Anne Parsons believes golf is slowly moving away from its traditional outdoor setting, crediting the growth in indoor simulators.
With winter approaching, increasingly poor weather conditions are likely to drive golfers away from traditional outdoor courses and towards indoor alternatives.
Following two recent storms, indoor golf centres could provide an ideal solution for players looking to keep their game sharp throughout the colder months.
Anne Parsons believes the growth of the industry is already clear to see, as she shared, “I think we know it’s growing. You’ve only got a look on social media and they seem to be popping up all over the place at the moment. It’s definitely a growing industry.”
She added, “It’s getting more and more popular with younger people. It used to be just like an old man’s game, and now there’s so many youngsters. I think that we are on the cusp of a big movement in golf, I’m hoping so anyway.”
With the introduction of TGL, professional golf is embracing a new era of indoor competition, with significant investment and growing commercial interest helping to drive the industry forward.
However, the picture was not quite so promising for Parsons when she took over Eagles Indoor Golf in March earlier this year.
Despite the growing popularity of indoor golf, an unusually hot summer presented an unexpected challenge, which left Parsons questioning the takeover:
“We took it over in March and we’ve had the hottest summer since the year that I was born, and nobody wanted to play golf, so we took over a business and it’s been so quiet, we were thinking what the hell have we done.
“We know that golf is a very seasonal sport, in the summer it’s a tricky time, it’s the type of business that will be quiet in the summer we’ve always known that, it’s about trying to drive away from that.”
Looking to capitalise on this problem, the Eagles Indoor Golf owner identified one solution that will encourage players inside; “we don’t have air conditioning in the unit at the moment, if we do go and put air conditioning in, I think it will make the summer busier.
“Because if we’re having summers like we’ve had, people who don’t like to play in the rain are going to want to come in when it’s 30 degrees.”
Ultimately, as increasingly unpredictable weather brings challenges for traditional courses, especially with firm greens and dried-out fairways we’ve had in the summer, indoor golf could offer players a reliable alternative to enjoy the game whatever the conditions outside.
