Full Swing Partners With Back Nine

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A big sim hardware company just partnered with a big sim franchise company. That sentence is boring. What it means is not.

Full Swing — the launch monitor maker whose stuff you’ve seen on every golf TV show and every Tour pro’s basement — just inked a deal with Back Nine Indoor Golf, one of the fastest-growing simulator franchises in the country.

On the surface: Full Swing supplies the hardware. Back Nine buys a lot of it. Good for both of them.

Under the surface: this is the sim facility story getting its structural spine.

The OEM–franchise pipeline is a new thing. Franchises (Five Iron, Back Nine, X Golf, Drive Shack) have mostly built their own tech stacks or partnered with mid-tier hardware makers. The Back Nine–Full Swing deal is different. Full Swing is a top-tier OEM — the same company behind the GC3, the launch monitor I recommend to anyone with a $6,000 budget and a serious obsession. That’s not a random partnership. That’s the market leader choosing a winner.

What it means for the home sim buyer — three layers deep.

Layer one: the franchise boom gets a credibility upgrade. Back Nine has been opening facilities fast. Cedar Rapids just got one. New Jersey has five planned. When you partner with Full Swing, you’re telling customers “we put Tour-level hardware in our bays.” That’s a competitive differentiator against facilities running SkyTrak+ or R10s. And it pressures every other franchise to upgrade their hardware — which means more premium sim bays across the country for you to try before you build.

Layer two: more exposure = more buyers, faster. Every person who walks into a Back Nine and hits on a Full Swing launch monitor is a potential home sim buyer. They felt a camera-based unit track their swing. They understand why the data doesn’t lie. They saw a GC3 in action. That’s worth more than a thousand YouTube reviews. The franchise pipeline is the single best demo channel the sim industry has ever had, and this deal strengthens it.

Layer three: franchise consolidation is coming. We’re watching the sim industry mature in real time. Two years ago the story was “a new simulator bar opened in a random city.” Last week the story was “14 more opened in a single week.” This week it’s “hardware OEMs and franchise operators are forming strategic partnerships.” The next phase is acquisition — some franchise chains buying others, OEMs buying franchises for vertical integration. It’s the natural arc of a growing industry, and it means your home sim ecosystem keeps getting better, cheaper, and more validated.

The full-swing (sorry) connection to your garage.

I spend a lot of time writing about Garmin R10s and Square Omnis because that’s where most buyers live. But the Full Swing GC3 is the gold standard for the guy who wants the best. And Back Nine putting GC3s in every bay means more people will experience what a premium launch monitor feels like.

Go hit on one. You’ll understand why the GC3 costs $6,000. And you’ll also understand why most people should buy the $1,600 Square Omni instead — unless their budget says otherwise.

This partnership is good for the industry. Good for sim facilities. Good for your garage build in the long run, because more facilities means more people get hooked, more products get funded, and more competition drives prices down.

The takeaway: Back Nine with Full Swing hardware is the kind of facility upgrade you should seek out if you’re on the fence about a premium build. Go play a round on a GC3. It’ll either confirm your budget plan or make you question your life choices. Both are useful.

Also new from Full Swing: Skill Strike — AI-powered cash payouts on your home sim. And the KIT goes to baseball — MLB stars, Marucci distribution, cross-sport expansion.

Update (July 4): Back Nine followed up the next day with a Bridgestone partnership — ball fittings, equipment integration, and tournament infrastructure. Two deals in two days. The franchise playbook is getting clearer.

Browse our facility boom coverage → · Full GC3 Review → · Best Launch Monitors Guide →