and breathing visible sighs of relief. They had escaped embarrassment. Once they left this MRI into the
soul, they teed off on the adjacent drivable par 4, with the buzz of the stadium hole hissing like lights at a ballpark. The rabbit-eared pros suddenly had blinders. They were fine. As PGA Tour winner Robert
Garrigus told
WeiUnderPar.com: “I live for No. 16. It’s our Super Bowl. It’s so much fun. I couldn’t care less about the heckling. I think it’s great. I really do (think there should be more of this in golf ). If we have a hole like this every week, a lot more people would come.” Garrigus was actually two rows behind the tee on No. 16 as a 19-year-old fan when Tiger Woods holed his rockstar ace at the 1997 Phoenix Open. “If I didn’t want to be a profes-
sional golfer right there, I wasn’t going to be one,” he said. Garrigus added, “Some of the
guys who get fussy—they can’t handle the pressure.” I say bring it on. But maybe
that’s just the beer talking. –Kevin Merfeld
Tiger Woods famously aced the 16th in 1997.
Golf is Fun? TopGolf is Building Its Business Based on That Premise
THE SOUPED-UP DRIVING RANGE COMPANY IS PLANNING TO OPEN A FACILITY IN ROSEVILLE IN 2016
I
t’s noon on a Monday in Scottsdale, and there’s a half-hour wait to hit
golf balls. No worries. The
first seven pages of the menu at the ad- jacent bar are full of cocktails that come in golfbag fishbowls, plus margaritas, wines and beers. The next nine pages are tasty teasers, slammin’ sliders, fired up flatbreads and the likes prepared by an executive chef. Welcome to TopGolf, the gen-
A touchscreen has a library of games to choose from, and it keeps score thanks to golf balls equipped with com- puter chips that reg- ister what quadrant of each target green
you hit. You can even join tournaments and leagues. TopGolf is also
There are 11 TopGolf facilities in the country, with 10 more in the works.
esis of two brothers who wanted to improve the driving range experience. What did they discover? Golf can be this social entertainment hub that is as fun and welcoming as bowling or a game of darts at a pub. People will play golf, if you let
them. Even until 2 a.m. When you look up and down
the triple-decked driving range with more than 100 hitting bays, you don’t see golfers. You see people giving golf a try for the first time, or for the first time in a long time. Less than 50% of TopGolf customers consider themselves serious by the loosest of definitions—they’ve played at least one round in the last year. You rent your bay by the half hour,
and you can share the lounge-like stall with friends. Each bay is stocked with free clubs for men and women. A caddie serves you food and drinks.
dipping into teaching the game, redefining lessons with its TopGolf U. Les- sons start at just $20 for
adults, $15 for youth. There are currently 11 TopGolf facilities in the U.S., with 10 more planned. One of those is a $50 million version in Las Vegas, while another is Northern California’s first edition in Roseville, outside Sacra- mento. The average TopGolf facility costs $18 million to build. Both are planned to open in 2016. “They do everything right, includ-
ing architecture that is welcoming and not intimidating,” El Dorado- based architect Damian Pascuzzo told The Sacramento Bee. “Their customer service is off the charts. It’s incredibly fun. It’s simple. They explain every- thing. Everything we have talked about to grow the game, TopGolf already does. I think it’s only going to help the golf industry. People are going to get a taste of golf and say, ‘Let’s take the next step.’”
–K.M. SPRING 2015 /
NCGA.ORG / 19
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