Platform Golf is on a mission to solve the one problem the simulator industry has overlooked for years: every shot is hit off a perfectly flat surface. Their patented tilting platform technology brings real-world lies into the indoor environment for the first time, and the industry is taking notice.

I sat down with Platform Golf co-founder and CEO Thomas Hackett to learn more about the company, the technology, and where indoor golf goes from here.

Check out the full Q&A below.

Gianni: For those encountering Platform Golf for the first time, can you introduce the company and the story behind how it was founded?

Platform Golf: The origin story is actually one of passion before product. The company started with a founder named Glen Coombe, who was obsessed with one problem: how do you practice breaking putts indoors while creating a perfect baseline for stroke analysis and putter fitting? That obsession led to a platform that could tilt underfoot, and a partnership with Robb Gibb, who turned it into a real business.

Myself and Platform Co-Founder, Rory Flanagan, worked with Robb to help him take what was a product and turn it into a business and a brand known as Perfection Platforms. When we came in and acquired the company in 2024, we knew the future was something much bigger than a putting aid and that integrating with full swing technologies was going to be the missing link.

We saw the single most glaring blind spot in the entire simulator industry: every shot is hit off a perfectly flat surface, which almost never happens on an actual golf course – and that same surface was used for putting when we had a beautiful tour-grade putting platform to recreate putts from the sim environment. We rebranded as Platform Golf and immediately shifted the roadmap from manual, static tilt to digitally actuated systems that move in real time. The mission crystallized into one sentence: if golf is played on slopes, it should be trained and practiced on slopes.

Gianni: Most simulators today deliver highly accurate ball and club data, but still rely on a perfectly flat hitting surface. Why has lie simulation been largely ignored until now, and what made it solvable at this point in time?

Platform Golf: Honestly, the industry got seduced by the screen. Launch monitors got incredibly precise (spin rate, attack angle, ball speed to the decimal) and that became the arms race. Lie simulation was an engineering problem that nobody had strong enough incentive to solve because the data story was already compelling enough to sell simulators. What made it solvable now is the convergence of a few things: actuator technology becoming both reliable and affordable enough for consumer environments, the maturation of simulator software APIs that allow real-time communication with hardware, and frankly, the bar for indoor golf rising.

Golfers using simulators aren’t just hitting range balls anymore. They’re genuinely trying to improve. When your customer base shifts from entertainment to performance, the flat mat problem becomes impossible to ignore. We also filed a patent on inclinometer-based pitch-and-roll technology that gave us a foundation no one else had. Reliable, trustworthy data for both baselining performance and standardizing competition.

Gianni: What’s actually happening under the platform when a golfer transitions between shots? Walk us through how the system recreates something like a downhill lie to an elevated green or a severe sidehill with the ball above your feet.

Platform Golf: The core is our digitally actuated platform tied directly to the simulator’s course data. When you step up to a shot on, say, a dogleg par five with your ball sitting on a downslope kicking left, the simulator already knows the exact grade of that terrain. Our SSG software reads that data and translates it into real-time instructions to the platform’s actuators, which independently adjust pitch and roll to recreate that slope underfoot, physically, not just visually.

You’re not watching a number on a screen that says “-4% slope.” Your feet feel it. Your weight shifts. Your body has to compensate exactly as it would on course. The transition between shots happens quickly, and the system can dial in up to five percent slope adjustment in any combination of directions. For putting, TrueBreak does the same thing. The green physically tilts to match the actual break of the putt you’re facing. You’re not reading a line on a projection. You’re rolling a ball on a surface that is the slope while putting into a hole.

Gianni: There’s always a question of “transfer” with indoor practice. What evidence, whether anecdotal, coaching feedback, or data, suggests that training on uneven lies actually improves on-course performance?

Platform Golf: This is the question I love most because it cuts straight to the heart of what we’re trying to do. The most powerful proof point we have right now is behavioral: golfers who train on uneven lies develop a fundamentally different understanding of yardage management. When you hit the same club from a flat lie versus a two-percent forward slope, you start to feel, not just calculate, the difference in launch and distance. The use of force plates and swing analysis video tools allows for codifying this experiential feel, which leads to a recalibration for those moments on the course.

We’ve had coaching feedback from instructors at the elite level who tell us their students arrive on course with better instincts about setup adjustments on uneven terrain. We also had a junior golfer whose father built a full home studio and trained almost exclusively indoors. The kid shot 89 in his first-ever tournament and made his high school JV team as a freshman hitting 40s. Coaches like Brad Faxon and Claude Harmon III don’t attach their names to technology lightly. The formal data collection is ongoing, but the directional evidence from the coaching community has been consistent.

Gianni: You made your second appearance at the PGA Show this past January. How did the reaction compare to your first showing, and what surprised you most?

Platform Golf: The 2025 Platform Golf debut was electric in the way that anything novel and unexpected can be. People walked by, stopped, couldn’t quite process what they were seeing, and then wouldn’t leave. We won a “Best in Show” award from one of golf’s big media companies, which validated that the problem we were solving resonated with people the moment they stood on the platform. The 2026 return was different and in some ways more meaningful. The questions changed. In 2025 people were asking “wait, what is this?” In 2026 they were asking “how does this integrate with what I already have, and what does the roadmap look like?” That’s a fundamental shift from curiosity to commerce. What surprised me most was the depth of interest from the international market. We’ve already partnered with The Tommy Fleetwood Academy at Yas Links in Abu Dhabi and Precision Golf outside London, and the global interest and demand continues to grow.

Gianni: Who is the target customer right now: commercial facilities, home installs, tour players? And what does accessibility look like in terms of pricing and integration with existing simulator setups?

Platform Golf: All three, honestly, but for different reasons and at different stages. I would also include golf courses and club fitters, as golf courses already have a lot of real estate and club fitters have just had their opportunity for true baselines massively expanded. Commercial facilities are our fastest-growing segment because the ROI story is straightforward: differentiation in a crowded simulator bar market, a premium experience that commands premium pricing, and a reason for serious golfers to choose you over the place down the street.

Home installs are our most passionate customers. These are typically “golf sickos” who are genuinely trying to get better, not just entertain guests. However, they do love the ‘WOW’ factor. The tour and elite coaching space is where credibility is built. High-profile installs at TaylorMade HQ, Cobra Puma Golf, and with world-class instructors lend credibility that filters down. On integration, and this is critical for GolfWRX readers who already have simulator setups, our products are designed to retrofit into existing environments. We integrate with TruGolf across 6,000-plus simulators and are in the middle of a game-changing integration with Trackman. We are also integrated with SAM, with upcoming integrations poised with GEARS, Quintic, and others. You don’t need to rip out what you have. Pricing scales with the product tier, from TrueBreak for dedicated putting to TrueSlope for the full combined experience.

Gianni: Beyond lie simulation, what do you think still needs to happen for indoor golf to genuinely close the gap with the on-course experience?

Platform Golf: Give people “that made putt feeling” that they get 18 times on the course, which is truly lagging in current options. Number two is that 96% of approach shots are hit from uneven lies. We create slope realism for every shot that truly transforms the experience tee to green. Producing these two elements of the game inside a bay will allow for parity in scoring and ultimately standardization of off course to on course golf become aligned creating major championships that can be played globally.

To learn more about Platform Golf.