Golf And Country Club Operator ClubCorp Renames Itself ‘Invited’

The inaugural ClubCorp Classic, a PGA Tour Champions and Charles Schwab Cup event featuring 50 celebrity golfers playing alongside pros, tees off today at Las Colinas Country Club in Irving, Texas. In a cool quirk, ten members culled from the presenting sponsor’s vast portfolio of clubs were able to earn a spot in the field by competing in regional qualifiers that led to a national championship.

“We invited our members to engage in the opportunity to go play in a professional event and these ten members are going to get to do that this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and it’s just amazing,” CEO David Pillsbury says.

While the country club operator inked a four-year deal to sponsor the senior circuit event, next year the tournament will be dubbed the Invited Celebrity Classic. The lifestyle hospitality brand has made the decision to change its corporate name to Invited.

Corporations typically rename themselves to reflect a merger, shake off bad press or signify a strategic shift. Och-Ziff rechristened itself as Sculptor Capital Management, Facebook took up the mantle of Meta and Isis Pharmaceuticals opted to become Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Other times a company name simply no longer fully reflects a brand’s current identity which was the case for ClubCorp.

The vision of the Dallas based company founded by Robert Dedman in 1957 was to disrupt the protocol of joining a private club by welcoming members into the fold regardless of race or religious background.

“He wanted to invite everyone to be a member and have the opportunity to experience the lifestyle of a private club. So, if you had the means, you could become a member. Everyone is invited,” Pillsbury explains.

“It may have been cool to belong to a club owned by a corporation at one point but we thought that ClubCorp had become tired, somewhat stale and old. We felt Invited was more reflective of Bob Dedman’s original vision and reflects our core values more accurately as an organization,” he adds.

The change to a warmer, more hospitable sounding sobriquet comes at a time when golf’s demographics continue to evolve to more closely resemble the overall U.S. population. According to the National Golf Foundation’s most recent statistics, the number of female players has risen by 11% over the past couple years. Women currently comprise a quarter of all golfers and 36% of beginner golfers last year were women. The number of non-Caucasian golfers has also jumped markedly in recent years with that cohort swelling to 5.2 million players or 21% of the sport’s population.

The new handle also puts a neater bow on the company’s four business verticals. In addition to the core golf and country club segment, Invited operates 32 city clubs geared towards professionals, seven stadium clubs inside college football venues and BigShots Golf, Invited’s answer to TopGolf. That latter segment has been red hot. According to the NGF entertainment ranges have seen an 81% increase in new locations over the past five years.

Invited recently announced their seventh BigShots, a two-storey 22,500 sq foot venue, will be built in Akron, Ohio on their Firestone Country Club property, adjacent to the public 9-hole Raymond C. Firestone course. They plan to grow the footprint of their entertainment ranges to 20 locations by the end of 2024 and then triple that number looking out further.

“It took TopGolf twenty years to get to 70 locations and I think it will take us ten. The whitespace for this is off the charts. We’ve identified 250 markets that can support a BigShots facility which of course means they can support the other models as well, but this is a rising tide that lifts all boats,” Pillsbury says. They are particularly focusing in on secondary and tertiary markets that are underserved when it comes to entertainment options. They also see runway to roll out BigShots lounges to the balance of their City Clubs over the next 24-36 months after a successful test run of their simulator concept at Tower Club Dallas and the Metropolitan Club in Chicago.

Not so long ago, if you wanted to even dabble in golf you had to first purchase clubs along with specialty apparel and then call up a pro to arrange a lesson. Nowadays you can simply walk into a BigShots or TopGolf dressed in anything from gym sweats to a nightclubbing outfit and start taking swings using equipment that is provided.

Pillsbury credits the removal of friction points and barriers to entry for the sport’s current bull run that he sees as a secular trend he calls the great democratization of golf.

“It started fifteen years ago and it has really kicked into gear over the last four or five years. This is a systemic shift. This isn’t a covid shift. This is fundamental and it’s here to stay,” Pillsbury says.