PGA of America × Sota · Player Retention Platform

The golfers
nobody can name.

A national retention platform the PGA of America could give every Member and every facility, and the direct line to 44 million golfers that comes with it.

Prepared for Phil Anderson · September 2026

Confidential

The 17th · Hazeltine National Golf Club · Laymans Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0

Already proven

Sota Platforms already runs at national scale.

Built and operated by Tom Mcpherson and Tom Fu for over six years at Motor Culture Australia, in one of the most heavily regulated promotional categories in the world.

Members

600k+

Annual retention

~90%

Invested in the platform

$25M+

Sales through the platform

$100M+

And the team that built it

In daily production

20 yrs

enterprise software, live

Clients delivered

35+

government & enterprise

Senior engineers

100%

in-house, no outsourcing

Security validated by

Deloitte + KPMG

independent cyber compliance

Fully compliant infrastructure with a government approved draw system, permits held in every state, independently verified winners and prize delivery at scale. Over $40M in prizes awarded and more than 1,000 verified winners since 2020.

Winner, 2026 Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards, Best Use of Digital Technology, alongside Woolworths, Myer, Telstra Plus and Flybuys.

Motor Culture Australia operating figures to August 2026 · 2026 Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards, Best Use of Digital Technology

The core opportunity

Acquisition is solved.
The people leaving are invisible.

The top of the funnel has been overflowing for six years. The game has no way of knowing who came in, or who walked away.

Tried golf, 2020 to 2025

19.5M

30% above the Tiger era peak

Net growth, same six years

4.3M

1 in 4 beginners stays

Three out of four walk away, and the industry never learns a single name.

National Golf Foundation, August 2026 (19.5M first-time participants 2020 to 2025, 4.3M net growth) · National Golf Foundation 2025 (48.1M total participants, 29.1M on-course) · USGA 2025 (3.68M Handicap Indexes, +8.2% year on year, 82M scores posted)

Where we part company with the NGF

The same instruction, 14 years apart.

Their numbers are right. Their answer is the one the PGA already gave its own Members, and it has already been measured.

“Operators need to lean into the opportunity, first by elegantly identifying the beginners who require a higher level of service…”

National Golf Foundation · August 2026

“Key facility personnel need to employ strategies to better understand and communicate with customers so that they continue to return to your facility.”

PGA of America · Know Your Customer 101 · 2012

It was run. This is the PGA’s own audit of it

Hit the target enrolment

8.4%

of certified facilities

Shop staff unaware it existed

45%

at facilities that were certified

National programs run on it

4

since 2001, none of them stopped

The strategy was right. Asking a Professional running a shop to be the data layer was never going to work, and it is the only thing that has ever been tried.

National Golf Foundation, August 2026 · PGA of America, Know Your Customer 101, April 2012 · Get Golf Ready Program Manual and participation reporting, PGA of America · Golfweek, 5 April 2010

The solution

A free identity, a paid tier, and a ladder between them.

Every golfer starts free. Nobody is asked to post a score, take a handicap or join anything. The only thing that changes is that the game can finally see them, and give them a reason to come back.

Free to join, forever

Golfer ID

Micro rewards on ordinary play, prizes and giveaways everyone with an ID is eligible for, and a reason to come back next week.

The facility earnsGreen fees and range time

The paid tier

Golfer ID+

More rewards and more benefits on top. One currency earned and spent anywhere in the game.

The facility earnsLessons, equipment and simulator hours

The destination

Frequent golfer

Nearly 7x the annual spend of an occasional player, from frequency alone, with no new golfer acquired.

The facility earnsRounds, retail, food and beverage

Spend figures are the PGA of America’s own, from the Connecting With Her playbook, BCG analysis · National Golf Foundation, August 2026

The product

AAdvantage, for golf.

American Airlines never changed how anyone flies. The flight is the same. What changed is that the airline knows who flew, and has something to bring them back.

1981the program, not the airline

23Mactive members

$5.9Bcash sales in 2019

$19.5–31.5Bappraised value

The loyalty layer was appraised at several times the airline underneath it. Golf has never had that layer.

A direct line to 44 million

One place any golfer joins, handicap or not.

Zero overhead for the Professional

No software, no hardware, no admin. They earn at any facility, range or simulator.

The data sits with you

National playing data for the PGA. Every facility keeps its own customers.

American Airlines Group, AAdvantage loyalty financing disclosure, June 2020: program launched 1981, approximately 23 million active members, approximately $5.9B of pro forma cash sales in 2019, third party appraised value of $19.5B to $31.5B

Prediction game · closes Sunday

Who wins the
PGA Championship?

Free to enter. +2 entries if you pick the winner.

9:41

PGA of America3 entries

PGA Golfer ID

Sam Whitfield

4021 8847 66

StatusGold

Since2026

Rounds14

3

Draw entries

1

Win to claim

This week's draw

A dream golf escape

Every round = more entries

A new driver

Instant win · ready to claim

You’re funding PGA REACH

Your rounds this month funded 3 PGA HOPE places

Your status

Two rounds
from Gold.

Silver14 of 16 rounds

EntrySilverGoldPlatinum

Double entries on every round

Members-only draws

Gold: guest passes and event access

Gold unlocks

A dream golf escape

Your rewards

2,480 points.
3 entries earned.

Weekly instant win3 of a kind wins

Three of a kind

A dozen Pro V1s

Drag to scratch

Your golf, this month

4 rounds played.

Royal Pines · 18 holes

Saturday

+3

Instant win

A new driver

Won

Brought a mate

Jack joined

+2

Open prediction game

Round three

+1

Picked for you

Because you’ve
played 14 rounds.

Golf destination

Play the Bellarine

Two nights, two courses, 500 bonus points.

15% off a new set

14 rounds this year, and your clubs are six seasons old.

Double points at Yarra Bend

Public course, 20 minutes away, tee times free Saturday.

Discover Eastwood Golf Club

Quiet midweek and taking new members. You’ve never played it.

Every offer is picked from how you actually play.

Where you've played

23 courses.
4 states.

Royal Melbourne2026

Kingston Heath2026

Victoria2025

New South Wales2025

Cape Wickham2025

+

The Sandbelt5 / 8

Australia's Top 10012 / 100

Every state and territory4 / 8

This is interactive

The facility

The easy button for the club.

A facility joins in an afternoon and changes nothing about how it runs. It gives what it already has, and it gets the golfer back.

A day the club already runs

The club gives

Moments it already has

The club gets back

The golfer, returning

The PGA of America’s own platform

One golfer, identified. Nothing added to the day.

Nothing to build

No software, no hardware, no training.

Nothing given away

Brands fund the rewards, not the club.

Nothing taken

The facility keeps its own customer data.

NGCOA Operator’s Bill of Rights, 2018. This meets all eight points, and the coalition that published it was co-founded by the NGCOA and the PGA of America

What it gives Members, and what it gives REACH

An answer for Members. And an engine for REACH.

Members keep asking what their membership provides them. REACH keeps bringing people into the game and then losing them. The same platform answers both.

For PGA Members

A capability no individual Professional could build at their own facility on their own time
A Professional who can tell an owner who is coming back, who is drifting and what it is worth
Delivered to their facility, not asked of it. Every previous program asked the Member to do the work

For PGA REACH

Jr. League · 3,096 scholarships in 2025. The platform finally shows what those juniors did next
HOPE · 65,000+ veterans served in ten years. Keeps them playing after the six weeks end
WORKS · a live pipeline into communities the game has never been able to measure

And it can fund
REACH directly.

A share of subscriptions and of sponsorship can be directed to the REACH Foundation rather than the Association, structured as a royalty or a qualified sponsorship payment. New recurring funding for Jr. League, HOPE and WORKS, generated by golfers who were never identified before.

PGA of America REACH Foundation, 2025 program disclosures: 3,096 PGA Jr. League scholarships distributed in 2025, more than 65,000 veterans served through PGA HOPE over ten years, 150 college graduates through PGA WORKS since 2017

The outcome

For the first time, the game could answer this.

Every one of these is a person the game currently loses track of the moment they walk off.

PGA Jr. League

Is she still playing at 18?
At 25?

PGA HOPE

Did he keep playing once the six weeks ended?

PGA WORKS

Where did her career in the game go next?

And at the level of the whole game

→How many Americans played golf this month, counted rather than estimated

→Which of last year’s new golfers never came back, and from where

→Whether participation is rising or falling right now, not eleven months late

→Which facilities, Sections and REACH programs actually hold on to people

→What any initiative was worth, in golfers, so the next one is better

Golf has never once been able to answer these. Every answer would belong to the PGA.

Photography: PGA REACH · PGA of America REACH Foundation program disclosures, 2025

Lessons from industry history

We have been reactionary three times. The fourth is happening now.

Handicapping

The one national golfer identity that exists, administered by somebody else and delivered through 59 state associations.

Online tee times

40M rounds a year, and the largest consumer golfer file in America sitting with a booking company.

Tournament management

11,000 facilities and 41M rounds. Excellent software, and now the operating layer of club competition.

Golfer identity

Still open. The only one of the four a governing body can own, and the only one that reaches the 44 million.

And in March, two of the biggest names in the game moved four days apart

PGA TOUR Pass launches

A free digital membership. It identifies fans, not players.

Troon relaunches Access

A full paid subscription platform, 200+ courses and expanding beyond Troon.

Each of the first three is now infrastructure the game depends on and does not control. An identity is only ever held once.

USGA 2025 · GolfNow, rounds booked annually · Golf Genius company figures 2025 · PGA TOUR Pass, March 2026 · Troon press release, 10 March 2026

Who the 44 million actually are

Six different people. Six ways in. One identity underneath.

The unidentified are not one group, which is why one program has never reached them. Each enters differently and each leaves for a different reason.

The beginner

Tried golf once. Three of every four never come back.

A first round reward and a reason to return before the season ends.

The occasional player

A handful of rounds a year, and belongs nowhere.

Every round earns, and every small win pulls the next visit forward.

The off course player

Simulator, range and entertainment venues. May never take the traditional path.

The same Golfer ID works indoors and out, so the game finally sees them at all.

The lapsed golfer

Used to play. Stopped. Nobody noticed. 4.42M a year.

Flagged while there is still time, and given a reason to come back after.

Juniors, families and veterans

Everyone REACH already touches through Jr. League, HOPE and WORKS.

Junior pathways and bring a friend rewards, and finally an answer to what happened next.

The committed golfer

Already plays every week and already spends.

Recognition, streaks and status that make their facility worth more to them.

826Mfans, up 90 million in one year

1 in 4became fans through a product made for non-fans

41%women, fastest growth aged 16 to 24

$3.65Brevenue, up from $2.0B in 2019

And every one of them becomes reachable for the partners you already have. Brands fund the rewards, and for the first time they can be told exactly what it returned.

National Golf Foundation, August 2026 · PGA of America, Know Your Customer 101, 2012 (4.42M golfers a year leaving the game since 2006) · PGA of America REACH Foundation program disclosures 2025 · PGA of America Official Partners, pga.com, 2026

Lessons from the last cycle

The last boom gave back 6.8 million golfers.

Nothing held those players and nobody could see it happening. A direct line to 44 million casual golfers is the hedge against the next time discretionary spend tightens.

National Golf Foundation, US on-course participation 2003 to 2025 · NGF course supply: more closures than openings in every year since 2006, roughly 2,000 net facilities lost

Why it has to be the PGA of America

Somebody is going to hold this relationship.

If private equity holds it

Leonard Green · KSL · TPG. All three already own pieces of golf

The golfer belongs to the platform, not to the game
Facilities pay, in cash or tee times, for access to their own customers
Discounting is the tool, because discounting moves inventory
It is sold when the fund needs to exit, and the terms change with the owner

If the PGA of America holds it

The only organisation in golf with no exit to plan for

The golfer belongs to the game, and consents to it
Every facility joins on equal terms and keeps its own customers
Participation is the tool, because growing the game is the mandate
It is not for sale, and the terms do not change

And the reach nobody else has

Members and Associates

30,000+

on the front lines of the game

Facilities with a PGA Member on staff

~8,700

green grass, where golf is played

Organisations with both

One

the mandate, and the reach

PGA of America Membership Report, 31 May 2025 · PGA of America member facility directory, August 2026 · National Golf Foundation, US facility supply 2025

The numbers

What it puts back into the game.

Facilities live
Of roughly 14,000 in the country

👆

Golfers identified per facility, a year
From a facility already taking tens of thousands of rounds

Golfer IDs created a year
Facilities live, multiplied by golfers at each

Four years of this

Opt into the paid tier
Entry to a Golfer ID is $0 and always will be

– paid subscribers, and – a year to the Association

3.3M Americans already try golf every year without being identified.
Paid tier at $14.99 a month. Sponsorship at $18 and Index licensing at $2 per identified golfer a year.
Nothing here assumes a single new golfer is acquired.

Golfers identified, by year four

Moved from occasional to frequent

at a 5% uplift, worth $1,900 more each a year

Annual golfer spend the game can finally see

identified golfers at $325 a year each

Into the golf economy, every year

to facilities, PGA Professionals, equipment and instruction

None of that money goes to the Association. It goes to facilities, PGA Professionals, equipment, instruction and food and beverage. Separately, the platform generates – a year of new revenue for the PGA of America, which is the next slide.

National Golf Foundation 2025: 48.1M participants and roughly 14,000 facilities · USGA 2025: 3.68M Handicap Indexes, leaving about 44M who cannot be identified

The commercial model

What it earns the Association, every year.

Carried from the previous slide – golfers identified – facilities live – on the paid tier

Revenue generated for the PGA of America, every year

Golfer ID subscriptions– paid subscribers at $14.99 a month–

Sponsorship– identified golfers, each worth $18 to partners a year
The largest pool, and the one the Association cannot reach today because it cannot name them. AARP earns $29 per member a year in royalties on a less affluent audience–

The Participation IndexLicensing national participation data back to the industry, at $2 per identified golfer a year
The thing the NGF sells today on survey estimates, held by the PGA and measured rather than modelled–

Total new revenue, a year–

Entry to a Golfer ID is $0 and everyone who holds one is eligible for rewards, prizes and giveaways, which is what keeps the structure compliant in the United States. The paid tier is an opt in for more rewards and more benefits on top.

Sponsorship benchmark: AARP reports $1.11B of annual royalty income across 38M members, about $29 per member a year · National Golf Foundation 2025

The investment

What it costs to run, and what you keep.

Every year, on the numbers from the previous slide

Total new revenueEverything the platform generates for the Association–

Licence$40,000 a month · hosting, promotional compliance across 50 states, the prize and draw engine, winner verification, fulfilment and the team that runs it–

Usage fee10% of the new revenue only–

Net to the PGA of America, a year–

Integration · one off, and outside the numbers above

Option one

$350k–$500k

Paid up front

Scoped to the first wave. The usage fee stays at 10% from day one.

Option two · we share the risk

$150k then 15%

Instead of paying it up front

A smaller upfront commitment. Usage runs at 15% until the integration cost is met out of revenue that actually arrives, then drops to 10% for good. We carry the risk with you.

How the partnership works

You govern it. We run it. Brands fund it.

Four parties, and none of them doing another’s job. Brands fund the value, we build and operate, the Association holds the identity and the authority, and the golfers and facilities are who it all exists for.

Who contributes what

Brands

Rewards, prizes,
funding and reach

Sota

Platform, compliance,
operations and fulfilment

PGA of America

Identity, endorsement,
Members and channels

Golfers + facilities

Participation, data,
retention and value

How it gets delivered

Phase one · one season

Prove it in
one Section

20 to 40 facilities, one mechanic, brand funded, judged on golfers held rather than facilities signed up.

→

Phase two

Golfers,
not Sections

Integration into the tee sheets facilities already run, so joining costs nothing and requires no work. Other Sections come on published results.

→

Phase three

The operators,
then the Index

Scale through the management companies, until the PGA can state what is happening in American golf rather than estimate it.

You stay the governing body. We stay the engine room. The commercial structure follows the pilot scope and the value created.

PGA Frisco · Home of the PGA of America

The ask

One section. One season.
Four numbers.

20 to 40 facilities. One mechanic. Brand funded, so it costs the Association nothing. Judged on golfers held, never on facilities signed up.

One identity, growing outward until the game can name everyone who plays it.

Measured in

Registrations
Repeat play
Share of rounds carrying an identity
Sponsor value delivered

A working session with the people who would own it, and a pilot to react to. Northern Texas will go first.

The golfersnobody can name.