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Back Nine Golf held its College Station grand opening Sept. 25, having quietly been open for several months on Texas Avenue. Owner Randy Roberts runs the 24/7 room on Full Swing's 16-point simulator, with lessons from professional golfer Stephen Phillips and camps for every age and skill level.
Spot CheckNet Par Shallotte opens the doors Oct. 8 with a free public open house from 3 to 6 p.m. and a 4 p.m. ribbon-cutting at 4636 East Coast Lane. Four Trackman bays will run games and demos, with in-house PGA professional Sam Cole on hand to talk lessons.
Spot CheckBirdi Box has opened at 5357 Sunset Blvd. in Lexington with three member-only bays bookable around the clock, running Uneekor EYE XO2 launch monitors, Swing Optix high-speed cameras, 4K projection and GSPro. Co-founder Brett Vigrass aimed it at golfers who love the game but not the five-hour commitment; tiered memberships start at $99 a month per the company, so check current rates before you sign.
Spot CheckThe Baytown Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon on McMakin Indoor Golf at 5278 N. Main St., Suite 310, in Baytown. The simulator setup covers virtual rounds, range practice and putting.
Spot CheckDivots Golf Bar is open at 644 S. Church St. in Watertown, where owner Rick Elertson has the simulators set up for soccer, kickball and trap alongside golf. The kitchen comes online at the end of October with burgers and wings, and simulator league play starts the first week of November.
Spot CheckThe Lab Indoor Golf has opened inside the Piqua Center in Piqua, Ohio, with simulators as the main event. Miami Valley Today puts the address at 987 E. Ash St.
Spot CheckSticks and Stogies has opened at 6900 E. U.S. Highway 60 in Gold Canyon, pairing golf simulators with a premium cigar lounge. It is built for people who want to play 18 and smoke something good while they do it.
Spot CheckBryan and Amy Pulliam opened Tee Time 44 in Putnam County with a Sept. 10 ribbon-cutting, putting simulators, instruction and club fitting under the same roof as a full restaurant and bar. Bryan went to the PGA Show three years running and toured 12 to 15 simulator businesses before settling on the setup he wanted.
Spot CheckDaddy Shack Golf Club opened Aug. 29 at 1900 E. Howard Lane in Pflugerville, graduating from the mobile simulator business it launched in 2023 into a permanent members' space. The room runs FlightScope for swing analysis, club fittings and lessons, with lounge and fitness amenities alongside the bay.
Spot CheckBeers & Birdies is open at 130 W. High Ave. in downtown New Philadelphia with Golfzon simulators, club rentals and food and drink on site. Owner Kevin Neidig put the grand-opening simulator proceeds toward Boston Crowell, a former New Philadelphia football standout now at Kent State who is being treated for leukemia.
Spot CheckRichardson broke ground Sept. 19 on a $5.7 million training center at Sherrill Park Golf Course that will house North Texas' first Titleist Fitting Center. The 2,650-square-foot building gets two indoor evaluation and hitting bays where a Titleist fitting professional works one-on-one with a TrackMan launch monitor, with spring 2027 the target.
Spot CheckSignage is up for Neighborhood Swing, a 24/7 indoor golf facility going into Falcon Commons Plaza at Mahoning and Evans avenues in Austintown. Zoning inspector Dominic Moltchen confirmed the location and said county inspectors are working the interior, with no opening date announced yet.
Spot CheckThe Back Nine Golf, Holland North is finishing construction and equipment installation at 12330 James St., Suite B90 in Holland Town Center. Owner Marc Smeyers told the Sentinel he is targeting Oct. 20, with a chance it lands sooner.
Spot CheckBack Nine Golf's 24-hour Berlin location at 384-400 Demming Road should have simulators running by the end of October, with a Willoughby's Coffee & Tea opening next door in early November. Developer Stephen Miskell owns both and plans gym-style memberships at the sim, with cross-membership perks that include coffee and pastries.
Spot CheckEl Centro's Planning Commission takes up a conditional use permit Oct. 13 at 5:30 p.m. that would put a golf simulator into 3,239 square feet of an existing 6,050-square-foot warehouse at 1151 S. Hope St. Applicant William Wilkerson is working in a Light Manufacturing zone, which allows commercial recreation once a permit is granted.
Spot CheckJeremy Stone is building Stonehaven Indoor Golf in Flowood this fall around Golfzon simulators with moving floors and 24-hour access through a mobile app, and he is keeping the room alcohol-free. He started it to create lasting work and financial footing for his son Dallas, who faces significant medical challenges.
Spot CheckHub City Golf Club marks its opening at 1 p.m. Oct. 15 at 12818 Shank Farm Way, Suite D in Hagerstown's North End, next door to The Greene Turtle. Owner Jon Baker has five bays that each hold up to four players, no membership needed to book, plus a putting green and family game modes.
Spot CheckGolfTRK's first Houston-area club is going into 2,228 square feet at 27605 Robinson Road in Oak Ridge North, with a state licensing permit putting the build at $290,000 and completion in November. CEO and co-founder Alex Reed is targeting winter or early 2027 and says The Woodlands had dense golf culture with nowhere to gather for consistent reps.
Spot CheckGolf v.2 has set Nov. 2 for its Upper West Side opening at 1865 Broadway, adding to clubs in Tribeca, Brooklyn Heights and East Hampton. Founder Alberto Rezende says the four TrackMan bays and putting green come with what he calls the largest junior program in New York City, built around PGA camps and PGA Junior League.
Spot CheckBack Nine Golf is bringing 24/7 simulator play to 41724 W. Smith-Enke Road in Maricopa, with bays due to be installed by the end of October. Co-owner Parker Hunsaker, who runs the franchise with his father Danny, plans a soft launch ahead of a mid-November grand opening and makes the case plainly: members on graveyard shifts get the place whenever they want it.
Spot CheckWaterford's Corey Brabandt is building a Back Nine Golf at 6845 Highland Road in White Lake with his father Michael, hoping to open before the end of the year. It starts with three bays, one held for private events and two for the public, with two more planned after the doors open.
Spot CheckThe Club at Marlboro opens in November at 414 Texas Road in Morganville, the second location for Michael and Erica Rosenberg after The Club at Monroe in 2023. Three Trackman simulators share the building with nine indoor pickleball courts, two padel courts, a gym and a recovery lounge.
Spot CheckBack Nine Golf makes its Sacramento-area debut in about 2,800 square feet at 1850 Douglas Blvd. in Roseville's TJ Maxx Plaza, with four Full Swing bays and a January target. Owners Matt and Jess Antrobus are running it staffless, with members booking online and letting themselves in by QR code; membership tiers were quoted to What Now Sacramento at roughly $179 to $359 a month, so confirm current pricing with the venue.
Spot CheckClub 72 is framing out three simulator bays on Crater Lake Highway in Medford, paired with a full weightlifting and cardio gym under one roof. Founders Andy Monroe and Jantz Tostenson are aiming for early October, with bay bookings reserved for members.
Spot CheckBack Nine Golf's first Baltimore City location takes 4,095 square feet in the Spring Garden building at 175 W. Ostend St., a block from M&T Bank Stadium. Franchise owners Justin Martinelli and Blair Boleyn are putting in Full Swing simulators plus a custom PuttView green that projects the true line and speed of every putt, running 24/7, and the leasing broker says a second downtown facility is already in the works.
Spot CheckFive Iron Golf has a commercial building permit in for 554 South Gale St. in Salt Lake City's Post District, a just-under-10,000-square-foot build valued at $1.5 million with a bar, kitchen and gaming areas in the scope of work. Utah would be fresh ground for the chain, whose closest location today is Las Vegas.
Spot CheckOptoma Sports Sim national sales manager Danny Kogan told rAVe's Rants & rAVes that golf simulation has moved well past luxury homes into corporate offices, hotels, higher education and multifamily buildings, opening a real line of work for AV integrators. His caution: a simulator is not a projector pointed at a screen, and throw ratios, projector placement and screen dimensions all need planning up front, which is why Optoma built a Golf Sim mode and SmartFit for the people installing them.
Spot CheckMt. Graham Golf Club cut the ribbon Sept. 25 on a Toptracer range in Thatcher, Arizona, putting camera-based ball tracking and roughly 40 virtual courses onto an outdoor range lit for night play. General manager Aaron Medina's read on it: "It's the exact same thing as simulator golf." The course is owned by the City of Safford and managed by Troon.
Spot CheckMyGolfSpy's Scott Hutchison spent time with Quantum, Golf VX's new premium simulator, at the company's 12-bay Arlington Heights location, and the part that got him was the floor: a 15-axis moving platform that recreates more than 19,000 terrain variations, so the uphill lie you just created is the one you have to stand on. He also found the near-zero delay between contact and data mattered more than he expected, and the foot control pad for aim, tee height and mulligans kept him from walking back to a screen.
Spot CheckTruGolf founder Chris Jones resigned Sept. 23 as chief executive and director, with chairman Brenner Adams stepping in as interim CEO while the Nasdaq-listed simulator maker searches for a permanent replacement. Jay Heller takes Jones' board seat, bringing 18 years at Nasdaq where he ran IPO execution across more than 3,000 listings.
Spot CheckTruGolf Links wants to solve the oldest problem in franchising, and its answer runs through a blockchain. Chief development officer Ben Litalien says the company is building an equipment-leasing plan for qualified franchise candidates funded by a tokenized offering on the Polymath platform, with a second, earlier-stage plan that would let investors buy fractional ownership in an individual TruGolf Links franchise. TruGolf agreed in August to acquire Polymath, a deal expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter.
Spot CheckWTGL, the new women's indoor team league from TMRW Sports and the LPGA, opens its first season Nov. 8 at SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens. Five clubs of five LPGA players each take the tee, with Michelle Wie West, Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson among them, running through Dec. 15 before semifinals and a best-of-three championship just before Christmas.
Spot CheckIndoor Golf Club at 555 Virginia Drive in Fort Washington runs nine Golfzon TwoVision bays, with automatic tees, swing plates that tilt to recreate uneven lies and setups for right- and left-handed players, all on a membership model rather than hourly rentals. Jaeson Han, a former Abington Senior High math and computer science teacher now a PGA Associate, opened it in February 2024.
Spot CheckCovington Catholic golfers are in the building by 6:30 a.m. to hit on the school's new simulator, and they just took the Region 7 team title with junior Matt Noe medaling at 1-over 73. Noe says the sim keeps the team loose and in golf shape when the weather turns, and gives them somewhere to decompress before a round.
Spot CheckMoon Area School District trustees approved a $21,779 purchase on Sept. 14 for a Foresight GC Quad in Box, which bundles the launch monitor, enclosure and hitting screen, mat, projector and a 35-course software suite, for the high school's new field house. Athletic director Alan Alcalde says the boys and girls golf teams will use it to practice and gather data year-round.
Spot CheckA basement dig in Croton Township, Michigan turned up a weathered skull that investigators believe is historical and unconnected to any crime, and it surfaced only because the homeowner wanted a golf simulator. Builder Troy Wolffis says the crew had to go deeper in that corner for the sim room, and the site was shut down for just a day.
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