HEATHROW, Florida – Teaching golf indoors year-round isn’t merely possible, it’s the preferred path for a growing number of coaches. Proponent Group, after years of gathering and disseminating anecdotal material on this segment of instruction, has conducted its first survey of the sub-category.
“Half our member coaches are self-employed, and they leverage of a lot of advantages by leasing indoor commercial space,” said Lorin Anderson, president of Proponent Group. “The technology indoors is first-rate, the weather is basically perfect and there’s none of the friction or uncertainty that can happen at a greengrass golf facility.”
Among those completing the survey, 88 percent self-identified as an Owner while the other 12 percent said they were Directors of Instruction. Standard staffing level was 2 to 4 coaches, although 20 percent of respondents reported working solo and an impressive 32 percent said they had “five or more” teachers working the bays.
These entrepreneurial coaches have generally been able to self-fund the move indoors, based on their responses to a survey question that asked: “Do you have a money partner, i.e., someone who is invested significantly with you but isn’t involved in day-to-day business operations?” Only 24 percent answered yes while the other 76 percent said they did not.
For any coach plotting a move indoors, the first meaningful metric will be cost per square foot, for the space. This survey group’s median square footage is 3,000 and median rental costs per square foot, annually, are $20. Median annual revenues per square foot are $155.
The potential for business expansion is in mind for many of the indoor teaching pros.
The survey asked: “Having learned how to operate an indoor coaching facility, and looking at the income it generates, would you think about expanding your business to multiple locations?”
Only four percent said they hadn’t and probably wouldn’t think about it, while 44 percent said “I am thinking seriously about it already” and another 52 percent said “I may consider it, sometime in the future.”
The questionnaire concluded with a question that called for write-in responses. It asked what was most surprising about making the move from outdoors to indoors. “One answer really caught our eye,” said Anderson. “It said: ‘How tough it can be, but also how limitless it can be.’ You don’t often find that level of inspiration and that sense of possibility among golf instructors.”
