A decade ago, twin brothers in England discovered what most golfers already knew — practice is boring.
The driving range is a monotonous place of repetitive motions, most of which are grossly errant and devastating to the possibility of any real improvement.
The brothers, inventors by trade, developed a microchip to place inside a golf ball, without affecting its weight or trajectory, which could determine exactly how far it is hit.
Steve and Dave Jolliffe’s ingenuity spawned a new way to practice and play the sport loved by so many. It’s called Top Golf, and by next year it’s likely that micro-chipped balls will be zipping through Toronto.
Top Golf takes the practice aspect of a driving range and makes it competitive, while adding the good times of your local pub.
“Our view is that it’s a new category in the sport of golf,” says Joe Vrankin, CEO of Top Golf. “It’s really golf entertainment.”
“The vast majority of people go for fun,” he says. “It’s for the social side of it — they decide if they want to go to Top Golf, or to a high-end bowling alley, or to a movie, or to a bar. That’s what our competition is.”
So what exactly is Top Golf?
New York Times sportswriter Bill Pennington described it as a “cross between the ambience of a 1950s bowling alley and an episode of ‘The Jetsons’.”
The basic idea is to turn the driving range experience into a social activity. It turns the country-club traditions of golf into an accessible night of entertainment, without the dress code.
Friends gather in a hub, complete with sofas, tables, televisions and a touch-screen monitor. The players take turns shooting golf balls at targets scattered at different spots across a 250-yard open fairway. As many as six people can play at a time.
“It’s kind of like high-end bowling meets darts,” Vrankin says.
The interactive touch screen keeps track of how far each ball is hit, and awards points for accuracy and shot difficulty.
The monitors can also order up some pints and bar food, brought directly to your party by waiters known as caddies. Each facility is more than 50,000 square feet, with a restaurant and two bars. It costs about $6 per person to play a game at peak hours.
While the serious golfer in you is groaning, consider the appeal to the rest of us hacks.
Close to half of the Top Golf patrons are not golfers, Vrankin says. They’ve either never picked up a club before, or might get out to a range or course once or twice a year.
And there’s still room for the serious, solo practice session — complete with computer technology to track your shot distance, and specialized games to focus on accuracy.
Each of the micro-chipped balls is produced by Callaway Golf, which was an early investor in the company. There are plans to eventually create a Top Golf tournament circuit.
There are currently four Top Golf locations in the United States and three in the U.K., and the company plans to expand heavily over the next couple of years.
The facilities average about 200,000 visitors a year, with each visitor spending about $35. In the U.S., there is a Top Golf near Washington, one just outside Chicago and two in Dallas.
Top Golf will open up three new locations in the southern U.S. through the next year, and are about 12 months away from expanding further into the north, including Canada. The company plans to have up to 50 locations running in the next six years, Vrankin says.
Heating methods have been perfected at the Chicago location, where people play the game in the open with a -10 C wind-chill. Snow is removed quickly from the fairways, allowing it to remain an open-air game, free from the dreary confines of a dome.
That year-round appeal might even lure some of the traditional polo shirt-sporting, handicap-counting crowd in the winter months.
“Toronto would be a fantastic market for us,” says Vrankin. “Canada is a great market for golf.”
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