The interior of a Five Iron Golf location.
When it comes to sports that move the needle in India, cricket bats at the top of the order with soccer, tennis, badminton, kabaddi and field hockey trailing behind. While golf, a colonial import ferried to the subcontinent in the 19th century, may not currently be on the first page of the leaderboard, interest in the sport is bubbling up in the country of 1.4 billion people that is home to just over 200 traditional courses.
Arjun Atwal, who will turn 50 in March and become eligible for the senior tour, sparked a fresh wave of interest twelve years ago when he became the first homegrown player to win on the PGA Tour. That was a mere blip compared to the Covid inspired recreational golf groundswell the country continues to experience in tandem with a rising tide at the professional level. We saw Bangalore’s Aditi Ashok, compete at the Tokyo Olympics and Pune’s Anirban Lahiri pocket $1.8 million for finishing second at LIV’s Boston event. Couple all that with the meteoric success Indian Americans Sahith Theegala and Akshay Bhatia are enjoying on the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour respectively and you have the makings of a boom.
New York based Five Iron Golf is a fast-growing simulator bar chain that prides itself on making the sport fun, accessible and approachable. The full blown ‘eater-tainment’ concept with bag storage and country club style locker rooms, complete with showers, is as big a draw for Tinder dates as it is for corporate events, lessons and league play. Five Iron owns and operates fifteen locations domestically and will be opening up a new venue on the first floor of the Grand Venice Mall in Delhi in March of 2023 courtesy of a strategic partnership between Hoche Partners Golf Studios Private Limited and the DS Group.
“Golf has been played in India for longer than it has in the United States but it’s been this elite, wealthy sport,” Jared Solomon, CEO and cofounder of Five Iron Golf, says.
In his research on why the sport has not resonated much beyond the affluent population base, he came across stories pointing to everything from land being at a premium, especially in and around the country’s heavily populated urban centers, to unfavorable weather. Making courses playable during the summer monsoon season which runs from June through September can’t be a picnic for greens crews.
But he noted there was never any mention of barrier-busting concepts such as Top Golf and Five Iron Golf which require 5 hectares and 10-15,000 square feet respectively, a mere fraction of the footprint required to put up an 18-hole golf course.
“In all these articles I’m reading, nobody has mentioned what has really led to the boom in the United States which is alternative golf which has made it fun, accessible and approachable as a sport. That gets me really excited to see what we can do in a place that’s a blank canvas to make golf what we want it to be, which is a sport that a lot more people can play and experience,” Solomon says.
“We’ve just seen so many people hit golf balls for the first time at Five Iron and then they get fit for clubs, go play with their friends or bring their girlfriend or family back and that’s how it evolves. I don’t see any reason why it can’t be extremely popular in India especially with the weather there and the space constraints—indoor golf especially, can be extremely successful,” he adds.
As far as how many more units the company could open up in India in the future, provided they can execute well, he ventures a noncommittal guess of around 500. He cites South Korea’s screen golf explosion where there are more simulators than Starbucks
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“We see tremendous potential for golf in India, where the general population has had little or no access to golf as a recreational activity. Five Iron Golf India will change this by providing a fun, social setting to enjoy golf and top-notch food and beverage,” Gregg Hayden, partner of Hoche Partners Golf Studios Private Limited, said in a statement.
Golfer hits in a bay at Five Iron Golf
“Maybe I am naive. I was an options trader before all this but there is a real call upside here that the sport takes off and we can be a part of it. What also resonates with Five Iron Golf and could resonate with the people is that we are taking this exclusive sport and making it for the people,” Solomon says.
Topgolf Callaway Brands is certainly a big believer in the entertainment golf category and funded Five Iron Golf to the tune of $30 million last year. Landing that investment from an industry titan felt like a ‘welcome to the big leagues’ moment for the indoor golf upstart.
“When we started, we were alienated by the golf community. Nobody wanted to work with us or hear our story. It was almost as if we were outcasts of the golf community doing bad things for the game and making it fun wasn’t where they wanted to go. To see it flip on its head where I’m speaking at the National Golf Foundation and Callaway is investing, it’s undeniable at this point that places like Five Iron are good for golf overall,” Solomon says.
Five Iron Golf projects it will grow to 25 locations by the end of 2023 and Solomon is stoked about all the new builds and designs on the horizon, including the company’s first Boston location.
“It’s a city that we have been trying to get to for five years, it feels like, since we started. To open with an absolute flagship 15-simulator location downtown is really exciting,” he says.
Solomon sees tremendous runway for the category as a whole, predicting that 80% of golf played will be off-course by 2030. Competitive simulated golf is set to debut on television in 2024 with TMRW Sports’ Monday night league and that could be another propellant for the simulator bar space. As a pioneer in putting together and popularizing connected indoor golf leagues in the United States, Five Iron Golf is very much looking forward to seeing it come to fruition.
“There is still a whole subset of people who say they’ll never play on a simulator. Well, if Tiger Woods, Rory McIlory and this group of pros can play on a simulator, it really validates it as a form of entertainment. Who knows where it can go? It is not impossible that TMRW Sports and that Monday night slot is more popular than the Sunday final of the Wells Fargo Championship,” Solomon says.
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