For the uninitiated, Five Iron Golf is an “urban golf experience” with locations in 10 major cities.

What does that look like? TrackMan, teaching professionals, leagues, in-house fitting, and a place to practice appeal to the serious golfer. A full-service bar, food, televisions, table games, and a wealth of top-of-the-line house clubs draw in the not-so-serious golfer. Simply, Five Iron is a great place to practice, play golf indoors, get fit, or just hang out with friends.

We last spoke with Five Iron Golf founder and CEO Jared Solomon in September of 2019. (You can check out that interview here). In the time since we last talked, big things have been happening at Five Iron, including major expansion and an equally major investment from Callaway.

Check out our conversation with Solomon, below.

GolfWRX: It’s been a couple of years since we talked. I know y’all have had plenty going on and seem to be opening locations all over the place — can you summarize the past few years?

Jared Solomon: Well, COVID-19 definitely changed some of our plans and provided some great learnings. I think what COVID did was force us to focus on the serious golfer. With the surge in the interest in golf, it allowed us to continue to gain momentum and expand to new cities. It worked in our favor to grow the brand for everyone who got the bug to learn the game or just happy to get back out again and hang with friends and have great experiences. Simultaneously we worked on improving our sim build drastically, introduced our three-camera system and also improved our rental clubs, club fitting, lesson experience etc.

GolfWRX: What trends in the larger golf world do you find benefit Five Iron?

JS: Golf is fun. I try to keep telling people this. The more people who hit golf balls, the more who will become consumers of the industry. People playing mini golf, playing at a private club, hitting at Five Iron — it all accomplishes the same thing — growing the interest in the sport.

One thing worth pointing out is that there is a lot of the buzz around “modern golf,” from the Topgolf Callaway rebrand to Tiger and Rory playing sim golf on primetime TV – it legitimizes what we’re doing as “real.” 10 years from now people won’t only think of green grass when they hear the word golf, they are going to think of many different iterations and the amazing experiences they had. Even two years from now, more people will be hitting “off-course” than on. We are happy to be a pioneer, a resource, and an example for this growth.

Jared Solomon

GolfWRX: In my opinion, leagues and the ability to practice on a TrackMan in a state-of-the-art hitting bay are among the two coolest elements of Five Iron. Can you speak to that?

JS: We have a lot of cool elements! Leagues are certainly one of our most successful initiatives. League night is where it all comes together — experiencing a round on amazing courses in the sim, playing with friends, competition, contests and post-work happy hours. It’s all the best elements of the game and entertainment.

We started partnering with local influencers to generate excitement and offer exclusive promo codes on league teams.The prizes we are offering this year are the best yet. We have multiple prize packages to Casa De Campo, a world-class golf and vacation destination located in the Dominican Republic, for the Fall League. The best part is you can literally play one of their courses, Teeth of the Dog, on TrackMan in our sims. All four players on the winning team get six rounds of golf each along with full accommodations. There are also weekly prizes and a closest-to-the-pin competition that brings players another chance to win a trip to Casa de Campo.

As far as technology goes, we really pride ourselves on our setup. TrackMan is the engine, but we custom-build our own bays and have many design elements to enhance the experience, from improving accuracy to better lighting and multiple camera angles. We’ve even improved our TrackMan homes and bag stands. It all matters.

GolfWRX: Of particular interest to GolfWRXers — Can you summarize the fitting services you offer?

JS: We have an incredible fitting experience called The Fitting Lab. It’s a brand agnostic fitting experience that uses a five-step process and best-in-class technology to identify the right components and specifications for each golfer we fit. We build many of our own clubs.

I would say the major difference between us and competitors is that we want to see you again as part of the Five Iron ecosystem. We’re not going to sell you the most expensive clubs just for the heck of it. We deliver a laid-back and personal club-fitting experience that happens inside a Five Iron location, which only adds to the cool-factor. You get fit, you keep practicing, you work with a pro, you check out new equipment when it’s dropped every year. It should all be synergistic to improve your game and lifestyle around golf. That’s the goal at Five Iron. Nothing is mutually exclusive.

GolfWRX: More locations? What else is on the horizon?

JS: We should have 16 by the end of the year, with 5-10 openings next year as well. Boston is a location that’s taken almost three years to open. We’re super excited about that one, which is slated to open later this fall.

GolfWRX: Thanks, Jared!