How Much Can You Make By Starting/Owning a Golf Practice Range?

In this video, I record something that I do a lot! I get a lot of random business ideas and fairly often, I check them out in excel to see whether or not they could be profitable at first pass. I'll do more of this if anyone likes it and gives me more ideas.

[@craigttc]

I can only comment from being in the Driving Range business in Southern California since the early 90's driving range boom. The average range in the inland empire of Southern California lost about $1,000,000 dollars before shutting down, some twice that and others less. Most that were opened during the boom are gone as stand alone driving ranges are now rare in the I.E. and Southern California in general. Very few are profitable! Some owners of the land recouped their losses when the land was sold for other uses while most investors just lost. This list includes Jack Nicklaus with his Golden Bear facilities that were also nationwide. The reason the cost to build the range , constant upkeep with ball picking , ball washing, netting is only good for 10 years max, keeping good balls, mats , baskets, dispensers or storage area for handing out balls. Shade structure or building, putting green and grass maintenance or if astro turf it still needs maintenance. You have the usual insurance, electric bills, trash, a way to have the golf channel on a TV, etc., There used to be ways to make additional income, club fitting, club repair, building custom sets. We had Natural Golf clinics for example. Golf merchandise used to be way more profitable, how many golf only stores are left? We used to have about 300 members in our SCGA club. The reason ranges usually don't pencil is the max window of maximum occupancy is small. Lets say 40 stalls at $8-10 per hour . That's $320 to $400 per hour and that is your max and unless you are in a very golf orientated community you will not be maxed out for long! It is tough to average $1,000 per day with a standard range not tied to a golf school in all but the busiest golf facilities like Stadium Golf in San Diego Ca. Its not how many people are in your community its how many golfers as not all people play golf! A well established teaching staff is a must. We are lucky that our corporate owner supports our 14 acre facility. Even though we own the land and building outright, we have not made a profit in many years and would have had to shut down if not company subsidized. I have given this advice to others in the past like Ayala Golf Center that were very nice individuals that fought the good fight. I felt very bad for them when they closed. In less regulated states with permitting fees and construction costs less, and a high density of golfers, I hope Osa and others like him will be very successful with your breakdown. My 2 cents.

[@kileyg]

Thanks so much for the insight. I hope if anyone is seriously considering opening a range, they will take this input into consideration.

[@12WeMet1]

I feel like driving ranges could be fully autonomous if not very close with today's technology. The only manual labor that is really needed is for grounds/sanitation maintenance if the facility is simply a driving range and no restaurant or anything like that. Auto ball dispenser (just swipe a card or insert cash), vending machines for snack food, even small golf merch (ball packs, gloves, tees, etc.), a high schooler to pick up balls every now and then a guy to mow the lawn once/twice a week. Obviously behind the scenes expenses/efforts like marketing and local business partnering but that can mostly come from the owner with little need to hire additional help. Cool vid though. I am going to follow a process similar to this bc I am considering opening one. Covid attracted a lot of new golfers bc it was the only (or one of) social activity that you could do during the pandemic. Once you start golfing, you don't stop, so I think the industry and nearly autonomous ranges have increasing potential for success going forward.

[@kileyg]

Great insights! You could easily work your assumptions into a model similar to the one I made by changing a few variables. Good Luck!

[@Jasper-ql3te]

Hey mate, did you end up making one? If so, How'd it go?

[@felicidadsumaoang5578]

great! I jz opening up a driving range in my own land ,basically the business is jz beginning and I'm sort of putting more facilities for people to spend their time not only golfing...putting up some kidz park , cafeterias,bar, BBQ areas,swimming pools ,A house for rental etc... so far I'm still upgrading more...❤❤❤

[@osaobanor6392]

Thanks for the video. Over the past week I considered opening up a range, and was glad to use your breakdown during my early research

[@kileyg]

Good! It is a basic framework for how to think about the business side of things.

[@gurpartapcheema8070]

Thank you for this breakdown, our family owns lamd amd we were planning on making a driving range. This is a great breakdown to use in our research to know if it will be profitable or not.

[@kileyg]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Jasper-ql3te]

Dude this business evaluation breakdowns are sooo good man, keep them up!

[@kileyg]

Thanks! Will do!

[@exempligratia2294]

Thanks for this video! This is so much easier, especially for formatting and being able to change projections with a single input!

[@kileyg]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JonsDailyHustle]

Thanks for sharing this info, I'm thinking about maybe opening a driving range on some land we are looking at buying

[@kileyg]

Hopefully this will help you!

[@_Chris_D_3004]

Another revenue factor would be alcohol. I go to a driving range with buddies regularly and we all spend like $50 on booze every time

[@kileyg]

Yeah, that is true. Could easily be worked into the model and may be a great way to increase profitability without a whole lot of additional infrastructure costs.

[@coolbmxer47]

The problem there would be getting liquor licensing to legally serve it.

[@pshobbiesandthings]

@kiley - will it be possible to share the excel you whipped up? or re-create this video zoomed in? I'm not sure if it was my internet but the excel zoomed out was really blurry, up until the end when you zoomed in. Regardless, thank you for making it!

[@thatsmyhomeboy]

Nice to see your thoughts.

[@charlenefajardo3234]

Nice! Thank you for that. Can you do a cleaning company? Residential & Commercial

[@kileyg]

Thanks! Yeah, I can do a cleaning company.

[@horsman95]

Subscribed for your spreadsheet skills

[@kileyg]

Stay Tuned!

[@coolbmxer47]

Ya no kidding I heard alot of keyboard short cuts and shit started multiplying lmao

[@chosen1one930]

Your missing so much. Top golf ranges seem to be the next best thing. You can serve alcohol, provide all kinds of food and club rentals plus the price of balls. These new top golf ranges can add so much more with friends going, longest drive, closest to the pin, Greens in regulation or you can have teams set up so bad golfers can play better ones to even the odds. Hole in one grand prize that keeps going if people enter which would be a extra $5. Driving ranges can be so much more especially if they add a putting green for chipping and putting games located not in the driving range, with ASTRO turf things are possible but with huge strives were making in turf technology it's becoming cheaper and cheaper to own a real green, less chemicals, water, nutrients etc so even a driving range on a golf course can be used on a rainy days for those covered. Golf is really starting to pick up again but there will always be dips in amount of people playing. Business owners just need to see these other attractions they can use to being people to play and drink

[@fayzkm7666]

Great video. I am running a cafe with eateries. Will be awesome if u video essential sheets to be followed.

[@kileyg]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed and appreciate the suggestion. Stay tuned for more.

[@christinegiel9242]

Subscriber 799! Thank you for this great video. I am thinking about opening a driving range with living accomodations above the "pro shop" so I can walk to work. Thanks so much for helping me get started. Are you able to share your excel spreadsheet with me or give me permission to snip screen shots of your presentation please? Thanks again.

[@kileyg]

Feel free to snip screen shots! Good luck and thanks for the sub.

[@590h_YT]

500th subscriber

[@kileyg]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@AntonioGonzalez-nc8tq]

Great video

[@magicmike1122]

What if you open a range where buckets are more like 20$ each and we sell alcohol and food? Like a bowling alley..

[@kileyg]

That can be added in the revenue section by changing the assumptions and adding in some estimations on how much food and alcohol you may sell per day/week/month. You could make more money, but would likely appeal to a different market than golfers, and that could increase your marketing spend.

[@stephenpatti2375]

Around here a bucket of 100 golf balls costs $16 - $20.

[@KeepPrayingCA]

What state are you in and what’s your min wage and typical 2 bed 1 bath house. Just curious.

[@stephenpatti2375]

​@KeepPrayingCA minimum wage is 15.69 per hour. Housing prices vary widely here. Just looking quickly at central CT it's about $310,000.

[@darylgabindotcom]

Did you actually go ahead with this in your area?

[@kileyg]

No, I was just exploring the idea. Very Intriguing tho.

[@TheOneAndOnlycE]

startup cost is much, much higher than 25k...

[@kileyg]

I think you are right. More cash upfront that needs to be amortized over the usuable life of the equipment.

[@TheOneAndOnlycE]

@@kileyg I´m considering opening a driving range however one decent quality driving range mat alone costs roughly $1500 in my country (Germany). So thats easily more than $55000 just for driving range mats and dividers alone for 30 stalls. Just for the stakes and netting around the range you are looking at a $150k construction cost. Also getting 50 Golfers a day is a tough task. Most ranges here get around 20 golfers a day and each golfer spends maybe $2-4 on range balls. It doesn´t seem like a profitable business model tbh.

[@kileyg]

@@TheOneAndOnlycE With those numbers I don’t believe it to be profitable. If you can recreate this excel and change some of the assumptions, you’ll get an idea of whether or not it is viable.

[@jumperstartful]

If you want to make 1 million dollars in golf start with 5 million.

[@easy7828]

What do you mean?

[@victorpierson2722]

@@easy7828 He's saying it's a money losing endeavor. Like having a vineyard. For every million dollars you make, you'll lose 4.

[@YZFRiderrr]

You only need 3-6 acres

[@ethanparsons4972]

lol, all these places have driving ranges

[@DukeFM]

595