By: Shane René, Administrator of Media and Communications
When Kyle Weeks and Nicole Rutledge left the IGA office for lunch last Thursday, they had a big trip planned. First, they stopped for nine holes at Barnbougle Dunes — Tom Doak and Mike Clayton’s Tasmanian masterpiece — where the weather was much kinder than the early-winter inversion that hung over Boise. Then, with a hop, skip and a click, Weeks and Rutledge hustled north for nine more holes at Lofoten Links, the widely photographed but seldom played gem of the Norwegian archipelago.
I was feeling blessed to join them for lunch that day — and even more delighted to be back in the office before 2 p.m. — but part of me was disappointed by TrackMan’s presentation of the famous par-3 second hole at Lofoten. It was a bland Scandinavian summer's day. Blue sky. Sunshine. The corner of the screen indicated a gentle breeze. But there was no sign of the northern lights that Instagram had promised me.
Still, the afternoon was a welcome reprieve from the encroaching frigidness of Southern Idaho’s non-golf season. And that’s precisely why Weeks and Rutledge are competing in a simulator league this winter. For two long-established green-grass golfers — whose love of the game morphed into a career — the simulator experience is a way to welcome winter without bowing to springtime rust. And it’s a growing part of the industry that may come to inform the future of more traditional outdoor golf options.
I, too, am an established green-grass golfer. And I, too, am among the six-million people who hit golf balls in a simulator bay last year, according to the National Golf Foundation. But I’ve come to think of simulator golf the way some people think about GMO foods. Our grocery stores are full; golfers have never been more stuffed with opportunities to swing a club. But it’s worth wondering how far removed these products are from the real thing. When you cut corners growing a tomato, is it actually a tomato? Would your Italian grandmother use them to make a sauce? Or would she shake her wooden spoon, accusing you of inviting some blush-red imposter into her home? Is simulator golf actually golf? How might it come to change our relationship with the game?
Weeks has grown especially fond of simulator golf in 2024, and he says the answer to that question is yes. He’s the father of two young girls, a husband, and a golf-industry professional who knows all too well that playing golf is not always in the cards. Ever since the IGA’s manager of rules and competitions left his role as director of golf at Eagle Hills Golf Course, he often returns to his old stomping ground to make use of their TrackMan bays. It’s a resource that allows him to compress a life-long passion into bite-sized chunks that don’t ask for as many sacrifices from his loved ones.
Rutledge agrees. For her, the social element of golf has always been a priority, and time in a simulator with friends and family is equally rewarding. Golf is something to be shared, exposed to the elements or not. But neither she nor Weeks will tell you that they prefer digital golf to the “real” thing, admitting that spending time outdoors was among the original potions that made them fall in love with the game. But it’s an activity that contains enough of golf’s essential elements with one added virtue: time.
Time, just behind cost, is golf’s most cumbersome barrier to entry. An 18-hole day often calls for upwards of six hours after travel and a warmup, which can be especially daunting for new players. As the industry enjoys a flood of new participants, that problem has only intensified. If you go to almost any golf course in the world, pace of play is an increasingly common talking point.
Over the last few years, the USGA has revised its handicapping infrastructure to accommodate people looking to play nine holes. And according to USGA data recapping the 2024 season, golfers are playing more nine-hole rounds than ever before, up 48% since 2020. A record 13.8 million nine-hole rounds were posted this year.
This is a trend that fits into other trends within the industry. Short-course play is also up (another recent addition to USGA handicapping), and popular architects like Tom Doak are building shorter 18-hole courses that take less time to play. Doak’s par-68 Sedge Valley and Sand Valley Golf Resort opened this year, immediately finding its way into top-100 lists. Guests at places like Bandon Dunes, like myself, are gobbling up short-course options during their stays. This year, my group played 32 holes in roughly the amount of time it takes to play 18. It was every bit as stimulating as a full course experience.
Even professional golf is dipping its toe into digital waters, looking for TV products that fit more neatly into digestible TV windows. Next month, the PGA Tour will launch TGL — “TMRW Golf League” — which features the world’s top talent competing in what is essentially a massive simulator. Even LIV Golf innovated for the sake of time, using shotgun starts to compress their product into something much tidier than their PGA competitors.
Simulator golf has taken the world of golf by storm in the last handful of years, with more and more companies bringing more and more digital golf products into the market. And the technology will only continue to improve. In turn, more and more golfers are squeezing more and more golf into what little time they have.
The covid golf boom, as IGA Executive Director Caleb Cox noted to me, was made possible by the fact that people had so much time on their hands in the summer of 2020. As new and established golfers returned to their normal lives, that time has gone but the appetite to play has hung around. With more options to compress golf into more manageable chunks than ever before, our sensitivity to time is likely to shape the future of the game.