The Golfzon booth at the PGA Show in Orlando.

Golfzon

Golfzon has more than 6,500 commercial indoor golf simulator locations in South Korea, where the company owns about three-quarters of a massive market for the off-course game. But Sean Pyun recalls a time when South Koreans weren’t as enamored with indoor golf, describing some early-on perceptions of simulators or screen golf as a “gimmicky video game.”

Those attitudes have changed dramatically since the early 2010s. Indoor golf today is positioned as a hugely popular and mainstream entertainment option in South Korea, where twice as many rounds are played at Golfzon locations than at traditional, green-grass golf courses. And Pyun, the CEO of Golfzon in North America, says the U.S. golf simulator market is currently reminiscent of what South Korea was like just over a decade ago – ripe with opportunity.

“In this competitive U.S. market, innovation is very fast. Faster than I've ever seen in Korea and other places, which is good for all of us,” said Pyun, noting that the company’s U.S. business grew over 90% last year alone. “This is a significant opportunity for the entire game of golf to grow.”

Before joining Golfzon in 2024, Pyun spent 16 years with the LPGA Tour, including a six-year stint as Chief Business Officer in Asia, where he signed Golfzon as a corporate sponsor.

While overseeing that account, he recalls hearing plenty of questions from endemic golf equipment companies about whether simulator golf could be additive to the green-grass game. Among their concerns: the people who played golf indoors wouldn’t buy a new set of clubs, they wouldn’t want to come to green-grass golf facilities, and they wouldn’t lose golf balls. “People thought we were legitimizing the gimmicky video game that impacts in a negative way to a lot of the stakeholders in the game,” said Pyun.

But since Golfzon’s debut in the early 2000s, the traditional golfer population in South Korea has grown significantly, as have sales for equipment companies and apparel companies, and revenues at traditional facilities with a physical golf course. The entire golf market ‘pie’ is significantly larger than it was before, with indoor golf only increasing the appetite for on-course play.

“I think in U.S., you still have people who are looking at indoor golf as an alternative form of golf when green grass is not available. Say wintertime, evening time. But that’s going to change,” said Pyun. “We're going to have a lot more people who would otherwise never have a club in their hands be able to experience golf indoor because of the convenience, time, and the proximity to where they are. So, I think this is going to really grow the game two- to three-fold in the United States in the next 10-plus years.

“It's exactly like what it looked like in the early 2010s in Korea,” he added. “There were some people who were opposed to it. Most people thought this is a form of golf (for) when green grass was not available, but that has completely changed.”

Golfzon’s U.S. Growth

Earlier this year, Golfzon relocated its global business team to the U.S. from South Korea, having already established a mature and successful market there. This positioning not only enables Golfzon to better grow its U.S. simulator presence across commercial locations, entertainment venues, indoor golf centers, lesson and fitting facilities, and residential installations, but throughout North America overall as well as in Europe, the Middle East and select markets in Southeast Asia.

About 80% of Golfzon’s current business in the U.S. is on the commercial side, with the other 20% residential.

But while major metro areas like New York and Chicago – areas where golf courses close in the winter – were the company’s primary markets initially, Golfzon is now seeing strong adoption in places Arizona, Las Vegas and Texas, where indoor play can be appealing during the sweltering summer months.

“You're seeing a lot more golf courses now realizing, ‘Hey, wait a second, we shouldn't be too comfortable keeping our doors closed for four months without any revenue,’” Pyun said. “Because they're seeing their members going to indoor golf facilities and spending there. So, if I had five conversations with golf courses two years ago, I'm having 50 to 100 conversations today.”

Golfzon recently partnered with Pebble Beach to install four simulators at Spanish Bay to create an area that can be used as hitting bays during the day and turn into an entertainment destination within the resort when the sun sets.

Golfzon City

Golfzon’s biggest development, quite literally, is Golfzon City.

This next-level concept, which made a splash at the PGA Show in January, features 18 separate bays and 18 unique greens in a massive venue of at least 150,000 square feet and, more realistically, 175,000 square feet. The latter is roughly the same size as a standard Walmart Supercenter.

Players move through all 18 holes, getting a chance to essentially play a full round of golf indoors. After hitting their tee shots and approach shots in each simulator bay, the screen rises to reveal the accompanying synthetic green and its surrounds directly behind. Players walk through to finish the hole – chipping, pitching and putting, as needed – and then move on to the next simulator bay.

The first U.S. location is sure to drop some jaws when it opens in Chicago by the end of the year. There’s another in the works in Nashville, Tennessee, and Pyun said civic organizations in several other cities (including Los Angeles) have reached out about adding Golfzon Citygolf venues.

There are two already operating in China -- Pyun calls them an “unbelievable experience” – with a third on the way.

“There's already a demand for product like this” (in the U.S.), says Pyun. “Particularly in markets like Chicago in the wintertime, when every one of those outdoor golf courses is closed. It's a matter of how quickly you can get these things up and running.”

Pyun insists nothing can replace green grass golf courses, but that off-course formats are absolutely complementary, with more people set to be introduced to the game through indoor play in the coming years.

And when it comes to off-course golf engagement, no category has been growing as rapidly as indoor simulators -- with a 154% participation increase since 2019, according to the National Golf Foundation. Over 9.2 million Americans played golf in a simulator in 2025, per NGF research, with more than 45% of those having never set foot on a golf course. At least not yet.

“The very well-designed golf courses with pristine greens and fairways and with the sun and wind, they will never be replaced, in my opinion,” said Pyun. “But you're going to have a lot more indoor golfers who aspire to go play those golf courses. Indoor golf will continue to produce more golfers and funnel them into the industry, and they will all eventually get to the green grass -- from local munis to Saint Andrews, Pebble Beach, and other destinations. Indoor golf is going to continue to feed additional business and opportunity for the entire game of golf. I'm 110% sure of this.”