Jared Solomon and his partners started with a vision, to make golf for everyone by delivering a dynamic, entertaining, and inclusive way to experience golf. Five Iron has quickly re-shaped urban golf culture by putting a modern spin on an old classic. They began their story in 2017 from humble beginnings with one location on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District, the origin of our name (created by taking the “Five” from Fifth Avenue and the “Iron” from the Flatiron District.)
Fast forward to the present day, Five Iron Golf has expanded nationwide across ten major U.S. cities and over 20 locations and counting, with international franchise locations in Singapore and India.
Helping the masses to get their swing on, the 5i way is about access to play, practice, and party, inclusivity to bring out the golfer in everyone, and unforgettable experiences.
For the serious golfer, Five Iron hosts high-tech Trackman simulators, access to teaching professionals, practice time, leagues, club storage, showers, top-of-the-line clubs free to use during your booking, and in-house club fitting services.
For the less-than-serious golfer (and let’s be honest, most of the severe golfers too), Five Iron offers flexible event spaces, a full-service bar, locally-crafted food menus, table games like ping pong and shuffleboard, and widescreen TVs perfect for watching your favorite game.
Jared Solomon and his partners started with a vision, to make golf for everyone by delivering a dynamic, entertaining, and inclusive way to experience golf. Five Iron has quickly re-shaped urban golf culture by putting a modern spin on an old classic. They began their story in 2017 from humble beginnings with one location on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District, the origin of our name (created by taking the “Five” from Fifth Avenue and the “Iron” from the Flatiron District.)
Fast forward to the present day, Five Iron Golf has expanded nationwide across ten major U.S. cities and over 20 locations and counting, with international franchise locations in Singapore and India.
Helping the masses to get their swing on, the 5i way is about access to play, practice, and party, inclusivity to bring out the golfer in everyone, and unforgettable experiences.
For the serious golfer, Five Iron hosts high-tech Trackman simulators, access to teaching professionals, practice time, leagues, club storage, showers, top-of-the-line clubs free to use during your booking, and in-house club fitting services.
For the less-than-serious golfer (and let’s be honest, most of the severe golfers too), Five Iron offers flexible event spaces, a full-service bar, locally-crafted food menus, table games like ping pong and shuffleboard, and widescreen TVs perfect for watching your favorite game.
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Yeah . Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My
Speaker 2:Friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving range
Speaker 1:From Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round. You play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf if you don't play it for money? Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert tore .
Speaker 3:What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I had my friend Jared Solomon from Five Iron Golf. Taylor wanna talk about their growth. If Five Iron Golf, if you're in a big city, you probably have a five golf in your location. If not, you probably will be soon. And when we're talking about their growth and where they're going, and I'm really excited , excited having on the show because I think this is a really cool market that's coming to everybody now. So welcome to the show. Thank
Speaker 4:You Paul . Excited to be here.
Speaker 3:So where are you located right
Speaker 4:Now? I'm in Manhattan. That's where our corporate offices are. And uh, building out a good team here as far as locations across the country, all the way, you know, New York all the way to Seattle. Just opened in India, which is really exciting. Singapore, that's crazy. Australia's coming. So a lot of good stuff coming domestically and internationally.
Speaker 3:So you're based in Manhattan, like how, like where are you In Manhattan? Right
Speaker 4:By Grand Central. So Oh , nice . You get off the train, cross the street up to the office. Honestly, one of the nice things about the traditional office space, I think the price is going down and some of the subletting that's happening has been I think some of these younger companies saying like, I'll take some office space and , and go to go to Manhattan. So I think that could be cool for the city, which is story for a different podcast, but, but something I'm excited for .
Speaker 3:It's interesting. No, that's cool. So like you , I read about it like in the New York Post and stuff like that, but like I don't, I don't, I mean Arizona, so we don't have that. It's kinda a little different, but you know, just how the big comp , there's a lot, there's a lot of space right now in the city, right? A lot of companies have either moved out or are remote or there's a lot of real estate available from what I've read . Totally . And
Speaker 4:You know, it's like before we could go to WeWork and spend a ton of money or something like that, or go maybe in the outskirts of the city. And even for us, you know, we're , we're hybrid work but to, to go take office space at $70 a foot didn't make sense for us. But it's $20 a foot and you can get something that's already built out. You're like, I don't know , this is a good idea. And it's been awesome to get everyone together and hopefully, you know, some of these younger companies can move to the city and, and
Speaker 3:It's kind of cool.
Speaker 4:I think so .
Speaker 3:So like, so how far is the Five Iron Golf from that office?
Speaker 4:There's one that we're building about a sand wedge away, so Oh my God, really ? That should be really close. That one's opening in October. That's our Grand Central location. Should be a , a good flagship there. Then we have one over on 31st and sixth for those people that know New York, which is sort of on the west side. We're down on Wall Street, upper East Side. We just opened so five locations in the city, long Island City as well. So we, we have a bunch in right around this area.
Speaker 3:That's crazy. So I guess before I go into, into Five Iron, like let me , are you a golf professional or like, what's your deal?
Speaker 4:No, nothing at all. I played tennis growing up. I, this whole idea started, I was in the city post law school, so my wife and I went to law school in the city where Columbia.
Speaker 3:Oh, nice . That's a good school.
Speaker 4:We
Speaker 3:Actually, I went to law school too. I went to law school out here though, so I didn't know you were an attorney in school .
Speaker 4:We're doing
Speaker 3:Football out here, Arizona.
Speaker 4:Nice . Well, are you practicing law these days?
Speaker 3:No, I actually left my firm a year ago. There
Speaker 4:You go. Well neither of us are practicing law, so , um, but my wife <laugh>
Speaker 3:Is your , your wife's not practicing a lot either.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she's our chief legal officer, but we actually went to undergrad together at Hamilton College Law School and then law school together at Columbia. So she's helped me get through , uh, a few different schools here at this point. But yeah, so anyway, post post law school was recession. Her best job opportunity was in upstate New York and Rochester, which for, you know, those aren't looking at a map, it's , it's a plane right away. I actually went straight to work on Wall Street right out of law school. So we were just seeing each other once a month, kind of on the weekend at best for two years. And I played a lot of ping pong at this place called Spin and started taking golf lessons indoors with this guy Mike Doyle, who's now one of the co-founders of Five Iron . And that's really when I started playing golf. So I'm definitely not, you know, a traditional golfer, although I , I like to think that I've gotten into the sport a little more. I'm of a club up in Westchester here in New York, which is awesome and I try, but no, my foundation is not golf, nor you want not not want me to teach you how to play.
Speaker 3:So when did you graduate law school?
Speaker 4:Oh God. Oh eight. Does that
Speaker 3:Make sense? Oh right, the recession. That was like, right, like I graduated law school in 13. Yeah. So like, it was, there was no jabs bro. It was like , you know, from eight to , if anybody's a lawyer out there, eight to 13 was some badass years for lawyers. 'cause there was like no jobs like, or if they were, they're like not paying Jack, I mean <crosstalk> . No ,
Speaker 4:It was , it was really tough. And no, it was really tough. Which in some ways was good for which had to get creative with what we wanted to do. Which was,
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you graduated law school. All right , so you grew up where? In New York?
Speaker 4:I grew up outside of Philadelphia in uh , bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3:Oh cool. So then you grew up there and then you played tennis, but you didn't play any golf really. You didn't play golf with your dad or your grandpa or nobody like tennis was your sport
Speaker 4:Not even close? Yeah, no, I really like, I hit a couple balls in college. We had a nine hole golf course, but that was about it. But I did, I think the thing that excited me at the beginning, which to this day has remained true for me and I think a lot of different people. Yeah, I really like the statistics and learning. So when I was learning in the city , the ability to learn on a TrackMan or launch monitor and look at things like swing speed and club path and a lot of these different metrics were really healthy early.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like really early in your, in your lessons or career goal , whatever you'll call it . Yeah,
Speaker 4:People always ask like launch monitors for experts or beginners, like does it really help a beginner if the one thing you're looking at is hitting the ball far and straight, it's probably not gonna go well for you at the beginning. So having a top couple of different metrics that you can at least manipulate and and feel some version of success, I think is a really powerful way of using the launch Mars itself . You can
Speaker 3:Or under even understanding, right? Like what all the numbers actually mean, like what's ball speed versus club head speed and what does this , what's smash factor mean and what's carry more than your Yeah, I totally agree. Totally . That's a good point.
Speaker 4:You can work out of your first lesson at Five Iron seeing that your swing speed went from, you know, 60 to 70, a real tangible thing you can walk out seeing that your club path went from outside to, you know, closer to neutral. Well you can't walk out of your first lesson is probably going to play at a golf course and feel like you have any type of enjoyable time. So it gives you sort of this latter path towards improvement that I think is, is really appealing and helps with that sort of accessibility and everything that we're, we're always talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that's cool 'cause like, I mean most people don't go that route. I mean I would say 99% of people don't any kind of technology until like in the last couple years how it's gotten down in price. Then they start actually playing with it and they're like, oh, that's what that means. That that means,
Speaker 4:Yeah, you'd be surprised though, like how in the beginner lessons and everything that we do and using even the games and everything that they have, we're going out to a real hole and saying, here's a fairway, here's a bunker. You know, you can use it for a bunch of different ways that, you know, I would say most of the people nowadays, at least in five iron locations, obviously are , are using that. And I think it's a very, very appealing way to learn, even if you're just getting started.
Speaker 3:No, that's cool. So like you got a law school and then were you practicing law like at Wall Street or you just working on Wall Street?
Speaker 4:No, I went to work and I didn't even know what it was. It was actually a , a poker player before all of this. And I did the summer associate gig at a law firm in the city. And my mentor we still work with now was kind of like, ah , don't be a lawyer, like get into business or something. Which I didn't even really know it meant I was a philosophy major at Hamilton and, and didn't really know what that meant. People are like, oh, work on Wall Street or finance, there's a thousand different ways to work at finance or around Wall Street or business. It's not all the same, but back , back then I'm like, all right , okay, sure. And then I got this opportunity to work at an options market making firm on the um , uh, option market making firm . So we were option market makers, stayed there for a decade, built our own company out of that. And it was a really awesome experience and it was honestly a lot like playing poker, but same sort of thing. You're looking at a screen, a lot of statistics. So, you know, to me they were , they're very much very similar playing poker or options marketing at Wall Street, but I was one of the guys that was like waving their hands around and doing all that stuff. But kind of post that generation where instead of waving your hands, you were just doing it all behind a desk on , you know , on a computer.
Speaker 3:It's funny 'cause like most lawyers tell you not to be a lawyer if you notice that. Like you ask a lawyer, oh , should be a lawyer. No , I don't be a lawyer.
Speaker 4:A hundred percent of lawyers say that. I don't know if I've met one that says they want , even my wife is , uh, you know, she struggles at times with with her profession I feel like. So it's , uh, it's about
Speaker 3:But she's your guy . She's so is she the in-house counsel then for you guys?
Speaker 4:She is . She is. That's cool. Yeah. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:So what did she do when she moved up to, to where was , what was she doing like practice wise ? Yeah , was she like , she
Speaker 4:Was clerking for a judge, so she got that really good experience and then she clerked there for two years, then she came back to the city to work a
Speaker 3:Federal judge or a state judge. Oh
Speaker 4:Man, I'm gonna get divorced over this. Uh,
Speaker 3:Man , you're not sorry .
Speaker 4:Let's say a federal , like a district or something, federal judge. That's the more impressive one, right? And then if it's down from there, yeah, definitely de a federal judge Paul and I know him really, really well. Um , no, but the ,
Speaker 3:You seen next Supreme Court Justice <laugh> as
Speaker 4:Long , as, long as she doesn't asked what I was doing in the city for two years, I wanna ask her what she was doing , uh, for two years in Rochester. But no the, so she was there and then she came back to work at a big law firm in corporate litigation in the city. So she was in doing that for a while . Then we had kids and now she's, she's back as our Chief legal officer, which is,
Speaker 3:That's cool. So you worked on Wall Street for 10 years before that was like your job, right? You had options. So did, are you, does that company still exist or did you sell that company or did you , did you get out of it? Yeah,
Speaker 4:Essentially sold that company, got out of it. Um , one of my best friends is still still in that industry. It was awesome. And honestly it was a wild story. The, we started it obviously while we both had jobs, five Iron and you know, you never know what it's gonna be, but you certainly don't think it's going to be this. And course it got to the point where we had to raise private equity money. We didn't have to, but we had the option to raise private equity from this awesome private equity firm that we're still close to and is an investment five iron . But as part of that deal, they're like, Hey, you gotta go be the full-time c e O. So I left and that was right when the pandemic was happening. So I left probably the best couple of trading years ever to go to go be the full-time c e o of a company that was just going straight into Covid, which was, which is a wild time. But honestly no regrets about that. It's been awesome doing the, the c e o thing and learning how to become a C E O and learning about things like private equity and investment bankers and debt and all these kind of things that I'm sure a lot of other CEOs knew from day one. But I , it's, it's, for me it's been constantly learning about a , a lot of these different mechanisms and, and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:When did you have the idea or you and your, your friends have the idea for Five Iron your partners?
Speaker 4:Roughly 2015, I wanna say. So I was taking lessons with this guy Mike Doyle, in the back of a men's clothing store. Um, the simulators were not really a thing, but the largest simulator place was, you know, three or four sims in the country really, to be honest at that point. Don't quote me on that, but at least in New York there really wasn't a lot. I loved it, but I also want a place to practice and I also wanted a place to bring my friends and play and sort of actually play golf. 'cause there's getting out to a course, tough, expensive, all that stuff. So I got to know Mike really well and we both had an affinity for customer service and the food and beverage side of things. I really liked art and you know , if you still look at our , you know, behind me you got the street art a little bit and the graffiti and he was awesome and just had that same sort of vision and that was sort of the , the two people that originally had the idea. But yeah, from the beginning we wanted to be a place for the serious golfer as well as the entertainment type person. And I think that's remained fairly consistent to this day. Our biggest fear back then was the Wingfoot member or the Westchester Country Club member. The ball is world member . They're not gonna like five iron because the music's on and there's graffiti and this and that. At the end of the day, we've learned that they're gonna be our best customers. If , if you have , if you have a good product on the golf side and good food and beverage, they're , they're gonna be there and
Speaker 3:All the time. Right. Especially all the time . Yeah, especially with your locations, it's like they don't even wanna be work , they don't wanna be at the golf course and they don't wanna drive outta the city.
Speaker 4:Totally. It's changing now how people perceive golf. But back then, as you know, back then, as if it's so long ago you'd really heard people talk about golfer, who's the serious golfer who in my mind needed a maroon couch and green walls, or they just simply couldn't enjoy the experience and it needed to be silent and it needed to wear pants. And then there was this entertainment type person who was just wildly different in reality. It's just, it's just not true, right? Like, just because you care about your game or you wanna practice this exam or you wanna go play at a fancy club, doesn't mean you also don't like a five iron or a top golf type experience. And there , there are more of those people than there are people that are in, you know, just the serious golfer category or whatever
Speaker 3:That means. I mean it's, it's, I would agree. I mean I think like the stereo, well the stereotypical golfer has changed in the last five years too. Like I, and that and that , and that's not 'cause of Covid . I mean, COVID helped a lot of it, I think, but I also think it was already starting to happen 2018, you know, when hip hop started coming into golf and N B A players started coming into golf and you know, everything really sort of opened up the game to a lot of other, you know, people. And I think the stereotypical player is not, I mean, we don't have , we have clubs out here, like fancy clubs or whatever, but like I don't play those courses. Like I play like summer rates when it's cheap and you know, I'll play a nice course if a buddy of mine can get us in. But, you know, I think a lot of people are like that too. I , I go play a , I wanna go play. I don't wanna like spend a ton of money on it. Um , totally.
Speaker 4:Even even at some of the fancier clubs, I mean, you're seeing it like go watch the masters, they're wearing hoodies right at Augusta at my club like that I joined five years ago, you couldn't wear a hoodie. Now they sell the hoodies in the pro shop right now, you know, so some of those old rules are very much changing and they're changing because it's become a lifestyle sport. Like if you see Justin Thomas and Rory playing with Justin Timberlake, who like, it's, it , it's great for golf, it opens up way , way more people are interested in that and having a good time than the people that just want to play around in three hours and 15 minutes and have, follow all these rules and wear a jacket all the time. Like it's just the next generation of people, even at the nicest clubs , like there just isn't a huge audience of people saying like , oh yeah, I really wanna wear a jacket everywhere. Right? So it's just, I think it's changing and it's, dude ,
Speaker 3:One time I was wearing like, no joke, okay , so like in one of my YouTube videos I was reviewing something and I had like a , I have a t-shirt on like this, like a Travis Matthew t-shirt, right? And somebody like wrote a comment, something to the effect of like, oh, you're just a typical golf, a new golfer guy, you know, we like, I can't believe we're wearing a t-shirt in your videos . Like, you should be wearing like a polo. And I was like, bro, what are you a thousand years old <laugh> like , like, like seriously, like, I'm like, okay, cramps <laugh> , what am I supposed to say? Like it doesn't even make sense. Like, okay, I'm just to wear a polo in a p in a YouTube video for what reason? Like I know golf is not like that anymore. Like , I don't know , crazy ,
Speaker 4:Whatever . I had a pro who was like, yeah, I think everyone here should be wearing like pants all the time when they play. I'm just like, but why? Like , why do you care? Why do you care what they, what pants they're wearing?
Speaker 3:I got another story. So my buddy's a pro at a course and I'm wasn't gonna shoot a YouTube video over there like two years ago. And I had like, you know, shorts on and you know , golf shoes . But I had, I had a shirt like this, like I don't care, here's my video, lemme do what I want. And he is like, look, I can't let you on the course. And I'm like, what do you mean you can't let me on the course? He's like, you need to pull this shirt on. I was like, you're joke . Like , I'm like, you serious, right? He's like, no, I'm being serious. I'm like, this isn't even a private course. It's like, why? He's like, I , he's like , you have to. So I freaking went in the pro shop, I go buy a polo, which they had didn't have my size. So I bought like a double xl , it was like a big dress and it was humongous. It was almost as they had because they like no polos. It was like all smalls and stuff. And I was like, really? Dude ? Like come on.
Speaker 4:I, one of my girls , and this is, I'm not saying this inspired five iron, but one of my most formative experiences as a kid, I was like, I don't know , 13, I guess I was older than that 'cause I was driving so 17 or something like that, playing in a tennis tournament and I started tennis late, but, but practiced pretty hard. It was , was decent. I was a decent junior I would say. I went to this tournament and they weren't gonna let me play unless I had a white polo and I couldn't believe it. So I was like really flustered and called my dad and like at that point, you know, the $65 whatever was like, I didn't, I just have, I didn't have $65, you know , your , your kid and whatnot kid.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You owe money.
Speaker 4:I , I obviously like we figured it out. I played the tournament but like that situation was just so off-putting and so intimidating and I was like, man, I just wouldn't, I , I just don't want golf to be that. And, and it's obviously come a long way for sure.
Speaker 3:No, I think I would agree. I think, I think it was already starting to change like about 15, 16, 17 it was starting to, and then I think covid just like pushed over the top. That's what I think. And I also think like Callaway got a smoking deal on Topgolf, right? Because they would pay like a hundred, it'd be like a billion dollars for it or something, you know, it's worth like way more than that now. So it's
Speaker 4:Like, yeah I think like you'll hear the o e like even obviously Callaway got a great deal on Topgolf, but just what that company has done and, and you know, five iron to some small extent of getting more people into golf and everything is just awesome. Top golf obviously at that like way top of the funnel getting people hitting their first golf balls and everything like that. But you know, we talk about growing the game, which I know is a term that people just can't even hear anymore 'cause it's, it's so played out in some ways. But so much of what we see, which is awesome, which is why I'm so bullish on golf long term and some of these numbers, you know, post Covid keeping up, you have so many people at Five Iron that they played in high school, they played them , were a kid, but they kind of lost it and they're in the city then all of a sudden they're coming to five Iron three, four days a week, they're play in a league. They're getting way back into being consumers of golf. So you get someone who's like casually interested how things to do two 'em see completely.
Speaker 3:It's the future. Yeah. It's completely the future. Like, I mean I , in the last two years I've probably done close to 40 YouTube videos on launch monitors, right? Yeah . And the , even the , even the leaps and bounds in launch monitors have gone so far in two years and the prices has come down so much. It's like, it's changing the game because like you can build a simulator in your garage or your basement or whatever for not that much money. You know, it might not be the fanciest one who caress it does the job. Totally. You know , and then
Speaker 4:It's, it's also the kind of thing where I, I'm not saying five Iron or is more fun than playing outdoors or , or less fun. I'm not saying either of those things, but the technology of the launch monitors and, and , and there's a lot to a launch monitor as you know, is only gonna get better. The graphics are only gonna get better. The immersive like three D experiences are only gonna get, you know, better playing golf outdoors is, you know , I'm not sure how much there is to do to that experience, right? So you have all this technology that's gonna get better and more immersive and then you have green grass golf, you know, kind of staying the same. And look that's to someone who really enjoys playing outdoor golf and and doing it. And certainly, you know, I was talking to someone the other day, I was comparing to the cell phone , like our kids or when we grew up, you know, you held , if you , how you hold the cell phone , you put up your hair . Yeah . Right now just flip
Speaker 3:One. I was like, I had a Motorola star Ttac dude. I was like, oh , with the , we had to pull the antenna out and it broke. The tip broke off.
Speaker 4:I had, I had a, I had a , I had a beefy cell phone back in the day for sure. Did you
Speaker 3:Have an Nokia <laugh> ?
Speaker 4:It was, I don't know what it was, but it looked, I mean it had to be, you know, a foot tall and felt like I was
Speaker 3:Oh, you had the Zach Morris phone
Speaker 4:Call . Yeah. Calling the moon or something like that. So, but now if you has kids have the older phone, they'll put it in front of 'em , 'em on speaker phone or they don't even know what you're talking about talking on the phone. I think if you ask the next generation, like my daughters, you know, for what the, what golf is like, it's just gonna be a very different answer than, than like our perceptions of golf. Like that's just completely changing a
Speaker 3:Hundred percent. So like there's a, there's a nine hole course by my house and like they have a summary and I know these guys really well and that run it. And so they have a summary and it's 200 bucks for all you can play between now and the end of September, which is a smoking deal. Right. And then, so then I, I'm like, well , can I bring my kids with me? I have a 10 year old and a 13 year old and they're like, oh yeah, for sure dude. We play golf every single day for the last eight days. Like we go early, we would go walk to nine. It's a little small executive course. My kids love it. My older, my younger son who's like totally addicted now, like totally addicted. He's like, I is better in baseball. Like, good, let's get some lessons. Then . I was good .
Speaker 4:I was listening to another podcast and it was like , uh, the Derek Thompson Ringer podcast playing English. Hopefully I'm not getting this wrong, but apparently youth golf is like the only sport that's growing. All the other youth sports are really struggling and getting kids to play youth sports is, is a problem. Golf is really , golf is booming, right? Like the , and that's 100% in my opinion because it's become cool to play golf. Like when I was in middle school and high school, it was definitely not like playing
Speaker 3:Golf row .
Speaker 4:Not at all. Yeah. Now it's cool because like Jordan brand is a big part of it and you're seeing, you know, these guys have fun and all these celebrities want to get involved in golf and things like that. And you know, Canelo Alvarez is flying with a swing coach around and you know, it it it's wild what's sort of happening and how much interest it is from a lifestyle. And people always ask me like, and probably you too is, is golf here to stay or is it, and I'm like, as long as you let people hit golf balls, like it's pretty fun. Like people forget that the reason we all started was 'cause we hit a couple balls and thought, huh, this is a pretty good time and for so long it's
Speaker 3:A fun time.
Speaker 4:Golf's like, tried to not let hit people hit balls and think of it as fun, but if it just kind of gets out of its own way, I think golf's, golf's gonna be just fine.
Speaker 3:Have you guys been, did you, have you guys been to the p G A show yet? Oh yeah. Did you guys get a booth there or what'd you guys do? Or just walk the floor?
Speaker 4:I think , uh, I was on a panel there about the future of off course golf or maybe it was the N G F conference, but I was on talking at it . We , we got a booth there for recruiting and whatnot and you know, we look at all the simulator companies and meetings and all that stuff. But yeah, it's a cool show for sure.
Speaker 3:So in your sims, what are you using? What do you use TrackMan? So
Speaker 4:We use , we use TrackMan and the way that I talk about simulators is sort of like cars. There's a a , you know, like cars, yeah. Like far is kind of , or TrackMan I think is like kind of the Ferrari ,
Speaker 3:Well TrackMan's like the Ferrari, let's put , let's start there, right? But
Speaker 4:Then there's like a well-maintained Ferrari and a not well-maintained Ferrari. And I think we do a good job of like maintaining it. And then I talk about the like souped up Ferrari and I would say we kind of have the souped up Ferrari. So we have our own proprietary camera system, our own computers that we build . There's a lot that goes into it . And then we build the entire simulator. They just get a lot of views . I mean they're open from 6:00 AM till 2:00 AM a lot of the time . Oh
Speaker 3:They get a lot of abuse. Yeah ,
Speaker 4:There's lot . The screen
Speaker 3:Is getting hit all day.
Speaker 4:Exactly. But yeah, we use TrackMan as that sort of engine and um,
Speaker 3:So is it behind the person or are you using a camera system above your head?
Speaker 4:No, it's behind, behind the person.
Speaker 3:I mean, TrackMan's accurate as hell. So I mean it's like, there's no questioning. Oh it that right or wrong. It's like,
Speaker 4:It's , yeah, it's, it's accurate. I also think, you know , talking about these launch miners getting cheaper and less expensive, like it's really, I think accuracy is gonna get commoditized personally over the next decade. Like even the
Speaker 3:<crosstalk> the experience, I think it's gonna be experience. That's what I think. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4:Gonna be all about the experience and sort of the wrap . It's like everyone's gonna be, it's not , these simulators are not gonna get less and less accurate. They're gonna get more and more accurate, you know, even on the, the like lower bargain brands . So it's gonna be like leagues and events and you know, how do you make it fun and gamified and how do you incorporate gambling and betting into it and, and make it fun for everyone around there and like, what's the music situation? I think it's gonna be more about that than it is the accuracy, which is interesting. I think it'll be really interesting to play out. 'cause so many of these brands like a TrackMan or Foresight have, you know, number one thing or the most accurate or the most accurate or the most accurate ? Well eventually it's sort of like close enough that it just is not making a difference on the experience, right? Even even some of the less expensive ones. Now, if you're a 10 handicap or a 15 handicap, like it's just not that much of a difference between a Sky Track or something like that and a TrackMan if , if you're just trying to get basic numbers.
Speaker 3:So when you guys started, so you had the idea in 15, then what happened? Were you like at a bar hanging out or were you hitting balls one day and you're like, we just do this? Or what happened?
Speaker 4:So we, Catherine my wife was friends with, still is friends with Nora, who's our fourth co-founder. So that's sort of the core four founders. And Nora's husband was going to business school , uh, in , at Darden at U V A . And she was kind of like, I like this idea too, you know, we got her excited. So hey, why don't you, you know, spend a couple months seeing if this is feasible. So that's everything from liquor licenses to finding real estate.
Speaker 3:You started doing the research, right? Like to see if this the
Speaker 4:Real Totally. And back then there was no Fran like now we have a Fran , we five iron have a franchise option, which would've been incredible back then. And there was just nothing like that. There was no sort of, this is what you do, you know , there was nothing. So we figuring
Speaker 3:It out. You're like , you're literally figuring it out. Like figuring isn't even gonna work.
Speaker 4:Totally . And then you have to deal with the Department of Health, the Department of Buildings and Department of Landmarks. And you especially doing something in New York City, there's just a bazillion things that can go wrong even from that. So Nora sort of took the lead on all of that. We eventually found some real estate, which is still our first location. I mean the name Five Iron , the five for Fifth Avenue Irons for the Flatiron District. That's where our first location is to this day on 19th and fifth. And yeah, we started with four simulators. We
Speaker 3:You had a bar.
Speaker 4:We had a bar and we had a kitchen. We always were, we didn't know anything about unit economics. I don't even know if we knew what that term meant, but we knew that we wanted food that was good. So we interviewed a chef at our one bedroom tiny Manhattan apartment who brought all her stuff and cooked there. And that was like all we knew . So we hired her and we had food and, and a bar from day one. And we really, it was
Speaker 3:Like finger food or like food? Food?
Speaker 4:No, it was food. Food. It was food, food. We didn't know what we were doing. We wanted good food, so we, we did what we like . But yeah, flatbreads and quesadillas. I'm not saying it was, you know, Michelin star food, but we've always really cared about the food and making things from scratch and ,
Speaker 3:Um , well yeah, because yeah, of course that would be too.
Speaker 4:But someone I remember early remember saying we had laughably good food for a golf place . So I , I always remember that and take it as a compliment, but being So
Speaker 3:What year did you guys open?
Speaker 4:2017.
Speaker 3:What month?
Speaker 4:Oh God, no idea.
Speaker 3:Really. Come on . Was it winter or summer?
Speaker 4:<laugh> , I wanna say it was like late spring and then we went through the summer. I was staying outside with the golf club on the weekend and try to bring people up and you know,
Speaker 3:You were like the, you know , like, kind of like if they holding a sign, you'd be like, come on in guys.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that , I don't know if that, that might be before sign spinners, but I would've been spinning a sign . <laugh> ,
Speaker 3:You're like going up to like upstate and you're trying to get people to come into the city to come try it out. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 4:But that's what we did. And then
Speaker 3:How long, like when did you realize like, whoa, this is legit, like this is really happening, like people like this and we're getting people in here. Was it like right away or was that for a couple months or like,
Speaker 4:I think from a business perspective, I would say when it wasn't horrible in the summer was when I was like, okay, it's not like, it's still seasonal for sure. The business and depends on the city can be really seasonal, but it wasn't horrible in like August and I was like, huh, that's not, that's good. And why?
Speaker 3:Because what happens in August in the city? Just people are not around or what ,
Speaker 4:Just like , you go play outside, right? Like all , you know, oh yeah, February, you really have no other option besides five iron. Um, but people really liked it and the feedback we got was good. And from there I , I'll never forget we had a meeting kind of with the four of us and a couple early employees and we're like, Hey, we could just kind of like keep doing this one thing or we could just rein. We , we obviously hadn't paid ourselves on anything back then, right? There was no taking money from it. So we just decided to reinvest back into it and we opened , we opened our second location down to the financial district. So we started, you know, with mine and Catherine's little bit of money and, and kind of rolled profits into those first couple locations before we brought in institutional money. Then once that happens, you know, everything explodes.
Speaker 3:So you had one location and then how long before you the second location? Like a year, two
Speaker 4:Years , January, 2019. Yeah, we opened the second location. So pretty quickly .
Speaker 3:Oh. Like right beginning of Covid,
Speaker 4:Well wait January, 2018 , that location was open for about a year . Oh ,
Speaker 3:Nineteen's a good year. Nevermind. 20
Speaker 4:Was a year . And then yeah , we had , we had , before Covid we had New York , um, we had a couple of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore was kind of that original grouping. And then we raised money and yeah. Then Covid hit and that was a whole, whole different, so you
Speaker 3:But when you, when you opened up more locations, it was that before or after private equity? Were you able to do it before that? No , and figure
Speaker 4:Out, like , we had five open before private equity.
Speaker 3:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:Yeah. We
Speaker 3:Like what, what made you decide to go to those cities? 'cause they were cities or what, I mean, that's a big jump, right ? I mean
Speaker 4:We, we just, you know, now we have like these fancy com , you know, websites and we, some guy in Baltimore was like, I remember he worked for Underarmour. He is like, it'd be perfect here, all right . Like, hey, we should look at Baltimore. We found a space. And he is like, I'll bring my friends and give you that , that core clientele early. I was from Philadelphia, so I wanted to go to Philadelphia. Yeah ,
Speaker 3:Back home. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And then Chicago always just felt good. Cold weather, city, big golf community, big drinking and, and sports community. So it's a lot of feel. I mean, it's one thing, you know, if you have a liquor store, a McDonald's, you can look at all these metrics and you'll get a pretty good idea of where you should go. And even larger, like if you're a Lululemon at this point, like, you know where you should go, right? For, for us, that in some ways kind of invented this category of what we're trying to do. It's, it's not obvious where we should go . It still to this day, it's not obvious where we should go and shouldn't go. So certainly back then it was kind of, you know, one friend had a pretty good gut about a city. It was kind of like, all right , let's, let's
Speaker 3:Go there . That makes sense. Yeah. Let's go there. That makes sense. Totally. Did you just pick cities that were like winter cities? Like, like you wanna open one of Miami right away or something like that? Right? Yeah , because like it'd be , or Phoenix, because it's like, well we didn't ,
Speaker 4:We, we do think that they can work well there, but certainly we not yet . Yeah . The places where there's just more white space and it was, I felt like there was gonna be that seasonality, which is nice. But the, was
Speaker 3:There competition for you guys in New York? Were you like the first to do this in New York?
Speaker 4:I mean, I, I would say there's, there were a couple mom and pop kind of places, but nothing really to the scale that we'd do it at
Speaker 3:A brand. Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I wouldn't say look like similar to Topgolf, but also not similar at all. But there were driving ranges before Topgolf. There obviously still are driving ranges, but they kind of professionalize and commercialize, built a brand around it , built some consistency. We obviously have a long way to go, but I feel like we have elements of that for sure.
Speaker 3:Listen, I got like , I I mean I've been your guys' website. I mean, I wish you guys had one here. I'd go there and hang out, you know, like, I think it's cool as hell. I mean , well
Speaker 4:We
Speaker 3:Now there's nothing like this in Phoenix. There's not I know , I mean I know Tru is , I know Trus probably gonna open up some here with their thing, what they're trying to do. And I'm surprised ex golf's not here either. Um, you guys aren't here yet, but I mean, I could see it in Scottsdale for sure. You know, like, just because people already, it's a maybe blow up. Totally.
Speaker 4:No, for sure. I think, look, you know, we just launched franchising. It took about two years to get there and um, now
Speaker 3:That's a huge step. That's a lot of work.
Speaker 4:A huge step. Took so much time and energy. It's really exciting. I mean there's, there's been so much interest. It's , it's absolutely wild and, and been awesome, but now it sort of opens the door for the, we have so many people say like, Hey, you'd kill it in Scottsdale now it's kind of like, all right Paul, like go, you know, go open a , a open
Speaker 3:One there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, go, go do it . Yeah , we can do it. And or
Speaker 3:Someone listens the show.
Speaker 4:I think for our, not that this is for me to be pitchy and salesy, but I think there's certainly the ex-co of the world and and whatnot who sort of just do franchising. You know , we like only now after 23 locations, the met like corporate locations are reopening franchising. So like we've, we've seen a lot and learned a lot just from that operational side of things. And that's a
Speaker 3:Lot if you think about it . That's a lot. And it's like you opened up 23 in the New York area. I mean, you opened up 23 across the United States. So it's not like we've , you've seen it all. We've
Speaker 4:Seen and learned a lot about like how to build a back storage room or like this member offering or how to run leagues and things like that. And I think those lessons and obviously the savings with the vendors and all that stuff, it just makes it a really compelling offer. And honestly, if there was anything like that when we had opened, that would've, I would've gone that route. But the, it's, it's really exciting to get to this point. And now it's, you know, if anyone listening wants to open in Scottsdale, they can, they can potentially, potentially do it, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 3:You guys opened up one in Vegas, right? Yep . Where's that one at? In Vegas? It's
Speaker 4:In area 15, which is this experiential retail wild concept where we're kind of the most normal thing in there, if that makes any sense. There's Meow Wolf where they have this supermarket where nothing's real and you touch it and it's very, it's very, oh ,
Speaker 3:For that place it hurts really cool art stuff. Like, cool. Like, yeah, my buddy went to that. That's cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah .
Speaker 3:Um, that, so you've really grown a lot. I mean this is only what , 2023 and your first location was open in what you said 17.
Speaker 4:Yep .
Speaker 3:Dude, that's crazy. Um, so there's how many locations right now?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we should have like 23 by the end of the first quarter of , of the year. Just a couple , uh, even by the end of this year. But we'll see , uh, under construction and things like that. And then we have a ton of interest in franchising. And then for next year we'll do a couple more corporate locations, but really focus on making sure that the franchisees are getting what they want from us marketing operations, you know , as we launch into that, just making sure that it's not in like the five iron way where we just make sure that they're, they're taken care of and treated , treated like a corporate store of us in terms of the resources and whatnot we're giving them .
Speaker 3:So when did you guys open up franchising? Like now? Like just
Speaker 4:Recently, like last week, like two weeks ago we, we opened .
Speaker 3:Oh really? Yeah . Oh crap.
Speaker 4:It was , um, it was pretty awesome. We got some good publicity with it and , and all that stuff. But yeah, it's , it's super exciting. I think it's a really compelling , um, offering and so far the interest has been, been good.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's kind of cool 'cause like you said, it's like you already have all these locations that are corporate owned and run and you already have it figured out and now you're just like, look, if you wanna open , like if you have to open your own location, cool. Like we will give you all the, you know, infrastructure you need to do it, the background, the story, everything, everything you need. We've , we've already figured it out. So go ahead, open up one in San Jose or open up one in LA or open up one wherever. We don't care. I mean, I mean you do care, but
Speaker 4:Everything from like the marketing collateral to the operational experience of how to do a build out and not, you know, screw it up and have it, we've seen so many indoor places where they screwed up on the build out . Just, it's tough to come back from that. The, it's not too , the ceilings aren't high out there . The sims aren't wide enough or the wiring's done poorly, the avs done poorly from the beginning or the, you know, whatever it is, you're using a long wrong launch monitor to begin with. It's not that you have to use TrackMan, but certainly, you know, we can, we can do pretty good things with that stuff . But yeah, it's, it's a , like I said, a pretty good value proposition to do it that way. And I think it saves a lot of, even how you do accounting and things like that, right. Just to help with, you know what, this books look , it's just, it , it's , it's pretty cool and it's oddly awesome 'cause you go into it thinking like, ah , is this worth it for the franchisees? And you wanna make sure it's something that's good, like everyone's winning. And at this point I'm very convinced that it's, we're offering a lot of value, even the technology from the app to the booking software that we're building. I mean , we're investing, yeah. It's
Speaker 3:Not like, oh, we're gonna give you like a you're , you know, but yeah, it's like you're advanced, right? It's not like, oh yeah, open up a location, we're gonna show you how to make it and how to put some sims in there and then we'll give you some collateral and you figure it out. You know, it's like, look, we have a whole infrastructure in place. Like you're just part of the infrastructure now.
Speaker 4:Totally. We're running a bazillion dollars on this app and, and whatnot that you're gonna be able to check in and store your stat .
Speaker 3:I mean, look at pop stroke , like pop stroke . They open the one up in, up in Phoenix and it like, or near, I say it's in the West Valley, which is stupid in my opinion 'cause it's West Valley, but they opened it by the football field, right? And then right before the Super Bowl it opened , so then it was like the place to go to, you know, and it was packed. And I'm like, oh man, I'm gonna make a fortune over here. You know? And it's like, people just want to have fun, I think. And I think if you wanna open up the golf to more people, you gotta have these kind of places you just do. You know? And golf's expensive as hell. Like if you wanna go to golf course and go play, it's expensive. It's like, why not? You don't need to go spend all that money. Go, go to Five Iron , go have fun or go get a lesson or go do something else. You can still enjoy the game. Um , cool .
Speaker 4:Even , even the public courses around here, just 'cause the demand of golf has blown up and there's just are only so many tee times . You'd be amazed by your ,
Speaker 3:Well, it's happening too. I dunno if it's happening out there, but out here it's like everything's becoming very privatized. So like you get these big buying groups, right? And they're buying all these courses and it's part of like, like Tru owns one and then there's another one , uh, oh , what's the name of those company? I can't think
Speaker 4:Of the , or ClubCorp probably owns something .
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of like , they own like, you know, a hundred , 200 clubs and they just buy 'em up and then you become a member of the system, I guess, and you can get discounts, but it's a , it's expensive. It's like, you know, it's a hundred bucks a month and it's like, it only gives you $30 off your tee times . It's like, bro , like you gotta play golf five times to pay for this membership. Yeah . Or you get free range balls. Oh wow. I'd save 10 ball $10 . But I mean, it's that , I think it was, I think Mickelson sold all of his groups to one of like, he had a bunch of courses here and he sold 'em all to like one of those big companies last year. But, but golf's expensive. That's, I think is, and I think what's cool about the technology in which you guys are offering is one, you're in cities, right? Where a lot of people don't have, I mean, in Chicago it's like, there's only so many golf , there's not many golf courses in downtown, right? So it's like, so what, like what does the future hold for you guys? Like what do you guys wanna do? You guys wanna like just be all across the United States? You said you opened up some in Europe already, or you said India, which is crazy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I think that I , golf has this unique opportunity to really explode and we , we've seen like the seeds of it in the United States and there's just so much more room to go, especially, you know, domestically and internationally to be honest. But yeah, franchising and partnerships is really exciting. Just building more locations and I think for us really improving the, like the, the whole experience around it , the game ga gaming element of it, the sports betting, all that stuff is really something that's exciting that we can, we can do. But yeah, I think just getting the word out there that golf is fun, which sounds so crazy. I mean , I bring up this all the time. If I'm like, Hey, do you wanna play darts Paul or go play ping pong? You're like, I'm not a ping pong player, I'm not a darter or whatever that person's called with golf. It's like, oh no, I'm not a golfer. Like you get that all the time, even for corporate events. Like, oh , I'm not a golfer, I, I don't wanna show up or something like that. And it's just like, there's this stigma of this like, you're either a golfer or non golfer that's so stupid that we need to get away from. Like if we were
Speaker 3:Oh they say I'm not that good. It's like, bro, none of us are good. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Like you would never say that. Like golf , it was like, Hey, do you wanna go bowling Saturday Paul? You're response would be like, I'm not that good at bowling. Like , you just never, never would it , like nobody came .
Speaker 3:I want those nasty shoes on my feet. Sorry, <laugh> . Yeah.
Speaker 4:Like , like anyone really cares how good you are at bowling to have a fun time at bowling or pinging pong or something like that. So I think just de-stigmatizing it and having a different version of success, like so much of golf success just feels tied to like, did the ball go in the hole? What score did you shoot? Versus like, you know, how far did you hit it? Or did you make good contacts or some , some other version of success . Yeah ,
Speaker 3:One good shot all day or do like, have fun with your kids or you know, I don't know, like yeah, yeah . I mean we all play golf for different reasons. I mean, it's not just the score and I think it's like, I mean it's , it's part of the game. But
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean Topgolf talks about like shot euphoria and creating that shot euphoria and you could do that making your first pot of pop stroke or you know, hitting it on one of the targets at Top Golf or something like that. Or Five Iron when you, you know, knock down the wizard or something like that and one of the games and some graphic pops up , like all that shot you for it . I mean, that's what gets people coming back and, and getting into the game and matriculating into the whole whole golf ecosystem.
Speaker 3:No , I totally agree. So like, have you guys done any collabs, other like brands?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we just are announcing a big one, so I don't, I
Speaker 3:Dunno if I don't announce it , if it's not ready then announce it.
Speaker 4:I don't wanna , I think it's , I think it's done. I don't wanna , I dunno if I should break it here. You know , we just did , we just did a big event with , um, like the doing things guys, Bob , the sports and , and the Boost .
Speaker 3:Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah .
Speaker 4:So keep an eye out for something there with that, that we're really excited about , um, talking to a few other brands about doing things as well. So hopefully some, some good stuff. And then obviously Callaway owns 20% of five irons, so we're close with like the Travis Matthew guys and O G O and all that stuff. So hopefully there's some cool , um, you know , that's cool, cool stuff going on there. Yeah,
Speaker 3:A lot of stuff. I mean, that's awesome. Um, well it sounds like you guys are, you're , it's like , it's like a rocket about to take off on a launchpad, right? Like you've already kind like, you're just, it's like getting ready to go and then once it goes , it's gonna go like crazy.
Speaker 4:I think Hope , I hope you're right. I hope you're right, <laugh> .
Speaker 3:If not, I can go back to Wall Street. Yeah. Um ,
Speaker 4:If it doesn't work, I'm gonna take a long nap, I think is what I'm gonna do. So, but no, we're , if I'm tired , it's uh , it's , it's fun . There's competition coming I'm sure and , and all that stuff. But overall I think it's really good for the sport and and accessibility to a sport that's been really exclusive is a , is a fun story to be part of.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's cool. And then you're opening up more locations, like you said, and it's gonna be like the more you can open it up to people, the more they can enjoy it and get to know the game a different way than just some stuffy old mans sport . Totally. Um, well cool. Well thank you so much for being on the show today. Where can people find Five Iron Golf?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would say go to five iron golf.com . You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, all the usual places, and then come visit us, DMM me , mention this podcast. I'll throw a free hour or some beer on your account or something like that and look
Speaker 3:At that. Yeah , just say you listen to Jared , he'll hook you up. Yeah, yeah , yeah . I know Jared , Jared
Speaker 4:B Solomon on Twitter ins Instagram. Um, and uh, yeah, tell me, tell me you're go to five and I'll send you some free things.
Speaker 3:Take a picture of , yeah, take a picture of at Five Iron . You'd be like, okay. Well , uh, we'll take care of you, <laugh> . Well, thanks very much for being on the show and I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're gonna beat me and golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the green.