Revealed: The U.S. State Dominating Golf in 2025

October 29, 2021 — Greg Norman was named CEO of LIV Golf Investments, marking the official start of golf’s most disruptive modern era.

A Kansas-based investment firm just dropped $113 million on a five-course golf portfolio in North Texas, and it’s one of the clearest signals yet that golf real estate has officially gone mainstream.

The deal covers five championship, semi-private courses across the Dallas–Fort Worth metro, a region that’s quietly become one of the strongest golf economies in the U.S. Think booming population growth, corporate relocations, year-round tee sheets and a culture where entertaining clients over a par-5 is practically a business expense. In other words: predictable revenue, high utilisation and room to scale.

But the structure is the real headline.
Instead of taking on the operational grind, the investor handed the keys to Advance Golf Partners through a sale-leaseback - a model that gives operators capital to upgrade and grow, while investors lock in long-term, inflation-linked income. Operational flexibility meets financial predictability.

Yes, investors noticed the cap rate.
An 8%+ blended yield in 2025 is the financial equivalent of finding every fairway at Q-School - rare, impressive and likely to attract more competition.

Zoom out and this deal fits a bigger pattern: institutional money is no longer dabbling in golf - it’s building portfolios. REITs, private equity firms, and real estate funds all see the same thing: golf assets generate sticky cash flow, benefit from lifestyle demand and sit on valuable land. The industry’s fragmentation, once a headache, is now opportunity.

Bottom line:
Golf isn’t cooling off - it’s consolidating. If this pace continues, golf is going to look a lot more like a scaled industry than a Saturday pastime.

Few expected Massachusetts to become 2025’s headline golf market. Yet here it is, posting a staggering +89.5% growth in Top100GolfCourses traffic, the fastest in America. For a shorter-season Northeastern state to outperform Florida, the Carolinas, and the entire West Coast says a lot about what golfers are looking for in 2025.

1. The Brookline Aftershock

The 2022 U.S. Open at The Country Club undeniably reignited global interest in Massachusetts. Major championships create years of downstream search traffic, and Brookline delivered:

The championship put Massachusetts back on the world stage and search behaviour has followed.

2. A Stacked Ecosystem of Elite Courses

Massachusetts may be small, but it’s one of the most architecturally concentrated states in America. Heavy hitters include:

3. Cape Cod: The Tourism Engine

Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard give Massachusetts a tourism advantage no other Northeastern golf market can match. These regions blend world-class golf with a multi-season visitor ecosystem.

Highlights include:

The Cape doesn’t just attract golfers - it generates constant trip-planning searches.

4. Public Golf That Performs

Beyond the prestige clubs, Massachusetts offers one of the Northeast’s strongest public slates:

This combination of elite private clubs and high-quality public access is a major driver of search growth.

5. A Modern, Active State Association

Mass Golf acts like a content and participation engine, pushing the ecosystem forward through:

The Punchline

Massachusetts isn’t experiencing a one-off surge - it has become one of the most complete golf ecosystems in America: championship pedigree, Golden Age architecture, public-access quality, coastal scenery, tourism strength and a state association that amplifies it all.

No wonder the numbers are exploding.

By Drew Hinesley, B9B Resident Caddie

One of my favourite lines from Bobby Jones is, “There is golf, and there is tournament golf, and the two bear little resemblance.” He’s right - but I’d take it even further. There is tournament golf… and then there is Q-School. Nothing in this sport feels remotely like it. 

Tour golf, for the few talented enough to live in that world, is a season-long grind with a safety net. Bad weather this week? Fine - next week might suit you better. Miss a couple cuts? There are still dozens of events ahead to claw something back. Even the worst stretches have breathing room. 

Q-School gives you none. 

At Q-School, the importance of every single swing is impossible to ignore. If something in your game feels off, there’s no parachute to pull - you fix it now, or you learn to survive with it, because tomorrow isn’t promised. We spend all year trying to get our players to stay present, to stay calm, to quiet the noise. Yet here, the moment becomes so heavy it can crush you. In a strange twist, you start searching for distractions - anything to soften that pressure sitting on your chest.

The stakes? A PGA Tour card is, at minimum, a $500,000 pay check. That’s not a hypothetical number - that’s literally what the Tour now guarantees its players to offset expenses (thank you, LIV). Play decent a few times a year and you’re a millionaire. Miss out, and it’s back to 52 weeks of mini-tours, money games and part-time work in bars or restaurants where the only upside is quick cash and flexible hours. It’s a brutal financial fork in the road. 

But the hardest part of Q-School isn’t the golf - it’s what comes after. 

When you realise you’ve earned your card, your life changes. Instantly. But the guys sitting next to you who didn’t? Their lives don’t. Your college teammate who rode with you all week might make bogey on the last and miss by one. Now you have to drive back to the hotel together. You’re trying to contain the biggest joy of your career while he’s quietly grieving the death of a dream. 

That’s Q-School. Eighty percent of the field walks away lighter by $10,000 and heavier by heartbreak. The winners barely celebrate, because success in this sport always means watching others fall short. It’s the harshest, rawest, most revealing test in golf - and nothing exposes the gap between the haves and the have-nots quite like it.

Catch Drew on My Side of The Bag.

While most equipment brands are obsessed with AI faces, carbon crowns, and tour validation, XXIO continues to operate in its own luxury lane, and very profitably. This week the brand unveiled XXIO 14 and XXIO 14+, its newest ultra-lightweight, speed-boosting lineup aimed squarely at the premium game-improver.

The headline numbers tell the story:
Drivers priced at $799 / £749, with US launch underway and the UK release coming in February. That places XXIO comfortably above TaylorMade, Callaway, Ping and Cobra - and yet their customer base rarely blinks.

Why? Because XXIO isn’t competing with them.

For two decades, the brand has built a moat around a single insight: the biggest equipment challenge for aging golfers isn’t distance… it’s effort. Swing-speed decline, fatigue and diminishing launch efficiency create a market tailor-made for XXIO’s gram-shaving, ultra-forgiving engineering. Their clubs feel effortless, and effortless sells.

This segment is quietly one of the most profitable in golf.
The target demographic - typically 55+ golfers with disposable income and limited desire to “grind” - is the fastest-growing spending group in the equipment market. These golfers often buy full XXIO bags, not just a driver. Low volume, high margins and unmatched brand loyalty make XXIO one of the savviest retail plays in golf.

The price tag?
It’s not a barrier - it’s a signal. XXIO has turned premium pricing into part of the product experience.
At what point does premium become too premium? Does this segment even care?

Breaking 80 isn’t a swing problem - it’s a systems problem.
Most 5–15 handicaps already hit the ball well enough to shoot 79.
They just manage their round like amateurs.

Know Your Break-80 Blueprint (It’s Not What You Think)

A 79 on a par-72 only requires:

That’s it.
No birdies. No miracle shots. No perfect swing.
Your only real enemy is the blow-up hole.

1. Play the Three-Club Hole Strategy

Every hole has three questions:

A. Where can I NOT miss?
Pick a target that deletes the big number.
OB left? Aim so far right it feels embarrassing.

B. Where is the safest leave?
Front bunker? Short is fine.
False front? Long is fine.

C. What club makes the next shot easiest?
Fairway finder > ego driver
6-iron layup > heroic 3-wood

Breaking 80 is a course-management clinic, not fireworks.

2. Build a Trust Shot - Off the Tee and Around the Green

You need two shots you can call on under pressure:

These two “trust shots” eliminate chaos in the two places amateurs throw away rounds.

3. Dominate the 100-Yard Zone

From 60–100 yards, the goal is simple:

➡️ Hit the green 6 of 10 times.

This is where mid-handicaps bleed strokes.
Master three stock yardages and your scoring average drops instantly.

4. Play for Bogey on Hard Holes

Long par-3? Chokingly narrow par-4? Water everywhere?
Par is a bonus - bogey is the target.

Three years in, the Grant Thornton Invitational has quietly become one of the most important innovations in professional golf. When it launched in 2023, it marked the first co-sanctioned PGA Tour–LPGA Tour mixed team event in nearly 25 years - a format the sport had shelved despite its obvious potential.

The tournament was built with intention: equal purse, equal platform, equal opportunity for the best of both Tours. What began as a challenge-season experiment has evolved into a legitimate blueprint for how elite mixed golf can elevate the sport commercially and competitively.

The competitive depth has grown fast. This year’s field features 10 major champions and a combined 137 PGA and LPGA Tour wins - an extraordinary concentration of talent for a December event. Yet the formats remain the great leveller. Scramble, Foursomes and Modified Four-Ball force players to blend styles, trust each other’s decisions and reveal on-course dynamics you rarely see in solitary stroke play. It is golf stripped back to its purest team essence.

Two years on, the Grant Thornton Invitational has become the blueprint for what modern golf can offer when innovation meets intention - a product that brings Tours together, expands the fanbase and proves that mixed-team golf deserves a permanent home on the global calendar.

2025 Grant Thornton Invitational — The Essentials

Big news from the Home of Golf: St Andrews Links Trust is taking over The Duke’s Course through a landmark long-term lease with the Old Course Hotel, adding an eighth course to its world-class lineup - the first new addition in 18 years. From January 5, 2026, it will be rebranded as The Craigtoun Course, complete with a new logo inspired by its heathland setting near Craigtoun Country Park.

St Andrews is operating at historic levels, with 280,000+ rounds played annually and the Links Trust posting record revenues above £48 million. Demand for tee times has never been higher.

Adding Craigtoun expands much-needed capacity, aligns the course under the Trust’s unified Home of Golf brand and introduces a distinct heathland-style experience.

Golf’s focus shifts to Tiburón - a course that rewards discipline, not distance. Firm fairways, demanding angles and run-offs around the greens turn small mistakes into big numbers. The teams that thrive will be the ones who think clearly and miss in the right spots.

📆 Date: 12-14 December 2025
📍 Location: Tiburón Golf Club, Naples
⛳ Par / Yardage: Par 72 / 7,382 yards
💰 Prize Money: $4,000,000
🏆 Defending Champion: Jake Knapp & Patty Tavatanakit

Tournament Odds (Bet365)

Follow the tournament this week.

📖 Read: Contours is a beautifully crafted exploration of golf-course architecture that deepens any golfer’s appreciation of the game by revealing the artistry, strategy, and storytelling woven into the landscapes we play

🎥 Watch: Relive every key moment from Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen’s winning Back Nine.

🎧 Listen: No Laying Up Podcast - Soly and TC break down a wild Aussie Open as Royal Melbourne shines and Cam Smith’s 72nd-hole three-putt hands Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen the win.

📊 Trending Stat: No PGA Tour stat has predicted success more reliably than iron play - every player who led Strokes Gained: Approach finished inside the top five in the FedExCup.

Ego is the most expensive club in the bag.

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