ORLANDO, FLORIDA | Last week’s PGA Show lacked many of its longtime participants. Titleist, Callaway, Ping and others were noticeably absent due to COVID-19 circumstances, so the energy at Orange County Convention Center was bound to funnel elsewhere.
Where were the crowds? You could find them consistently huddled around the ever-growing number of simulators present at the show.
It wasn’t a surprise. The off-course-only golf crowd reached 12.4 million in the U.S. last year – almost exactly the same as the on-course-only crowd, which is at 12.6 million. The primary reason for the increase is attributed to a growing popularity in simulators, especially of the at-home and commercial stand-alone business variety. The simulator game began in earnest when TrackMan was formed back in 2003, but the past two years have meant more to the game’s virtual presence than any other.
It’s a combination of a few factors. Of course, the pandemic has kept more people at home, and simulator sales increased by roughly 50 percent in 2020. What may not be as obvious is that simulator technology and accessibility has evolved in a way the golf industry is just starting to appreciate.
“Our sensor is accurate, and it has to be. We host a professional golf simulation tour for professional golfers playing for money. Without the accuracy it wouldn’t be possible.” – Golfzon CEO Tommy Lim
Here’s an example from the PGA Show: At Golfzon, which boasted the biggest booth of any simulator brand, one of the company reps demonstrated their technology by walking each person through a hole of simulator golf. I played the third hole at Kingsbarns, a dogleg-right par-5. After a wayward tee ball into the left rough, the Golfzon rep instructed me to put the ball into a patch of wispy synthetic turf to simulate being in the rough. And then suddenly, the platform where I was standing started to raise about three inches to simulate the ball being below my feet.
The argument against simulators has long been that “real golf” has variables that can’t be recreated by a machine. One sticking point in that regard was chipping and putting – simulators were notoriously unreliable when it came to measuring feel shots around the greens. Not anymore. As I faced my virtual 10-foot birdie putt, an alignment line was projected against the screen and I was instructed to leave the putt a few feet in front of the screen. I pulled the putt slightly and, accurately, the putt missed to the left.
“Our sensor is accurate, and it has to be,” Golfzon CEO Tommy Lim told Global Golf Post. “We host a professional golf simulation tour for professional golfers playing for money. Without the accuracy it wouldn’t be possible. These golfers know how much their 7-iron flies or how much spin they have with a wedge or how to hit a draw or fade.”
For instance, the Golfzon North American Tournament ran from March 20-April 25 last year with golfers around the world playing PGA National with a $12,000 purse. We’ve officially entered the era where you can compete against other golfers without having to leave your house.
The birds aren’t chirping and the smell of the grass isn’t there. But the time spent is minimal, there are no lost balls, you can play with friends regardless of location and the cost is a one-time installation. For some, that concept is just as much “real golf” as being out on a course.
Golfzon has over 3.2 million members playing 65 million rounds annually. Nearly 130,000 tournaments are held each year. Their North American business, which started in 2017, has doubled its revenue every year for the past three years. While simulators are helping to generate new golfers on the course, there is a meaningful percentage of players who aren’t interested in stepping foot on a green-grass facility. And with an increase in accuracy and popularity has also come a lower price point so simulators are more available to the masses.
“We all appreciate Topgolf,” Lim said. “They made golf popular but also they made simulator golf popular.”
Golfzon was one simulator in a village with many. Another booth directly next to them had a huge crowd all week, but for a different reason.
The company is PuttView and the technology is startling, even by 2022 standards. You know the detailed greens books that were just banned on the PGA Tour? Well, PuttView allows a golfer to putt with the detailed greens book information superimposed onto the green itself.
At the show, there was a large synthetic green full of subtle slopes. A projector above you displayed neon green lines throughout the putting surface, showing the exact line the ball needed to travel in order to reach the hole. When you putt, a new neon line appeared in the wake of the ball.
It’s now a popular product with college teams. LSU and Wake Forest have purchased a PuttView green for their indoor facilities. There are customizable greens and moving greens available where slopes can be altered in real time.
If this year’s PGA Show taught us anything, it was the emergence of technology becoming more appealing to a wider set of players.
But that’s not the most interesting part. PuttView introduced a pair of glasses at the PGA Show that will be available for purchase later this year, and believe it not, these glasses allow a golfer to go out onto the course and see the exact break of every green.
Skeptical, I tested the glasses for myself. All you have to do is point your glasses toward the hole to notify the glasses where it is and then pick a location for where your ball will be. As soon as you complete that process – it’s no more than a few seconds – you place the ball down and look toward the hole. A neon line is drawn between your ball and the hole, and you can see other slope markings around you. It’s difficult to miss.
Obviously these glasses won’t be available to use in competition, but it’s an incredibly compelling practice tool.
If this year’s PGA Show taught us anything, it was the emergence of technology becoming more appealing to a wider set of players. It used to be everyone standing around the TrackMan booth, dreaming of what it would be like to own a simulator. There is still a line at TrackMan, but now there are a handful of others growing along with them.
It’s quickly altering how many of us think of playing golf.
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