re 30-somethings looking for a Wednesday-night plan. The demand side has already changed. The real estate hasn’t caught up.

This is exactly the kind of niche, operationally-driven opportunity we look for. We’re actively evaluating the space and talking to operators, platforms, and investors who are building the next generation of golf.

If you want to learn more, reply here or shoot us a note at [email protected].