With the continual advances in technology and the wide range of options, choosing a golf simulator can be a daunting task. By understanding the key features of a golf simulator and comparing them to your needs, you can narrow the field rather quickly and hone in on the best choice for you. We'll review many of the key features here to give you a jump start on your research.

Determining if this is for Home or Commercial Use is the best place to start. Are you looking for something for your home or for your business. If you are looking for your home, the most important considerations will be your budget and your space. If you are looking for your business, there are many more features to consider and we'll address many of those here. These may also be helpful to get an understanding of features for home use.

Price. This is an obvious consideration as we all live on a budget and even our businesses need to carefully consider costs. For a functional full size system, you can expect to pay anywhere from $5,000 to $60,000. Most systems designed for commercial use will fall in the mid to high end of that range. The price will be driven by the choices you make in the options below.

Graphics. You need to figure out if you want 2D, 3D or photo-realistic graphics. In addition, do you want the image to fly with the ball or stay static from the tee. Simulators will also come with HD graphics, wide screen formats and real time rendering of images Speed of rendering is a critical component for most commercial applications as customers don't like waiting for images to load.

Number and type of courses. The number of courses will drive the price. Many simulators have standard packages that you can start out with and add to later as you desire. Some include new course downloads in their support, others require you to purchase them. Folks in commercial use situations also look for famous courses as they are often requested by clientele. Having more and famous courses can help drive indoor golf revenue.

User interface and game modes. Many of the high-end systems now come with touch screen control panels to help with set up, aim, mulligans and more. Some systems also come with options for internet gameplay and tournaments so you can compete against other players around the world. You may also want to look for options to play different types of games like best ball, closest to the pin and long drive contests.

Golf swing analysis. There are several different methods for golf simulators to provide for swing analysis. Many of the top line models offer one or more of these methods. Club path analysis shows the swing path, clubhead speed, position and angle of the face at impact. Ball flight analysis will look at launch angle and spin rate. Lastly, video capture allows for instruction and feedback on particular parts of the swing sequence.

Support and maintenance. You also need to pay close attention to the support that comes with the product itself. Look at the length of the warranty, what it covers, whether there is remote support available, and if there is any sort of installation support. Also ask about life of the parts and replacement costs for things like projectors, screens, bulbs and mats.

Most people close to indoor golf know it is a seasonal business.  Our golf center survey found that business is much more robust in the cold and wet months than it is in the warm and dry ones.  No big surprise there.  What is interesting is that the trend for "indoor golf" searches on Google is seasonal as well.  Notice how the index from Google below shows that indoor golf searches peak around January each year and tend to bottom out in the May through August period.

What does this mean for your indoor golf business?
It means that your off season marketing efforts need to be broader than just talking about indoor golf.  Be creative, look for ideas that align with search trends, provide what folks are looking for in your area.  An example is "Golf League" in the chart below.  It's peak will perfectly correlate with the off season bottoms on indoor golf in terms of search trends.   Get creative, do your research and find ideas lie golf lessons, golf tournament, or golf coupon (I know those aren't too creative, but they do better support summer search patterns than indoor golf.

I've shared information on www.bundle.com before, but it really is a great tool to help you think about your business.  I've learned that indoor golf owners are very concerned about competition from other indoor golf centers, but most cities don't have multiple indoor golf facilities.  However, most cities have a range of entertainment options.  How can you see where else your customers are going?

That's where bundle comes in (and it is free).  Type in your facility name and city and hit "Go".  Bundle has a vast database of all sorts of stores along with credit card transaction data that they use to build a site like Yelp, but with a but more emphasis on where people spend their money versus what they say about a place.

I picked Gonzo's Indoor Golf for a quick example on how you can make use of this data.  Here is the first page that comes up when I select Gonzo's:

Gonzo's is doing relatively well based on spending data compared to other recreation opportunities in South Burlington.  Let's see where Gonzo's customers come from to visit the golf center.

About 18% of customers come from the same zip, 69% from the same county and nearly all are from Vermont.  But where else do Gonzo's customer spend money on recreation?  Bundle can show you that as well.

This was a much longer list, so I am just showing the first couple.  You can find out what else your customers like to do and develop marketing strategies to get more of their entertainment dollars.  Visit these places, see what they offer, maybe bring a little of that back to your shop.  Another way to use the info is in how to target your marketing.  This sort of info gives you clues into the lifestyles of your customers and can help you pick other places to advertise your business.

I've been up and running for a couple months now, worked out a number of bugs and am starting to get some good traffic.  I don't get much participation in the forums or commentary on the blog.  I would love to hear what folks would like to see here, how I could encourage more participation and what you'd find of value.  Please share your thoughts and comments.  Thanks!

Being in a good and accessible location that matches your target customers is a key to running a successful indoor golf business. Research on the indoor golf industry points to a few keys to determining the best location for your indoor golf center. It is also critical to make sure you are not paying too much for your location in order to keep your expenses in line. Based on our research, some of the keys to site location include the following:


Home Ownership:

The higher the proportion of home ownership there is in your target area, the more rounds of golf you are expected to be able to support. This means a higher percentage home ownership in the zip where you are locating, indicates a higher propensity for playing golf. In addition, the average home price tends to also help predict the volume of rounds played. The higher the average home price in a zip, the more rounds you can expect. Look for information on the web about your target zip code and see home prices, percent renters, income and more.

Number of golfers in a 10 mile radius:

Not surprisingly, the number of golfers in a 10 mile radius from an indoor golf center were strongly correlated with the number of rounds reported by that golf center. The more golfers in the radius, the better for your golf center. A great place to find this sort of information is from marketing list companies. They gather information on golfers from things like magazine subscriptions and website registrations. Some may provide you these numbers as part of the process to price a list and you can get the number without paying for the list.

Weather:

This probably doesn't help pick an area within a city, but can give you a sense of how viable a given city is for an indoor golf center. The higher the number of rain / snow days there are per year, the higher the number of rounds played. Indoor golf centers in the United States experienced as many as 156 days per year with rain or snow, while others had as little as 90 days. Centers on the high end of this range get more play.

Average Annual Daily Traffic:

I am including this as a probable driver of rounds played, as traffic data was somewhat difficult to get with enough precision to be confident in analysis. That said, with a high number of first time visitors during the first year of an indoor golf center business, it stands to reason that a higher volume of traffic outside a location would be better than a location with lower traffic. The traffic statistic in question is often called Average Annual Daily Traffic and most reports abbreviate it as AADT. You may be able to search for it on the web for your target area in question.

I am starting to compile a list of all the golf centers in North America - please help with edits if you can.  If you have edits to the table below, they can be made here (click to edit file)

That's the title of an interesting article I read on the Economist tonight.  Here's the hook for you golf business owners:

A recent study shows that bosses who don't play golf get paid on average 17% less than bosses that do play golf.

How's that for a marketing campaign for your golf facility.  Come play golf and get a huge raise.  Sure, that's not how it actually works, but interesting empirical evidence shows that what golf teaches you helps you get ahead.  


The article attributed the pay increase to more schmoozing, but I choose to believe that it is because of the virtues of the game develop character that helps develop better leaders.  What do you think?

I've recently run across a website called Bundle.  It creates ratings on business based on spending patterns accumulated from credit card transaction data.  It is all free for you to use.  According to the bundle website:

"We use anonymous, aggregated spending data to rate businesses based on factors such as how often people go back, how many people go there and how much people actually spend. Using this data, we can learn a lot about whether a place is good, and further, whether a place is good for you."

I've now spend a little time on this website looking at indoor golf centers.  I think indoor golf center owners and potential owners have a treasure trove of information here about their business.  Here is an example of the kind of information on the website - I've removed the name and location of the center:

The first page on customers gives a pretty concise view of where customers are coming from and how the business ranks on popularity versus other local recreation.  

In this example, 17% of customers are from the same zip as the facility and 69% are from the same county and almost all are from the same state.  This does seem to vary a bit by location and it is worth checking out your own statistics.

This could be helpful in understanding where to spend your marketing dollars.  The next set of charts they provide cover when your customers come to your facility.

This points to some opportunities around growing Tuesday through Friday traffic with targeted offers, leagues, demo days or other specials.

Running an indoor golf business involves creating a facility where golfers play rounds on a golf simulator that projects an image of a course and uses sophisticated sensors to depict the real shot in a virtual environment. There are many of these businesses existence, and most are in colder climates.

If you are considering opening an indoor golf center, success turns on 4 basic items:

• How well you manage start up costs
• How fully you keep simulators rented
• Prospects for add on revenues from food and beverage, merchandise or lessons
• How well you control operational costs

Depending on the size of your facility and the amenities, start up costs can be significant. Many indoor golf centers start small and grow as they see their revenues grow. Others take a decidedly more ambitious approach and build a premium facility from the start. Choose a path that makes sense for you, your budget and matches your clientele.

One of the major expenses will include the cost of the golf simulators. For a commercial operation, these can run as little as $15,000 or as much as $60,000. Price will depend on a host of factors, software features, number of courses and size of the system. Some facilities mix the simulators, purchasing several basic ones and one or two high end systems. This enables them to offer premium services without the extra start up expense.

Another start up expense will be your facility costs. In most cases, facilities will be leases, but a few do chose to buy / build a facility. In the event you are doing a commercial lease, there will likely be build out expenses to suit your specific design. It may make sense to get help from a commercial real estate pro to help you negotiate these as part of your lease.

The types of complimentary services you chose offer will drive other start up expenses. If you are going to do food and beverage, you will have a few other costs. Licensing for food and beverage will be one such expense. Building out a kitchen will be another. Even a low end kitchen with used equipment will run over $20,000. Don't forget about marketing, recruiting, website, network and signage expenses.

Take a look at all your expenses and figure out which ones are the keys to your success. Be sure to get the right equipment on the items that are critical to your success and perhaps defer those that are not as critical until after you have a strong revenue stream.