With golf participation rates surging to record levels, Denver-based private equity firm KSL Capital Partners has an agreement to acquire Invited Clubs, the largest private golf course owner and operator in North America, according to an email to KSL investors reviewed by Forbes.

The deal is valued at $2.6 billion and was expected to close in approximately 60 days, according to the email, which was sent on Friday.

For Invited, which was previously known as ClubCorp and has 125 owned clubs in its portfolio, including PGA Tour tournament hosts TPC Craig Ranch in Texas and Firestone Country Club in Ohio, a sale would end nine years of ownership under Apollo Global Management. The massive asset management firm, which took Invited private in 2017 at an enterprise value of $2.2 billion, is believed to have been shopping the company for years.

KSL, which specializes in travel and leisure businesses and has $23 billion in assets under management, is familiar with Invited, having owned the company under its former name from 2006 through a 2013 initial public offering. It is expected to merge Invited’s portfolio with its own Heritage Golf Group, which has 47 courses.

Apollo did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and KSL declined to comment. Invited also declined to discuss the deal but said in a statement, “Invited Clubs remains focused on delivering exceptional experiences for our members and continuing the strong performance across our portfolio.”

Reuters first reported news of the agreement.

The deal is set against a boom in the sport. The Covid-19 pandemic sent millions of Americans scrambling to find new outdoor hobbies, and the flexible work arrangements that have remained in place have helped create a new generation of golfers that has grown each year. According to the National Golf Foundation, a trade association that tracks the industry in the U.S., 48.1 million people played some form of golf last year—29.2 million who played on a traditional course and 18.9 million who played exclusively “off-course,” at venues such as Topgolf or in indoor simulators.

Those figures were up from 47.2 million total players and 28.1 million on-course the year prior, and 34.2 million and 24.3 million in 2019.

KSL’s Heritage has capitalized, with nearly eight times as many courses in its portfolio as the six it had at the time of its acquisition for an undisclosed sum in 2020. The group, which has most of its clubs in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, now ranks among the country’s largest golf operators, alongside competitors like Arcis Golf, which has more than 60 clubs, and Concert Golf, which owns 39 and was purchased by Bain Capital in November for $1.4 billion, including debt, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Of the 16,000 golf courses in total in the U.S., about a quarter are private clubs, and no operator controls more than the Dallas-based Invited. It hasn’t been nearly as opportunistic since the pandemic, however, with its last course acquisition coming in 2022 as it has prioritized divestments to pay down debt and retreat from some missteps.

The company was founded as ClubCorp in 1957 by Robert Dedman Sr. and began construction on Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, Texas, that year. It soon pioneered the practice of rolling up private clubs into a for-profit business, buying its crown jewel, the historic Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, in 1984.

After a half-century of family ownership, KSL bought most of ClubCorp’s assets in 2006 for $1.8 billion, including debt, while the Dedmans held on to Pinehurst, which they still own. The private equity firm steered ClubCorp through the 2008 financial crisis and continued adding clubs to its portfolio until its September 2013 IPO, which raised $252 million and gave the business an equity value of $880 million. KSL retained a majority stake but gradually sold it off over the next four years.

The stock’s performance on the public markets was stagnant before Apollo took the company private again at a $1.1 billion equity value—giving stockholders a 22% return from the IPO price—and assumed an additional $1.1 billion debt load, for a $2.2 billion enterprise value. It’s unclear exactly how much KSL made on the investment from start to finish, but it is thought to be a modest success for the firm.

Invited’s website now boasts of more than three dozen clubs it has purchased since 2010, highlighted by the 2019 acquisition of seven properties from Toll Brothers’ country club division that included TPC Craig Ranch. But industry insiders caution that in the two decades since the Dedman family sold ClubCorp, cost-cutting measures on staff and course maintenance have eroded the brand’s prestige.

In 2018, ClubCorp acquired a controlling interest in BigShots Golf, which operated entertainment venues and indoor golf simulators, and invested heavily in an ill-fated effort to compete with Topgolf and Drive Shack. Topgolf Callaway bought BigShots’ four venues, including three franchised locations, for $29 million in 2023, or “the price of approximately one Topgolf venue,” CEO Chip Brewer noted in a press release.

ClubCorp’s 2022 rebrand to Invited, which the company stated was an attempt to make its brand more welcoming and hospitable, also puzzled industry veterans. “I hope they go back to the name ClubCorp,” says Joel Paige, senior vice president of resorts at Escalante Golf, which has a portfolio of 25 clubs and resorts. “I think it was a mistake to get away from that brand recognition they have.”

Invited hasn’t bought a course since acquiring the Haven Country Club in Boylston, Massachusetts, in September 2022 and has sold several notable properties, including a 2025 deal with Arcis Golf for the Woodlands Country Club in Texas. It also repurchased $33.6 million of its debt in early 2024 to strengthen its balance sheet as Apollo readied its exit strategy.

Invited did manage to generate about $350 million in EBITDA last year, according to the KSL email, but the 8x multiple on its new $2.6 billion deal value signals fairly tepid expectations about its growth prospects.

The company will also have to navigate the expected consolidation of its operations with Heritage’s, which one industry insider fears will lead to further cost-cutting measures and job losses. Another person who works in the industry but did not have direct knowledge of the deal characterized Heritage as the more nimble business and believed its management style—led by CEO Mark Burnett, who spent 11 years as ClubCorp’s president and chief operating officer before leaving in 2018 in the wake of the Apollo deal—should prevail in any merger of the two golf brands.

Meanwhile, any operator faces stiff challenges managing a private club, a low-margin business given the rising costs of fertilizer and machinery to keep courses pristine and the staffing requirements—everyone from executive chefs to turf experts. Clubs are also under pressure to build fitness centers, pickleball courts and more amenities to retain and recruit members.

Escalante’s Paige, though, is more optimistic about Invited’s future under the KSL umbrella once again.

“They wouldn’t just buy this to squeeze a little bit out and sell it,” he says. “They have a plan here, whether it’s consolidation or aggregation or bringing more technology into the company. They’re very good operators.”

KSL has a track record of growing leisure businesses like Alterra Mountain Company, a portfolio company since 2017 that owns 19 ski resorts, including Steamboat and Deer Valley. It has posted double-digit net annual returns in most of its funds, and insiders expect it to be able to turn its reacquisition of Invited into another win for investors, especially at a reasonable entry price.

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