TopGolf to open 11 US venues this year

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TopGolf to open 11 US venues this year

TopGolf is to driving ranges what Pizza Planet was to pizza shops, except non-fictional.

During the peak of the epidemic, the sport of golf saw tremendous growth, leading sportspeople towards socially-distanced outdoor activities. TopGolf is looking to weather a cost-conscious visitor while replicating its driving range formula at new geographic locations, as an inflationary reality for consumers.

TopGolf CEO Artie Starrs told Yahoo Finance Here in the United States that we're looking all over the world, and we're going to open 11 venues in the US this year. We opened in Philadelphia. We're going to open in a few short weeks outside of Seattle, Washington in Renton. We view the whole market as an opportunity for us. TopGolf disrupted the basic model of driving range business by infusing technology into every swing, hitting bay and transaction. The model has been well received by avid golfers, casual visitors and partygoers, presenting a wider consumer audience and prompting Callaway to acquire the service business for $2.6 billion.

The venue business, media business, and technology licensing business, which makes up half of the TopGolf revenues, is complimented by the fact that gameplay makes up half of the TopGolf revenues.

The management team will have to operate the service through an anticipated recession and an inflationary economic environment as the company plans to expand its next phase of expansion.

The macro headwinds have resulted in no substantive impact to the business, according to Starrs. The services industry will have to deal with the effects at some point.

Starrs says there is no doubt that we're seeing inflation in construction and some challenges in staffing our venues, but I think our team has done an exceptional job of modernizing the venue and how we build a venue, and making sure we can be open and provide great service to our players. TopGolf competes in the same category as DriveShack DS, which is expanding its footprint across major cities but through its Puttery venues focusing on mini golf or putt-putt During it s most recent quarter, DriveShack President and Chief Executive Officer Hana Khouri publicly shared that the walk-in business was normalizing and demand for future events remains extremely strong across our entire brand portfolio. Some people can be a professional golfer, but services like TopGolf and DriveShack at least offer funniest golf-adjacent services to create new social experiences and counter the aggravating moments that come with golf.

Bradley Smith is an anchor at Yahoo Finance.