CASE STUDY
How Pitch Golf are redefining golf club membership
Co-founder and head of franchising Chris Ingham has led Pitch Golf’s initial growth – here he explains the concept and outlines their ambitious plans for the future
Pitch Golf is a franchise that offers an elevated indoor golf experience.
Their latest venue – the fifth to date – opened in Manchester in September. It has state-of-the-art Trackman technology and a Trendy Golf store featuring brands such as Lindeberg, Hugo Boss, Manors, Malbon Golf, Ralph Lauren and G/Fore.
The expansion of Pitch Golf represents the spike in popularity of indoor sporting experiences and, while also integrating the expertise of PGA Coaches to teach lessons and carry out custom fittings, Ingham wants to provide the best hospitality experience for golfers in the industry.
With existing venues also in London – the first one opened in Bishopsgate – and Dublin, future areas include America and Australia.
Here, Chris Ingham speaks about opening in Manchester, the customer’s retail experience, the adaptation of sport for indoor purposes and why people might prefer Pitch Golf’s model over traditional club membership.
Why Manchester?
I think most people do see it as a second city – it feels like Manchester's got much more of a social heartbeat to it – largely driven by the football culture.
We felt like that was the best opportunity. We'd seen a lot of competitive socialising brands and general social concepts do quite well in central Manchester, and similar to Dublin, it's probably got the best blend of corporate, residential and a local feel to it also.
That’s two key parts to the business. You want membership from corporate and obviously a lot of individuals who can access the club. You still want people coming for a night out, people coming for weekends away. It’s a fairly logical option for us.
What is the target demographic?
We get the modern beginner golfer, who's a bit more into fashion, and they like all the social media around it, and women get more involved.
We've tried to tick more of those boxes. Half of our club is the members’ area, half is the visitors’ area. Then you've got communal in the middle where people just want to mix, because we have to try and appeal to everybody, which isn't easy.
We do a pretty good job of that, because we still get very serious golfers, a lot of scratch golfers and low-single-figure handicappers. We've also got complete beginners who literally have no idea what the difference between a 7-iron and a sand wedge is.
“Gone are the days where someone would be happy to give up most of their weekend just for golf. It feels to me like people want to do lots of different things. They want to try and squeeze as much of that into their week as possible”
Why do the brands resonate with the demographic in the retail store?
It’s generally led by the fact that the average customer age for us is low 30s, even late 20s. You’re going to see more Malbon and Manors. We do Ralph Lauren, but I think the bigger sellers are more like Adidas and the cool Adidas retro stuff, and those newer brands.
Like the main business, they've got something for everyone. They tend to have eight or nine different brands in there.
You've probably got something for your 47-year-old accountant, who wants to wear some premium Ralph garment for his Saturday medal. But you've also got some streetwear T-shirts for someone who's more comfortable coming in tracksuit bottoms for their midweek practice session, who wants something a little bit more casual.
They wanted to appeal to everybody, rather than most pro shops who would be Under Armour, Nike, Adidas, JL. It's a little bit more consistent. We're offering something different to what you can get.
How important is the involvement of PGA coaches?
They’re a big part of the business. Some of the lads in London have worked for us for seven or eight years.
It's a bit of a gateway job. It gets the younger pros out of the pro shop Mars Bar vibe that everyone jokes about.
If you've been brought up on Trackman, or any other indoor tech and you know the numbers and you know modern coaching methods, you can get people into more of a fulfilling coaching career quite quickly, because they just know how to make people better using data really quickly.
We offer a good career path, and we get really high-quality young guys. If they're good enough, they can work for Pitch.
It allows us to offer value and have a PGA presence across as much of what we do as possible, which adds authenticity and kudos, so people know they're being looked after.
Why has there been a rise in indoor social experiences in sport?
Loads of reasons – in order of relevance, it’s convenience linked to time.
Gone are the days where someone would maybe just do golf, and they'd be happy to give up most of their weekend just for golf. It feels to me like people want to do lots of different things, fitness as well. They want to try and squeeze as much of that into their week as possible.
Weather is a big thing. The climate's changed. It's warm where I am, but it's wet. My local course suffers badly in the winter. It's almost like with winter tees out now, it’s five months hitting off a mat. That's not great, and then it's soggy, and then it's raining.
The gap is getting closer and closer.
The sunny day at Sunningdale is once a year, if you're lucky. You can do this three times a week. That new proposition has just gone through the roof. Why would you spend your money on indoor golf membership or an indoor golf experience versus outdoor? There's an awful lot more reasons.
Pitch Golf numbers
Five venues open in the UK
First Pitch Golf Club opened in Bishopsgate, London in 2016
Pitch Manchester opening in September, 2025 created 35 jobs
Looking to have 10 venues in 2026
Co-founders Chris Ingham and Elliot Godfrey first met as golfers in 1999
How does Pitch Golf differentiate from its competitors?
It’s definitely a much more elevated and premium feel to it. That's probably the number one thing. We do try and be more than just an academy, you feel like you're part of something – people like that. We do a lot more for getting women into the game, which makes the whole vibe better.
We're more inclined to have a full-service team on, whereas most places, like our old business, you’d just have the pros. You'd walk in, there's no receptionist, there's no one coming to get you a drink, there's no one who's going to help you entertain clients.
I feel (where) golf meets hospitality, that's where we're market leaders by quite some way. There are barriers to entry to doing that. It's a high-risk profile business, but it's a higher upside business as well. You're not going to see loads of people step into that, because you need a lot of funding to do it.
How does the investment into women’s golf manifest itself?
We've always had the Pitch Futures Programme, which is for men and women. Adidas backed it and funded 100 female members. That was something they did in the last few years to try and grow the game. We've always kept that Futures membership going.
More recently, we've evolved that to do something with JP Morgan. Once we fine-tune it, what we have will replicate that where we have group classes and then a gateway into membership and a specific ladies membership.
We might not make much money on that, but we are trying to open the doors as much as possible. Otherwise, it's such a male dominated sport - whatever way you look at it, it is. We can provide these gateways and offer something, which is where it's great to have Adidas’ support.
We're looking at other headline sponsors. The less people like us do it, these things just won't evolve. There's always going to be a male-female gap. We're always doing initiatives, we're always offering free coaching sessions and trying to onboard more women into the game.
How different will Pitch look in 12 months’ time?
Because of cracking America and Australia, especially Melbourne – you'll start to see the brand gain more notoriety.
But what we want to be is the ultimate indoor golf members’ experience. That's the goal. That's what Trackman think we should focus on more than anything, because golfers are always going to golf.
It's makes way more sense for people to have than a normal golf membership. I play in my club scratch team. I still play normal golf, but it's only because I live five minutes from the course. Anyone who struggles or doesn't drive, indoor golf really is your option.
We could definitely be known as the number one in the golf membership experience, that would be my goal.
