Sim Facility Boom #5: 24/7 Golf Expands

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I wrote four updates this week tracking the sim facility boom. Seven facilities. Then fourteen more. Then five. Then six. Forty-ish total.

You’d think that’s the full picture. Every possible sim facility that could open in a single week, covered.

Then this happened.

A third 24-hour facility appeared. Back Nine announced five new locations in one burst. And I found fifteen-plus more individual openings across the country — plus the first sign that a market might actually be getting saturated.

The Third 24-Hour Facility: This Is a Business Model Now

Sherman, Texas, is getting a 24-hour indoor golf simulator facility. That makes three we’ve tracked: the proposed Berlin CT concept, Birdie Central in Spring/Klein TX (which opened June 20), and now Sherman.

Three facilities. Same format. Same value proposition. Different regions.

When one facility does something novel, it’s an experiment. When two do it, it’s a coincidence. When three do it in the span of a month, it’s a business model. The “always available” sim concept works because it solves a real problem: most sim facilities close at 10 PM, and the guy who wants to hit balls after putting the kids to bed at 9 is completely underserved.

Source: KXII, July 2026.

Back Nine Is Building an Empire

Back Nine, the indoor golf franchise we’ve been tracking since the original boom article, announced expansions into five new locations:

• Plano, Texas — Another DFW location for Back Nine, which is clearly targeting Texas as a core market
• Glassboro, New Jersey — Their first New Jersey location, joining the state’s micro-boom (covered separately)
• Leesburg, Virginia — First Virginia location outside of northern VA
• Midlothian, Virginia — Second Virginia location in the same expansion wave
• 4th Northeast Florida location — They’re building density in Florida, which already has three

Five locations in a single announcement is aggressive. Most franchise operators announce one at a time. Back Nine is treating sim facilities like a rollout, not a pilot. They’re going from “let’s see if this works in one market” to “let’s be in every market” inside a single year.

See our complete Florida golf simulator facilities guide for the full picture of Florida’s sim scene, including all Back Nine locations.

Source: Google News RSS / local business coverage, July 2026.

The National Scatter: 15+ New Openings

Beyond the headline stories, here’s what else appeared this week:

Syracuse, New York — described as an “arcade for grownups” with simulators alongside the usual bar and games. Syracuse is a market that hasn’t had dedicated sim facilities before. This is first-mover territory.

Walker, Michigan — a new facility in this Grand Rapids suburb. Western Michigan is building density fast.

Jackson, Michigan — a new facility in the Ann Arbor-Lansing corridor. The sim boom is reaching mid-sized Michigan cities that wouldn’t have supported this two years ago.

Gainesville, Florida — a college town getting its own dedicated sim facility. The 18-25 demographic is growing up in a world where sim golf is normal. Full coverage of Florida’s sim scene.

Fresno, California (Mulligan’s) — a new Mulligan’s location in California’s Central Valley. Fresno is a big market (500,000+ population) that had very few sim options before now.

Prosper, Texas — a fast-growing DFW exurb getting a sim facility. Prosper’s population grew 200%+ in the last decade. The sims follow the rooftops.

Mishawaka, Indiana (Net Par) — a new Net Par location in this South Bend suburb. Indiana is late to the boom but catching up.

League City, Texas — a new facility (mentioned in our last update but worth noting in the cumulative picture).

Rossford, Ohio — new facility near Toledo (also mentioned last update).

The Golf Place, Newtown PA — updated status (state-of-the-art, multiple bays, open now).

These aren’t the sexy stories. Nobody’s writing headlines about Jackson, Michigan. But the cumulative effect matters. Every one of these facilities represents someone who believed in the market enough to write a check. And they’re appearing in cities of every size — from college towns to exurbs to mid-sized Midwestern cities. The sim facility model works at multiple population densities. That’s the real signal.

Source: Multiple local news outlets via Google News RSS, July 3-4, 2026.

The Saturation Signal: Holland MI’s Third Facility

Holland, Michigan (population ~35,000) just got its third simulator facility.

Let me rephrase that. A town of thirty-five thousand people now has three places to hit balls indoors.

The Holland Sentinel reported the latest opening, and it’s the first data point I’ve seen that genuinely looks like market saturation. Two sim facilities in a small town is maybe competitive. Three is a cluster. At some point there aren’t enough golfers to fill every bay, especially in a town where half the population drives past the other two facilities on the way to the third one.

This isn’t a bad sign for the industry. It’s actually a healthy one. Every market has a carrying capacity, and Holland is teaching us what that number looks like for a small Midwestern town. For the rest of the country (cities of 100,000+), we’re nowhere close to saturation.

But I’m tracking it because it’s the first time I’ve had to ask: “Is there enough demand here for everyone?” That question didn’t exist three months ago.

The One Failure, Still the Only One

Springfield, Ohio remains the only facility closure we’ve tracked in over forty openings. A 97.5%+ survival rate. That number won’t hold forever — more closures will come as the market matures. But for now, the boom is still building faster than it’s failing.

What This Keeps Telling Us

The sim facility boom isn’t slowing down. It’s accelerating. A third 24-hour facility confirms the always-available format. Back Nine’s five-location expansion shows the franchise model is scalable. And the diversity of cities — from Gainesville to Fresno to Prosper to Mishawaka — tells me this isn’t a coastal phenomenon or a big-city trend. Sim facilities are becoming normal infrastructure in American towns of every size.

Holland’s third facility is the first question mark. It’s not a red flag. But it’s worth watching.

The same forces driving the facility boom are making home sims cheaper and better. Launch monitors under $200 exist now. Enclosure kits ship to your door. Software is better than it was two years ago. The whole ecosystem lifts together.

Go try one this weekend at a facility near you. Then start thinking about the garage version.

More facility coverage: Original · 14 More · 5 More · 6 Openings + First Closure · Update #6: 24-Hour Spreads to 4 States · Update #7: xGolf & F&B Convergence · Indoor Golf Franchises · NJ Micro-Boom · Full Facility-Finder Guide · Texas Guide (15+ cities) · Florida Guide (10+ cities) · Ohio Guide