The game’s simulator craze is creating a new kind of golf business. Knowing exactly what you are selling is the key to making it work.
Dimitrios Papadatos has spent much of his professional career chasing numbers.
Like most tour players, the Australian has become accustomed to having a launch monitor on the range, whether he is playing the PGA Tour of Australasia, DP World Tour or a major championship. Clubhead speed, ball speed, spin rates and carry numbers are now as much a part of elite golf as the scorecard. But it was using that technology indoors that gave Papadatos an idea.
“I was always a big fan of Trackman,” Papadatos says of the popular launch monitor. “Golf’s evolving so much and everything’s so data-driven now that you need to know how far you’re hitting it. Spin rates, clubhead speed and ball speed are so important.”
The problem, he found, was that outdoor practice was never quite as controlled as the data suggested.
“There’s always a variable that you’ve got to contend with, whether it’s the premium golf ball or if the tee box is cut correctly or if it’s too windy on that specific day to do your combine or it’s raining,” he says. “Quite often, it affected my practice and that forces you to be very flexible.”
Then, he tried Trackman indoors.
“When I used Trackman in the indoor simulator, that’s when my eyes lit up and I was like, Hey, what’s this?” he recalls.
“I can now guarantee that the hour or two that I practise, nothing’s going to really get in my way. Using a Titleist Pro V1, I’m using a constant lie all the time. I’m not worried about the wind or the temperature. Everything’s constant, so I can build my baseline numbers and work on my swing and my game from a very controlled environment and then take that out onto the course.”
That experience led Papadatos to open InSim Golf at Tuggerah on the New South Wales Central Coast. What began as an idea for his own practice has now become a business with three Trackman bays, a growing membership base and a second venue, at Erina, scheduled to open in October (at the time of writing).
It is a neat example of where Australian indoor golf is heading. The latest Golf Australia participation data shows 192,000 Australians used indoor hitting facilities last year, part of a much broader boom in off-course golf. The organisation’s latest report found more than 1.5 million Australians had hit balls at driving ranges, indoor simulators and entertainment-style venues, while overall golf participation continued to rise.
“Indoor golf is still on an exciting growth curve,” says Michael Button, chief executive of The House of Golf and owner of Five Iron Golf Australia, the premium, high-tech urban indoor golf and entertainment venue making waves in Melbourne. “The acceptance of sim golf being a real and accurate part of a consumers golf journey is only growing year on year.”
Indeed, the question now is not whether Australians are interested in simulator golf. It is what kind of simulator golf they want. There are, broadly, two businesses emerging. One is built around the golfer: practice, performance, memberships and access to technology that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. The other is built around the experience: beer, food, music, parties, leagues and gamified golf that makes the game more accessible to people who may never have considered joining a golf club.
The distinction matters.
Papadatos is firmly in the first camp. At InSim Golf, about 95 percent of the business is golfers and members using the facility to play or practise. There are some Christmas parties and birthdays, but that is not what the business is built around.
“It’s just people that are here for golf – they love golf, they want to improve their game or they’re getting into it,” he says. “They just love the game and don’t have any time or have a young family. Also, we’ve got the elite juniors and professionals coming to practise as well, so it really caters to everyone.”
The appeal is partly golf, partly convenience. InSim Golf operates much like an Anytime Fitness gym. Members book online, receive a six-digit door code and can arrive at whatever time suits them. At $39 a week, membership gives golfers an hour of access every day, with additional time or a guest costing $15. That flexibility has produced some unusual usage patterns.
“We’ve got tradies coming in at 3:30 in the morning,” Papadatos says. “It’s quite a busy time from 3am till 6am, and then we’re very busy from 2pm and 3pm in the afternoon all the way ’til 10pm.”
It also offers something traditional golf businesses cannot: relative immunity from the weather. That consistency is central to the business case for indoor golf. A golf course can lose a day’s revenue to rain. An indoor venue can potentially sell the same bay hour regardless of what is happening outside.
The economics, however, are not quite as simple as putting a simulator in a room and waiting for golfers to arrive. A fully fitted bay, including electrical work and a leading launch-monitor system like Trackman, can cost anywhere from $75,000 to $90,000. That means operators need to understand their local market, their likely customer and, most importantly, what they are actually trying to sell. A practice facility needs golfers who value access, privacy and performance. An entertainment venue needs the foot traffic and hospitality operation to support the golf. Golf Digest analysis identified the same divide in the US, where indoor golf has expanded rapidly and operators have had to decide whether they are selling golf or selling an experience.
Here in Australia, businesses such as X-Golf have demonstrated the potential of the latter model. X-Golf Group was named Franchisor of the Year in the 26-50 units category at the Franchise Council of Australia’s 2026 National Franchise Awards. Founded by former PGA professional Ben Styles, the business has grown from a single-venue concept to more than 35 locations across Australia and New Zealand, supported by 29 franchisees.
“From day one, we believed there was an opportunity to break down the traditional barriers to golf and create a more welcoming, flexible way for people to experience the game,” Styles says. “Our franchisees have taken that vision and brought it to life in communities across Australia and New Zealand. They’ve proven that when you focus on participation, community and customer experience, commercial success follows.”
More than half a million Australians have now engaged with golf through X-Golf’s network, according to the company, which combines simulator golf with hospitality and entertainment.
The Golf Sanctuary in Melbourne sits somewhere between the two models. Its 14 high-tech simulators and seven golf ranges are paired with food and drink in a more polished, social environment, attempting to make serious golf and a night out co-exist under the same roof. That is an important part of the indoor golf equation. The venues that succeed as entertainment businesses are not simply putting simulators in front of a bar. They are running hospitality businesses that happen to have golf at their centre.
“The golf experience is first and foremost in our minds,” says Button of Five Iron Golf Australia. “The quality of the environment and sim accuracy must be your first priority. Once these are correct, you can build out the experience with great food, alcohol and events, but the golf must be real and fun as a starting point.”
That ‘realism’ factor Button references is perhaps the most significant development of all, and it’s making the line between simulator golf and the real thing increasingly difficult to draw. Gavin Macpherson is proof. The Sydney professional won the inaugural NSW Virtual Open, Golf NSW’s innovative simulator tournament, playing across a network of venues before winning the final and $10,000. His prize was more than money: a guaranteed start in the 2026 Ford NSW Open at The Vintage
Golf Club.
It was the first state-based virtual golf tournament conducted by a representative golf body in Australia, and Macpherson’s victory created a direct pathway from a simulator to a professional tournament.
The connection between virtual golf and professional golf is already well established overseas. The NEXT Golf Tour, powered by Trackman, has created a global simulator circuit in which professionals compete for prizemoney and opportunities connected to the DP World and HotelPlanner tours. Then there is TGL, the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy-backed league developed in partnership with the PGA Tour. Its players compete inside a purpose-built arena, hitting tee and fairway shots into a giant virtual course before moving into a real short-game area for shots on and around the green.
For Papadatos, that evolution is no surprise.
“The technology is so good now,” he says. “It’s so realistic, every shot that you hit, you get that same sensation of playing a round of golf and there’s online tournaments popping up everywhere.
“To be able to play tournament golf [on a screen] for prizemoney just shows you how good the technology is and how far it’s come.”
