By Ira Miller, CEO and Founder, First Inning Holdings.

A clue to the next country club appeared in Southern California this summer. Caruso announced the Miramar Lake Club, slated to open in fall 2026, built around an 18-hole, par-three Jack Nicklaus-designed course, with dining, fitness, wellness and a resort-style pool. The opportunity lies in how those experiences work together. [1]

For a busy household, that bundle answers a practical question: can one place make room for sport, improvement, social connection and time together within the week people actually have?

That is what interests me about combining tennis and golf academies with membership, hospitality and carefully selected real estate. The thesis is not simply to put more amenities on a property. It is to build a system in which each piece makes the others more valuable, and then prove that relationship in the economics.

Academy creates frequency. Hospitality deepens the relationship. Real estate provides control. Membership turns use into recurring economics.

The customer is changing faster than the club

U.S. tennis participation reached 27.3 million in 2025, up 54% since 2019, according to the USTA. More revealing for an operator: 14.5 million people played at least 10 times during the year, representing 53% of all players. Tennis is not only attracting more people; a substantial base is already making it a recurring part of life. [2]

Golf is broadening through different entry points. The National Golf Foundation counted 48.1 million U.S. participants in 2025: 29.1 million who played on a course and 19 million who participated only off-course through ranges, simulators and golf-entertainment venues. Those audiences are not interchangeable, but together they show how many ways the category now meets the consumer. [3]

The customer mix is shifting too. Women and girls accounted for 52% of golf’s net on-course participation growth from 2020 to 2025, reaching more than 8.1 million players. Tennis added 1.1 million female players in 2025 alone. Programming, coaching and the social experience should reflect the people driving growth rather than assume tomorrow’s member looks like yesterday’s. [2, 4]

Time is another signal. The USGA recorded almost 15 million nine-hole scores in 2025, more than 46% above 2020. These are scores posted within the handicap system, not every round played, but the direction is useful: shorter formats are becoming a meaningful part of how people fit golf into their lives. [5]

The same competition for time and discretionary spending is visible in wellness. McKinsey found that Gen Z and millennials represented 36% of U.S. adults but more than 41% of annual wellness spending, while Deloitte’s 2026 research continues to show the importance younger adults place on well-being, skills and stability. I do not read those studies as proof of private-club demand. I read them as a reminder that coaching, fitness, recovery and recreation are competing for the same household time and discretionary dollar. [6, 7]

For an operator, the question is whether the same club can remain valuable as a member’s career, family and available time change. A 60-minute lesson, a practice session and a nine-hole round can serve different needs within the same community. The same member may have 90 minutes today and four hours ten years from now. The club should have a reason to matter in both versions of that life.

The academy gives the property a heartbeat

Access gives people a place to play. Progress gives them a reason to return.

Instruction creates a sequence of reasons to return. A beginner moves into a group program, finds playing partners and enters a league. A junior progresses from lessons to competition. Parents may use the facility while their children train. Adults can pursue improvement without any ambition to compete professionally.

Rafa Nadal’s tennis-center model makes that connection tangible. In February 2025, his academy announced a center at Marbella’s Don Carlos Hotel, with seven clay courts, two padel courts and coaching for different ages and abilities. The partnership brings a recognizable training methodology into a hospitality setting. More importantly, it shows how improvement itself can become part of the experience, not just access to a court. [8]

College sport provides a concrete destination for some juniors. NCAA data for 2024–25 records 15,610 tennis participants and 14,679 golf participants across men’s and women’s programs: more than 30,000 collegiate athletes across the two sports. These are roster counts across all class years, not annual openings or scholarship guarantees, but the pathway is real. [9]

An academy can support that journey through coaching, competition planning, performance assessment and recruiting guidance. But the proposition must also work for the much larger group whose goals are fitness, confidence, friendship and simply getting better. A credible development business should create value even when an athlete never reaches college competition.

There is precedent for institutional interest in athlete development. Endeavor completed the sale of IMG Academy in June 2023 at a $1.25 billion enterprise value. IMG is not a valuation benchmark for a regional tennis-and-golf platform, but the transaction demonstrates that athlete development can become an institutional business rather than merely a collection of lessons. [10]

The investor question is not whether one star coach can attract customers. It is whether quality belongs to the institution as well as the coach. Curriculum, coach development, programming, scheduling and customer relationships have to remain valuable when individual instructors move on.

Hospitality can deepen the relationship, but it has to earn its place

At INNESS in New York’s Hudson Valley, a members club brings together a 40-room hotel, nine-hole golf course, tennis, pools and dining. The mix gives a household reasons to visit even when its members want different things from the day. [11]

That breadth can support longer visits and stronger retention. It can also create a lot of expensive complexity.

CMAA’s March 2026 Board Brief, drawing on a finance and operations survey of more than 1,200 clubs, reported that 91% operated food and beverage at a loss. Among clubs with golf, median initiation fees were $60,000 where food and beverage ran a deficit, compared with $16,500 where it generated a surplus. That is an association, not proof that losing money on a restaurant causes higher membership value, but it is a useful reminder that departmental profit and total club value are not always the same thing. [12]

Hospitality can be valuable even when the restaurant is not the profit center. The investor’s job is to prove that connection rather than romanticize it.

I would ask whether an amenity improves retention, referrals, visit frequency or member spending enough to justify its full cost. A crowded restaurant can be an asset to the membership experience while still being a poor use of capital. Both statements can be true.

Owning the dirt changes the thesis

Real estate ownership can give an operator greater control over a property’s long-term direction. It can support a longer planning horizon for improvements, programming and customer experience, while providing participation in the underlying property value.

But ownership is not a free lunch. It ties up capital and brings maintenance, insurance, taxes and financing costs. Appreciation should be an upside case, not the explanation for weak operating returns.

The development map is revealing. NGF reported in February 2026 that Florida, Texas and South Carolina accounted for half of U.S. new golf-course openings over the preceding three years. More than 140 courses were planned or under construction at the start of 2026, with most tied to private destination clubs, high-end residential communities or resorts. [13]

For an investor, that concentration sharpens the local question: is the club serving an established community, or helping a developer attract one? The answer changes how I would assess demand, the pace of membership sales and the capital needed before the business matures.

Institutional interest in clubs is tangible. KSL Capital Partners announced its acquisition of Invited Clubs on June 9, 2026, describing a portfolio of more than 150 properties. Reuters had reported the agreement at approximately $3 billion including debt, citing sources familiar with the transaction; KSL’s closing announcement did not disclose the price. [14, 15]

The lesson is not that every club or academy deserves an institutional multiple. It is that membership businesses with scale, brand and valuable locations can attract serious capital.

I would still underwrite the operating company and the property separately before bringing them together: can the club earn an acceptable return after a realistic occupancy cost, and does the real estate justify the capital it consumes? Otherwise, attractive land can conceal an underperforming operation, or strong programming can conceal an expensive site.

Shared space does not automatically mean shared economics

Putting tennis and golf under one brand is not, by itself, synergy.

The sports require different facilities, coaching expertise, maintenance budgets and land footprints. A full golf course creates a very different capital requirement from a practice range or simulator-based academy. The right format should follow local demand and site economics.

There is also a scheduling tension. Junior academies and working adults can both want the same after-school and evening hours. Filling those hours with one group may displace the other. Complementary audiences are valuable only when capacity, pricing and service design make the relationship work.

My test would be four questions:

1. Does each program generate a contribution after coaching and other direct delivery costs, and what does it displace at peak times?

2. Do academy families become members, and do members buy instruction? Track actual movement between programs rather than assume cross-selling.

3. Do retention, referrals and customer lifetime contribution justify acquisition spending? Recurring dues depend on continued renewal.

4. Can cash flow cover maintenance capital, debt service and slower periods without depending on new initiation fees or property appreciation?

Shared booking, marketing, finance and hospitality may lower costs or improve service across locations. Those benefits should show up in operating results. Combining two sports under one logo does not create them automatically.

Build around the relationship. Prove the return.

The old country club understood belonging. An academy-centered model can add something equally powerful: progress.

A member can begin with a lesson, move into a league, bring a child to junior training, stay for dinner, attend an event, play nine holes on a time-constrained day and return years later with more time for the sport. The point is not to accumulate amenities. It is to create more reasons to return as a household’s needs change.

For Game Set Holdings, that is the question I find most interesting in the wider sports-and-leisure market: which combinations of programming, membership and place create relationships customers want to continue, and returns investors can defend?

The new country club may still have courts, fairways and a clubhouse. Its lasting value may depend on how well it connects them to the lives of its members.

Data notes and sources

Sources rechecked September 27, 2026. Participation measures use different definitions and should not be added together as unique customers; the same person may play both sports. U.S. national trends do not establish demand at a particular site. Transaction values describe entire businesses, not comparable per-site valuations.

[1] Caruso. First Look: Caruso Unveils The Miramar Lake Club, July 7, 2026. Announced opening: fall 2026.

[2] USTA. Tennis participation continues to surge, February 18, 2026. U.S. participation in 2025; players age 6+.

[3] National Golf Foundation. Golf Industry Facts. 2025 U.S. participation, age 6+; on-course and exclusively off-course groups.

[4] National Golf Foundation. The Record Rise of Female Golf, May 28, 2026.

[5] USGA. Golf Participation Boomed in 2025; More Than 82 Million Rounds Posted Domestically, January 2026.

[6] McKinsey. The $2 trillion global wellness market gets a millennial and Gen Z glow-up, May 29, 2025. U.S. adult population and wellness-spending shares.

[7] Deloitte. 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Global workforce research; findings do not specifically describe private-club members.

[8] Rafa Nadal Academy. New Rafa Nadal Tennis Center to open in Marbella, February 27, 2025. Hotel partnership and announced facilities.

[9] NCAA. Probability of Competing Beyond High School; tables using the 2024–25 Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report. Tennis: 7,473 men + 8,137 women. Golf: 8,818 men + 5,861 women. Totals calculated from published counts.

[10] Endeavor. Completion of IMG Academy sale, June 28, 2023. SEC-filed announcement; enterprise value of $1.25 billion.

[11] Post Company. INNESS, Accord, New York. Project description, facilities and design credits; project dated 2021.

[12] CMAA. Board Brief, March 2026, pages 3–4. 2024 Club Finance and Operations Survey; data collected July 2024–June 2025 with Club Benchmarking.

[13] National Golf Foundation. America’s Course Supply: Quantity, Quality & Stability, February 2026. U.S. golf-course openings and development pipeline; also published February 23 by The Golf Wire.

[14] KSL Capital Partners. Acquisition of Invited Clubs, June 9, 2026. Closing announcement; financial terms not disclosed.

[15] Reuters. KSL Capital Partners to buy membership club operator Invited Clubs for second time, sources say, April 22, 2026. Reported deal value includes debt.