Kathleen Erickson has identified more than 200 locations across the U.S. for her indoor golf concept. But first, she needs to start with one, and she’s planning to make DFW its home.
While she’s been working on the concept – called The Short Game Place – since 1992, advances in architectural engineering and the quality of artificial turf have finally caught up with the technology and vision she has for it. Now, she’s looking to raise $3 million in outside funding to bring it to life, with plans to scale from there rapidly.
“The idea behind it is if you’re going to play indoors and you’re playing off of a flat mat, you get no real-world experience. It’s not like playing golf outside,” Erickson, who serves as president and CEO, said.
Before designing what The Short Game Place would look like, Erickson invested a whole new patent-pending way to play the sport. Called Par 2 golf, like the name, says, it focuses on the short game, with an approach shot onto the green, followed by a putt. Within one of TSGP’s planned eight-acre facilities, players would find an entire 18-hole Par 2 course, in addition to things that would make it an entertainment space like a bar and grill, training rooms, and instruction centers.
In addition to being a place for players, Erickson also hopes to make TSGP a hub for training and sports rehab. Facilities would include a tech-enabled proprietary exercise and rehab program called Golf Solutions Systems to translate an instructor or therapists’ recommendations into motion exercises. She is also working with organizations like Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas to host their golf-related rehab programming. There will also be technology at TSGP facilities to help accommodate players of all physical abilities.
“You’ll be able to come, and whatever your need is, we’ll be able to work through and facilitate,” Erickson said.
The GSS is not the only area where technology comes into play at TSGP. While being a different theme to mirror the experience of playing some classic courses from around the world, each hole of the course will be customizable. Environmental things like the wind, weather and lighting can be changed by scanning a QR code. Each hole also comes with multiple places to tee from, and hole positions can be moved around so that each visit to the TSGP can be different. And Erickson expects people to come throughout the day due to the shortened game playtime so that the TSGP locations will be open 24 hours per day.
“You’ll feel like you're outside when you go into each of the holes,” Erickson said. “No matter where we put these around the country, we can change the theme of each room to be more specific to the area. You’ll smell the ocean breezes, and you’ll smell the tropical pineapple.”
Another technology at the TSGP allows players to livestream their games at the facilities, whether that’s to upload to followers online or to use during live tournaments the company plans on hosting.
“There’s such a variety of ways that we could use this technology. It just goes on from there,” Erickson said.
While Erickson has been working on TSGP for nearly two decades, the pandemic has made some recent changes to the concept. Because of social distancing measures, she updated designs for the 18-hole facilities rather than the originally intended four-acre, nine-hole course. However, she notes that it has made raising funds more difficult. So far, the company has $500,000 of Erickson’s own funding and $50,000 from an angel investor.
The pandemic has also caused Erickson to not plan for best-case scenario projections. However, even on the low end, the company’s EBITDA increasing by more than 5,000 percent. That’s in part to TSGP’s universal design that allows it to be rapidly scalable. In total, the TSGP would need about $10 million to get off the ground. It’s looking to raise $3 million of that in outside equity funding. From there, she plans to secure purchase the land needed and apply for an SBA loan.
The initial plan is to launch 10 TSGP locations across DFW. She said that depending on funding. The company could be ready to break ground on its first location by the end of Q3 and then plan to open new ones about every other month. Where those facilities are located would be determined by land price and by community interest. Erickson said part of the company’s funding would come from selling pre-ground breaking member packages that would essentially help crowdsource the opening of new locations.
“Wherever the people want it is where we’re going to go,” Erickson said.
That could potentially mean several new jobs in the region. TSGP has a 24-member advisory team and a core team of six working on developing the technology that will be deployed. Erickson said a single TSGP facility would mean about 70 new jobs across all the other amenities it plans to offer.
“We’re all about giving our employees a place to grow,” Erickson said. “We will bring you from wherever you start to growth within the company.”
Erickson said she sees DFW as the perfect place to launch the TSGP concept. One of the things that led her to create the company was the region’s weather, with months of rain and heat, making outdoor golf difficult. She added that there’s a large golfing community in DFW that includes both young and old. With TSGP, she’s hoping to capture more younger generations who may have the desire to play, but not the time.
The North Texas region has seen a lot of recent activity around sports technology and golf in particular. In March, Callaway completed its merger with Topgolf that valued the Dallas-based company at about $2 billion. Also, this year, publicly traded New York company Drive Shack shifted its executive hub to the region. Erickson sees the activity only helping TSGP, adding that the PGA of America plans to move its headquarters to the region also doesn’t hurt.
“The DFW area, with technology and what’s coming out of it, this is kind of like the new hub, the new Silicon Valley here.”
