Welcome to Issue #9
"The older I get, the better I used to be”
Lee Trevino
What’s on our mind this week
Nelly Korda says ‘I Do’, Patrick Mahomes and Adidas Golf do a deal, Rolapp to ring in the changes, PXG innovating with Lightening Metalwood, a home golf simulator is top of my Santa list (again), TGL adds Mike’s Hard Lemonade to the menu, Royal Melbourne looks incredible, Team USA now blaming the greenkeepers.
In the news
Why it matters: This strategic partnership is a direct challenge to the traditional sports media oligopoly, replacing scarce stadium seats and broadcast rights with the limitless revenue of digital scarcity. By leveraging Apple's Immersive Video to sell "virtual season tickets," Real Madrid is effectively creating an 'infinite Bernabéu' and setting the precedent for a powerful, direct-to-consumer ecosystem in elite sports.
Our Take: This model presents a significant threat, and opportunity, for golf's existing rights holders (PGA Tour, DP World Tour, R&A, USGA). If Real Madrid can create an "infinite stadium" revenue stream, what stops the R&A or the PGA of America from developing a $50 Virtual Green Seat for The Open or the Ryder Cup? The ability to monetise fans globally without ceding revenue to linear broadcasters could reshape the value of media rights. The move toward direct, immersive monetisation signals that golf organisations must rapidly secure their digital real estate or risk being left behind.
Why it matters: IX.Golf has launched a points-based membership platform designed for elite clubs with strong heritage seeking to engage committed golfers without diluting exclusivity. The commission only model removes financial risk for clubs whilst maintaining full control over pricing, brand positioning, and tee-sheet access. Members use 80% of points at their "home club" and 20% across a curated network.
Our Take: IX.Golf identified that premium clubs face a different problem than public courses. It's not about affordability; it's about calendar commitment. High-net-worth professionals can afford $5,000 annual memberships but can't justify them when travelling 200 days a year. Traditional clubs viewed flexibility as cheapening the product. IX.Golf reframes it as premium optionality. The commission only structure is critical because it removes the club committee's fear that flexible memberships cannibalise full memberships. Off-peak utilisation generates incremental revenue without threatening prime weekend slots. The curated network approach is equally clever, reciprocal access becomes a feature rather than dilution. Whether this works depends on member quality control. If IX.Golf maintains selectivity and clubs genuinely view flexible members as prospects rather than visitors, this solves modern membership economics. If it becomes another tier creating resentment, it fails.
Why it matters: Farmers Insurance is ending its title sponsorship of the PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines after 2026 whilst becoming a Founding Partner of TGL, launching 28th December 2025 on primetime ABC.
Our Take: Following corporate restructuring, capital is being reallocated toward measurable engagement. Title sponsoring a regular tour event costs $13-15m annually for weekend Golf Channel exposure and declining viewership. TGL offers primetime ABC broadcasts, tech-enabled fan interaction, and association with Tiger and Rory at peak brand power. The strategic calculus is straightforward; traditional tour events deliver awareness, TGL delivers engagement. Smart sponsors follow audiences, and younger demographics consume golf differently than broadcast television assumes. Farmers is betting interactive, primetime team golf generates better ROI than another Saturday afternoon at Torrey Pines.
Pic from Forbes
Worth your time
Read: Las Vegas is the latest market to bet big on the potential for par-3 primetime golf A high stakes competition that blends professional and amateur golfers has awarded its next expansion franchise to Las Vegas.
Watch: Amazon basics core soft golf ball testing Golf Digest gets its trusty robot to put the most talked about golf ball on the market through its paces.
Listen: Rick sits down with world renowned coach Pete Cowan to chat about his fascinating 60yrs in the golf industry, his coaching of 13 Major winners, world number 1s, and multiple tour winners.
Follow: Josh Carpenter for interesting things happening in and around the game. He’s big on discussing the infrastructure of pro golf, which is a hot topic these days.
Feature story
South Korea's golf industry: The great unbundling
Whistling Rock's Temple Course Pic from Forbes
While preparing last week's deep dive on private equity and the Topgolf sale, one number stood out. South Korea's screen golf market now generates around $1.6 billion a year. That figure alone signals something deeper. Korea is not simply playing golf differently. It is rewriting the operating model of the sport.
Traditional course visits have fallen for two years, dropping from roughly 17 million in 2016 to about 15.5 million in 2023. Yet the wider industry is growing. The total market including simulators, equipment, apparel, tech and tourism is forecast to rise from $4.5 billion this year to $8.2 billion by 2032. That is nearly 8% compound growth.
The paradox disappears once you stop treating golf as one product. Korea has unbundled the sport. Play, practice, fashion, technology and entertainment now work as independent verticals. Each one is scaling.
The screen golf juggernaut
If you want to see golf's future, look at the simulators. Indoor golf in Korea is not an alternative to the course. It is the dominant format. The $1.6 billion market comes from more than 8,700 domestic simulator venues, led by Golfzon with roughly 60% share. Globally, Golfzon counts more than 13,000 venues and logged around 100 million rounds in 2024.
Walk through central Seoul and you pass simulator lounges that resemble social clubs more than sports facilities. A round costs $12 to $20 and takes an hour. Weather, daylight, travel, caddies and membership rules vanish. Convenience becomes the product.
The hardware ecosystem is expanding too. Simulator and smart net equipment is valued at $1.2 billion and projected to hit $1.8 billion by 2033. AI swing tracking, sensor enabled nets and augmented practice environments have become mainstream tools, not niche gadgets.
Golfzon is now pushing into the United States, with plans for professional screen golf competitions overseas. Screen golf is no longer a Korean curiosity. It is the country's most powerful golf export.
Pic from Golf Post
The traditional course paradox
Simulators boom while courses stagnate. Korea has between 514 and 600 courses, about 3% of U.S. supply, serving a population of 51 million. Land scarcity has always constrained supply. Around three quarters of courses are private and memberships run from $25,000 to more than $2 million at elite clubs near Seoul.
Course golf is intentionally exclusive. High fees and resource demands keep it a premium product for the corporate elite. But utilisation is softening. Jeju Island saw a 7% drop in rounds. Other regions have recorded significant declines.
Macroeconomic and demographic pressures deepen the challenge. Economic growth is weak. The fertility rate is the lowest in the world. The population is aging rapidly, with projections that nearly 40% will be over 65 by 2050. Older, affluent Koreans still value resort golf, but younger, urban, digital native players prefer simulators, tech enabled practice and frequent, flexible play. Women are entering in growing numbers thanks to accessible indoor formats.
Golf spending has contracted for more than a year. Course golf feels less like a lifestyle and more like a high priced discretionary choice.
Yet this is not collapse. Over 60% of Korean golfers use both simulators and courses. Screen golf provides frequency. Courses provide prestige. The two formats coexist rather than compete.
Equipment, apparel and lifestyle
Unbundling has created a consumer boom. The golf equipment market stood at $3.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $4.55 billion by 2033. Apparel is also growing fast, from $70.9 million to an expected $112.7 million.
For many Koreans, golf is now lifestyle as much as sport. Urban players wear golf gear in everyday settings. Brands from Callaway to Honma are investing heavily in custom fitting, data driven tools and AI powered equipment suggestions. Korean consumers upgrade often and expect technology to justify the purchase. They are among the most brand literate and tech fluent golf buyers anywhere.
Tourism reinforces this. International visitors still flock to Jeju's resort courses, while domestic golfers travelling abroad drive demand for portable, high quality gear. The retail ecosystem, once tethered to the course, now stands alone.
The new geography of golf
The reshaped golf economy clusters around distinct use cases. Seoul is the engine, home to simulator lounges, tech studios and golf fashion. Urban professionals play after work and track every swing.
Resort regions such as Gangwon and Jeju remain destinations for premium and leisure golf. Private clubs continue to serve the elite.
Culturally, golf is shifting from an exclusive pursuit to an everyday activity. Social simulator play, data tracking, women joining in greater numbers and weekday urban sessions have normalised the sport in ways traditional golf never achieved.
Pic from Golf.com
Professional golf's strategic reset
Korean women have dominated global golf since Se Ri Pak's breakthrough in 1998. Yet 2024 produced only three LPGA wins, the lowest since 2011. This looks less like decline and more like strategic consolidation. Many top players now choose to stay on the domestic KLPGA, where sponsorship, television coverage and home market endorsement opportunities are strong. Retaining talent signals a mature and self-sustaining ecosystem.
Tech as the operating system
Korea accounts for roughly 10% of global golf tech activity. AI coaching, IoT sensors, real time analytics and VR training environments are now core tools for players. Indoor studios operate as full performance centres. Mobile platforms link golfers to coaches, communities and competitions.
For younger players, golf begins digitally. They start in simulator bays, build a data profile, customise equipment, compare metrics with friends and step onto a real course only once they are confident. Golf is becoming digital first, physical second.
Investing in golf's new map
For investors and operators, Korea is a market defined by divergence and diversification.
Growth engines include simulator networks, software platforms, equipment, apparel and tourism. These are asset light, tech enabled and increasingly exportable.
Traditional course assets are riskier. They remain prestige holdings but face demographic pressure, utilisation decline and high operating costs.
Risks persist. The demographic curve is severe, competition is intensifying, and some hardware categories are commoditising. But Korea's strength is structural variety. The market no longer depends on fairways. It depends on frequency, convenience, data and lifestyle.
Pic from Getty
What the world should learn
Korea shows what happens when golf is redesigned for modern urban life. When access substitutes for land. When technology expands participation. When players treat golf as a set of modular experiences rather than a single 18-hole product.
Equipment, practice, entertainment and tourism can all scale without proportional growth in courses. Korea proves that a dense, digital, flexible model is more sustainable and more scalable than one built on sprawling land.
Expect further divergence. Screen golf will internationalise. Brands will lean harder into tech enabled gear. Tourism will become more experiential. Traditional courses will split into ultra premium clubs and mass access formats.
The winners will capture digital first golfers, women, urban players and high frequency users. By the time other markets adjust, Korea will already be on its next iteration.
Structural reinvention as competitive advantage
South Korea's golf economy is not contracting. It is reinventing itself. By unbundling play, practice, equipment, apparel, tourism and entertainment, the country has created a diversified, resilient model. Golfzon solved a domestic constraint and built a $1.6 billion global category. The wider market is growing at nearly 8% a year through 2032.
The future of golf is faster, smarter, more accessible and more scalable. Increasingly, it looks a lot like Seoul.
One thing from history
The golf glove: A grip on history
Pic from The Telegraph
For centuries, golfers swung bare-handed. Then in 1949, Sam Snead changed everything by wearing a glove during tournament play.
Actually, that's not quite right.
The practical case was clear from the start. Wooden shafts and crude leather grips caused blisters. Wet weather made clubs slippery. In 1885, GH Rawlings patented a padded glove for baseball that golfers quickly adopted. It worked brilliantly. But golf gloves remained uncommon for sixty years. The reason wasn't performance. It was perception.
Golf was a gentleman's game. Gloves were seen as unnecessary, even a sign of weakness. Real golfers had calloused hands. The Rawlings glove existed and worked, but wearing one marked you as soft.
The shift came in the 1940s when Sam Snead began wearing a glove during PGA Tour events without apology. Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus followed in the 1960s. When the game's biggest names wore gloves, the stigma evaporated overnight.
Golfers wear one glove on their lead hand, which guides the club through impact. It prevents twisting while maintaining feel in the power hand.
Today, a golfer without a glove looks as odd as those early professionals who first dared to wear one.
Next week
We feature The Business of Golf 2026 Consumer Trends Report. What every golf business needs to know.
Have a good week. Until next Friday,
David
P.S. Know someone who’d enjoy this newsletter or who just needs to up their business golf game? Send them a link to subscribe and call it an early Christmas gift.