The world’s eyes this month are glued on soccer pitches across the 16 host cities of the World Cup. Stories of a former electrician-turned-breakout goalkeeper; of a factory worker now star German forward; or even arguably two of the sport’s biggest stars, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, being born into working class families and finding solace in pickup soccer games that led to their stardom status.
Soccer is known as the world’s most unifying sport, allowing anyone to play so long as you have a ball and a wall or people to pass to. Golf, on the other hand, was not normally seen this way: It’s an expensive sport that requires clubs, balls, caddies, and lush greens and a dedicated space on the links. The sheer cost of lost balls alone could bar the common man from picking up golf, but now, five months into the job, that’s something Topgolf CEO David McKillips is trying to change about the sport.
Courtesy of Topgolf
He points to a $5-a-day youth golf program, a pledge to create 10 million new golfers by 2030, and the company’s scale as evidence Topgolf is becoming a real on-ramp into the sport. In fact, McKillips says he wouldn’t be shocked if the sport’s next breakout star first picked up a club at one of the company’s driving ranges instead of a country club.
“I would love to see if there are golfers that started at Topgolf that ultimately would end up on the tour,” McKillips told Fortune. “I think that would be pretty cool.”
“They very well could be,” he said about the next golf superstar. “That’s part of our commitment of 10 million new golfers by 2030, and we’re putting our money where our mouth is.”
There’s a concrete program behind that pledge: Topgolf recently partnered with Youth on Course, a nonprofit that provides golfers 18 and under with subsidized access to the sport, to offer its members and alumni network $5 bay access on Mondays through Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to noon, running from July 1 through Sept. 3. “This is an opportunity for them to come in, practice their game, to be on the road, and it welcomes everyone,” McKillips said. “Price point is no longer a hurdle, and we provide the clubs, we provide the balls, we provide the technology, and it’s a non-intimidating way to really learn the sport of golf.”
McKillips took over as Topgolf’s CEO in February, arriving from CEC Entertainment, the parent company of Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza, where he served as president and CEO for six years. During his tenure there, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020, weighed down largely by pandemic-era shutdowns, and emerged about a year later with roughly $1 billion in debt erased and close to $400 million in fresh capital to reinvest in modernizing its locations. That turnaround—rebuilding a legacy family-entertainment brand around updated venues, technology, and games—is the experience McKillips has pointed to directly as his blueprint for Topgolf, a company he inherited fresh off its own ownership shake-up and a stretch of declining same-venue sales.
“This business is incredible,” McKillips said. “We’ve got a really strong domestic business… winning back that golfer is super important, and we’re going to be doing that with all this new news, and we’ve got so much more to come.”
Removing golf’s barriers to entry
He said golf’s traditional barriers to entry, like cost, equipment, and intimidating country-club culture, are exactly what Topgolf is built to clear. Only about 35% of golfers currently visit Topgolf, he said, but the company is already tracking conversions from its own guest base: “We know already by our data we’re generating between two-and-a-half and three million new golfers with all these new golf programs.”
He said there are two groups that are the fastest-growing segments in golf overall: young women and kids. Topgolf’s youth participation alone is up 40% over the past five years. “What a great opportunity for us to have as a destination to serve those two audiences,” McKillips said.
That shift shows up in the broader industry data, too. Representation for women and girls in golf is at an all-time high, with participants now 28% female, and 8.2 million women played off-course golf in 2024, according to National Golf Foundation figures. McKillips argues that someone who has hit a ball at an off-course venue like Topgolf is five times more likely to be interested in playing on a real course than someone who has never picked up a club at all. The sport’s grasp is reaching into finance too: Blackstone recently signed golfer Tommy Fleetwood as its first brand ambassador, betting that the sport’s expanding, younger following could help the firm reach wealthy clients in a more relaxed setting than a conference room.
McKillips said the price point and social format are central to that pitch. “Golf can be an expensive sport. To come to Topgolf with four or six people, it’s not that expensive on a per person basis,” he said. “We provide the clubs, the balls. We have directors of instruction that can teach you how to golf for the first time, and it’s social.”
McKillips said Topgolf’s scale—more than 100 domestic venues, plus international locations and simulator partners—as evidence the company is a legitimate entry point into golf, not a side attraction to it. “Golf has never been more accessible,” he said. “If you’re looking at the 50 million green-grass golfers, then you look at the simulators, then you look at Topgolf, where we have 42 million guests and players every single year—that ecosystem has nearly 100 million touch points for golf. It’s incredibly exciting to combine the social golfer on-ramped all the way to an avid golfer.”
Toptracer, Topgolf’s sister ball-tracking technology company, is central to that on-ramping pitch. The technology—which McKillips said “fuels all the majors” in professional golf broadcasting — is built into every Topgolf bay, letting first-timers see the same shot-tracing data used on tour. He said he’s watched casual guests, people who showed up for something like a bachelorette party rather than a golf outing, get pulled into the sport through the data alone. “What you are seeing is people coming in and interacting with the product and getting really excited, because it is something that you just can’t see at an everyday driving range,” he said.
Building community
That social pitch fits a broader trend of people paying a premium for a “third space,” or of a hangout that’s neither home nor work. Think of traditional venues, like bars, movie theaters, and bowling alleys, which have thinned out over the years. It’s the same instinct behind the growth of exclusive gym chains like Third Space, the London-based operator whose younger members pay a steep monthly fee in exchange for a place to socialize away from their phones. Topgolf’s version of that pitch doesn’t require golf at all: Guests can show up for the sports bar, the arcade, or a round of darts or pickleball, with the driving range as an option rather than the entry fee.
“You don’t have to play golf,” McKillips said. “You can come, you can lounge in our sports bars or our lounges… You can come with your friends and play darts. You can play arcade games. You can play pickleball. And ultimately you can do golf as well.”
The company’s broader turnaround strategy, which includes new arcades, a membership program, and an expansion into pickleball and darts, is meant to widen the top of that funnel even further, McKillips said, by getting more people through the door in the first place. “We’re going to be pivoting from just a Topgolf destination to the ultimate sports, entertainment, and golf destination,” he said. “Our bones are all about a driving range—we bring entertainment to the driving range.”
