Topgolf Opens First-ever Golf Course
Topgolf, the golf driving range game with electronically tracked golf balls and automatically scored drives, is rapidly growing.
Now, after years of success with the unconventional version of the game, Topgolf is set open an actual golf course.
The brand has opened a 10-hole golf course as part of its new location in El Segundo, California.
“I refer to it as the culmination of the Topgolf-Callaway strategy all in one place on about 30 acres,” Topgolf CEO, Artie Starrs, told Forbes.
“We’re just widening the aperture on this thing that is great, which is golf, but making it a lot more fun and more accessible to more people.”
Founded in 2000 in the United Kingdom, Topgolf opened its first venue in the United States five years later in Alexandria, Virginia. Since then the company has opened a further 76 outdoor locations in six countries around the globe with eight more expected to open in the US and UK by year’s end; a venue in Bangkok, Thailand set to debut in August will bring Topgolf’s total to 86.
Major golf brand Callaway acquired Topgolf in March 2021, paying $2.7bn (£2.2bn) in stock for the 86% of the company it did not already own.
Despite operating more traditionally than all of its other golf venues, the course still has some unique Topgolf touches. The 10th hole allows players to track their first drive using Toptracer technology, which charts the ball’s speed and trajectory. There is lighting throughout the course allow for night golfing and Electric bikes can be used in lieu of golf carts.
“I do see some opportunities for us with more green grass,” Starrs says. “We have another project we’re working on that’s in the Los Angeles area that I’m very passionate about that will be a bigger golf course and will have the same sort of night life and Topgolf venue associated with it.
“I think there’s more to come from us on that.”
Topgolf’s first-quarter revenue hit $322m (£263m), a 2.3% increase in same-venue sales from 2019 and 31% of parent-company Callaway’s total revenue.
