Five Questions with Nick Longley, Co-Founder of Inrange Golf
1.Eighty-five percent of public-access golf courses in the U.S. are single-owned, meaning they are typically small businesses. What can the addition of an entertainment-focused range experience mean for the common facility?
The first thing to state is that being a single facility, and being a small business, should not be a barrier to adding entertainment to your range. The majority of our range partners are one-facility businesses, and that’s partly because technology makes it possible to add our technology without a big capital investment, and without any significant changes to the range setup.
And once you have entertainment technology, what does it add? Well for us it’s four things:
First, your target customer base just exploded – because instead of just keen golfers , your market is anyone who’s ever been bowling, or played mini-golf, or been to the movies, or gone out for a beer, which is pretty much everyone. And most ranges only need a very small share of that much bigger market to dramatically move the needle for their business.
Second, entertainment players arrive with completely different price expectations. Their frame of reference is set by those experiences I mentioned before, not the price of a bucket. And entertainment players are group players, so they’re sharing the cost.
Third, that means your revenue per bay can increase dramatically. And as dwell time increases driven by a more satisfying practice experience and/or group gaming, so do all your secondary revenue streams – especially food & beverage.
Finally – and critically – your entertainment and practice businesses drive each other. If they have a rewarding experience on that first visit, today’s entertainment players can be tomorrow’s serious golfers. And serious golfers, seeing a fun social event happening next door, are tomorrow’s entertainment customers. For many of our range partners, empty bays are rare (even in non-peak periods), because this two-way dynamic is helping to keep the facility pumping.
2. We’ve seen a steady rise in the popularity of off-course entertainment facilities in recent years. What makes these venues appealing to those interested in trying golf for the first time?
In our view, there are two key reasons why off-course golf is attractive to new golfers, and is a key driver for the growth of the game.
The first is that off-course puts a completely different face on the game. Golf is traditionally an exclusive game to get into, and a difficult game to play well; so people may feel nervous or embarrassed about arriving at a golf course to play. But that’s just not the case at an entertainment facility where the focus is on having fun. Come to any of our Inrange® facilities, and the first thing you’re likely to notice are small groups and couples wearing jeans and flip-flops, or maybe even dressed up for the night out they’re going on to.
The second is time. Golf is a fairly time consuming sport which is not always seen as family friendly, or indeed schedule-friendly when most of us lead busy lives. Most people’s frame of reference for participation in sports is set by the time it takes to go for a run or attend a gym or yoga class. By condensing the experience into an hour at a facility which has something for the whole family, it removes that barrier.
3. How can golf ranges and non-traditional facilities strike a balance between welcoming new golfers while also serving dedicated golfers looking to improve?
The good news is that, as I mentioned earlier, these two demographics complement and feed off one another rather than competing for bay space or owner focus in a negative way. This is supported by their time preference, bay preference and then we at Inrange® make it very easy to support both types.
From a time preference perspective, we have found that your keen golfers often have a preference for playing earlier in the day whereas your entertainment golfer prefers evenings and weekends.
From a bay preference point of view, particularly at our multi tier ranges, keen golfers prefer the downstairs bays and entertainment golfers prefer upstairs for the view as well as the extra carry that they get.
All of this is supported by the Inrange in-bay solution which allows ranges to provide two differentiated offerings from a single touch screen device. Inrange for the golfer and Inrange+ for the entertainment golfer.
4. Why is it important for golf courses and ranges to evolve their operations and offerings?
Well we have to start with the fact that player expectations are shifting, and shifting fast. This isn’t just driven by technology in the golf industry, but also much more widely. How many golfers now own wearable tech like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch? How many use Strava? It’s just not realistic to expect amateur golfers who can tell you exactly how far they walked or jogged in 30 minutes and what their heart rate was that whole time, to carry on investing time in their golf practice without any tangible data at the end of it.
By changing to a more experience led approach, ranges are able to provide a much more rewarding experience to every kind of player – and charge a premium price to do so. But despite a slightly higher cost, our experience is that players feel they’re getting better value. The result is customers who stay longer, return more often, and deliver more to your bottom line.
And if – as I believe we must – we want to grow this great game, then we have to ensure that our practice facilities are attracting a wider range of customers. Bringing in a range enhancement like Inrange® is a great way to do this.
5. As a UK-based company that has seen great success in a variety of geographic areas, what lessons are you applying to the market as you expand in the U.S.?
The big thing we’ve seen as we’ve rolled out the system all over the globe is how consistent the player response has been. At every single facility where Inrange® has gone live, we’ve seen the needle not just move, but jump in all the metrics you’d hope – ball volumes, secondary revenue, revenue per bay, and most excitingly the % of non-golfers coming to the range.
But any new technology is a change and our partners need to be supported in delivering that change. As a result at Inrange® we don’t just install our tech and wish the customer “good luck”. We’re not a vendor, we’re a partner.
So we’ve learnt a lot about how to partner with our range customers to help them move through the process of delivering an enhanced practice experience, to welcoming a new base of customers and delivering a first class entertainment experience.
And the feedback we get from our customers is that that’s exactly what they want and need – not just a system, but first class support in every area – technical, commercial and – critical to engage that new non-golf audience – marketing support. So as we continue to expand into the US market, we’re just going to continue leaning into that partner role, ensuring that every Inrange® facility reaches its full potential to give an amazing experience to every player that picks up a club there.
