Innovations: A New Game In Town

Five Iron Golf is driving the future of the indoor game, with multiple venues coming to Melbourne from this month

Original article featured in: Golf Digest Australia

You might think you know all there is to know about indoor golf facilities, yet it's a constantly evolving and ever-improving space within the game. And the next step in that evolution is about to strike Australia.

Opening in Melbourne on August 1 are two Five Iron Golf venues, which will add a new dimension to the realm of indoor play here. Equipped with TrackMan launch monitors and using real golf balls – and entirely open to anyone – these aren't your stock-standard indoor hitting bays.

Five Iron Golf has a story to tell. It started in Manhattan in 2016 when golf instructor Mike Doyle sought to provide a location for his New York clientele to hit balls and take lessons that didn't require a commute to suburban Westchester, Connecticut or Long Island. What soon evolved was an indoor golf centre-slash-cocktail lounge inside what was formerly a yoga studio that today is a sophisticated golf-hangout concept being repeated around the world. Five Iron locations are ideal places for corporate gatherings, groups of friends and even lone golfers just wanting to hit balls after dark or in poor weather.

The Australian branch of Five Iron, led by The House of Golf owner Michael Button, seeks to replicate the look and feel that Five Iron Golf has established in the US. From August, two locations in the Melbourne suburbs of Mentone and Ringwood will convert to Five Iron properties, ahead of a third location opening at Hawthorn East later this year.

Five Iron Golf has 21 US sites either open or soon to be, along with venues in Singapore and India, and now it's Australia's turn. Five Iron is edgy, urban and alluring. It's the kind of place where serious golfers can get their indoor fix right alongside a corporate gathering or a group of novice-golfer friends enjoying a night out with good food and drinks. Meanwhile, each site is different. The screens and gameplay might be the same from venue to venue, but elements like the food and cocktails on offer, the artwork on display and the way staff interact with visitors will vary by location.

"The biggest difference with Five Iron is the mix – the 'herbs and spices' of what they're doing, from the look, the feel, the choice of launch monitor, the colours, the couches… All of what they're doing is on-point," Button says.

"The credibility that a TrackMan launch monitor provides along with superior graphics and the fact you use real golf balls puts the product to best-in-class. When you add the fun art, colour, energy and good food and drinks, you just have a wonderful offering to any type of player. It's that sort of energy going into the 'recipe' that is Five Iron that makes it what it is."

The concept also has some serious backing. Along with their significant investment in Topgolf, Callaway Golf made a $US30 million investment in Five Iron Golf in November 2021, which also sees all demo equipment Callaway branded as well as in-store products to purchase, such as balls and gloves.

With a leading offering in the USA and ever-expanding locations around the world, there seems no doubt indoor golf isn't going away and is just getting stronger. Five Iron Golf heading Down Under is another wonderful addition to the space.

Get ready, as real balls, real golf and real fun is coming!

Check out Five Iron Golf Australia