The Golf Business looks at three major growth areas in the UK golf club industry in 2025.

Padel

Padel is one of the UK’s fastest-growing sports, which is played on an enclosed court about a third of the size of a tennis court.

Numerous golf venues, such as Royal Norwich, South Buckinghamshire, Golf It!, Teign Valley, Trevose, Worldham, Hartford, Farrington Park, The Mount and The Notleys have either installed courts or announced an intention to in recent months.

This year Beacon Park in Staffordshire said it will reconfigure its golf course to accommodate the creation of three padel courts.

Entertainment centres

Last year The Club Company announced it had converted the driving ranges at eight of its golf clubs into ‘Strike Shack’ entertainment centres featuring a technology system that tracks golf balls and provides real-time feedback, and offering food and drink.

Also recently, Topgolf opened its fourth facility in the UK and BigShots Golf announced it would open its third and fourth facilities in the UK.

Several golf clubs are now opening similar centres, or converting their driving ranges into them. For example, Ramside Hall Hotel, Golf and Spa in Durham is building a multi-million-pound golf academy, leisure and entertainment hub that will include a 43 bay TopTracer driving range, a six-lane indoor bowling alley, a sports bar with interactive electronic games such as darts and shuffleboards, pool tables and large screens which will show major sports events.

Robotic mowers

Numerous golf clubs such as Hart Common, Cranham and Royal Ascot have been investing in self-driving robotic mowers in recent months, while more and more machines are entering the market.

For instance, in January, at BTME, Reesink Turfcare debuted autonomous Turf Pro robotic mowers while Husqvarna is currently introducing three new models to UK consumers.

Instead of replacing human greenkeepers, the work carried out by automated mowers to cut fairways allows existing staff to allocate more time to more skilled tasks around the club that technology cannot complete.

As Matt Mayfield, the general manager at Harewood Downs Golf Club, which has just purchased five mowers, said: “This is a big investment for us and one that we are very excited to see the benefits of. As well as keeping the fairways at a perfect length to maximise playability, having these robotic mowers will allow us to put the dedication and talent of our greenkeepers to better use around other areas of the course.”