Opinion & Analysis

GolfWRX Q&A: Jared Solomon, Co-Founder & CEO Five Iron Golf

Published

5 years ago

Sep 26, 2019

In the not-too-distant past, if you wanted to hit golf balls—or “play golf” in any non-mini-golf sense of the word—you had to go to a golf course or a driving range.

Recently, however, a number of blended golf-entertainment options emerged. Assuredly, GolfWRX Members are familiar with the major players and most have probably stopped into one of the venues. Fewer GolfWRXers, however, outside of the northeastern U.S. will be familiar with New York City-based Five Iron Golf.

After visiting the Fifth Avenue location in Manhattan, however, I felt the expanding enterprise’s story was one that was worth telling. Fortunately, Jared Solomon, Co-Founder & CEO, was kind enough to dive a little deeper into the past, present, and future of Five Iron.

BA: Tell me about the initial Five Iron concept and the opportunity you saw.

JS: Our story begins in early 2015 when I was taking lessons from Mike Doyle in a simulator in the back of a men’s clothing store in midtown Manhattan. As Mike’s lessons demand grew, we started dreaming about an indoor facility where he could teach more lessons and golfers could improve their games—all while flipping standard golf culture on its head and appealing to everyone.

With Mike and me clueless as to how to actually execute this grand idea, our final two co-founders, summer camp friends Nora Dunnan and Katherine Solomon (also my wife) entered the scene. With Nora steering the ship and Katherine navigating us through some early legal storms, Five Iron Golf was launched and open for business in mid-2017.

Since opening, we have been offering serious golfers with an urban lifestyle a convenient spot to practice and play with the data and technology to improve their games. We host Full Swing simulators, Trackman lesson studios, teaching professionals, lessons, leagues, club storage, showers, complimentary top-of-the line clubs and in-house club fitting specialists. Serious golfers also love our non-golf amenities with a full bar, fantastic food menu, games like ping pong, shuffleboard, pool or Golden Tee (depending on the location), widescreen TVs, NFL Sunday Ticket, a regular women’s golf clinic, and much more.

BA: Who frequents Five Iron? What’s the breakdown between hardcore golfers, more casual players, and non-golfers? What’s the scene throughout the day?

JS: Every type of golfer. Throughout the course of the day we see a mix of hardcore golfers, casual golfers and those who have never touched a club before. The best way to break it down is to look at a typical day at Five Iron. Opening at 6 a.m. on weekdays, a wave of hardcore golfers come into practice, take lessons, hit the showers and go to work. The morning crew is mostly filled with our members who, for $260 a month, can play between 6 a.m.-4 p.m., store their bags and use our showers at no extra cost. Around lunchtime, it shifts to a mix of more casual golfers coming in for client meetings and afternoon lessons leading into our busiest time: the evening. Thanks to our leagues, happy hour, and corporate events, if you walk into a Five Iron after 6 p.m. you’ll find every type of golfer.

BA: Breaking this down further, can you tell me about your leagues?

JS: Our golf leagues offer a competitive environment for casual and serious golfers to hangout with friends and make new ones in the city. Played over seven weeks with an eighth week of playoffs, teams of four go head-to-head on Monday and Tuesday nights. The format of play gets trickier as the season goes on, starting out with a scramble to ease all skill levels into playing competitively and ending with a 3-ball best ball in the playoffs. Not to mention, each season features sign-up perks and prizes from brands such as Greyson, Imperial Headwear, Mizuno and J.Lindeberg. And the first place team wins a two-hour open bar event for up to 30 people!

Welcoming free agents to sign up has formed a pretty cool dynamic amongst teams. Men and women who never knew each other before have continued playing together in consecutive seasons and even taken their golf friendship to the next level, playing on-course rounds. One team, made up of four free agents, just won our 2019 Spring Flatiron league in their fourth consecutive season playing together.

BA: Obviously, leagues take place in the evening, but I’d like to paint a broader picture. I see you open early. Who’s coming to Five Iron first thing in the morning?

JS: Five Iron Golf was built by golf addicts for golf addicts. When we built out the space, we added showers and a bag room so our members can use Five Iron like a gym in a way – hitting balls and playing for an hour or so, then showering and heading to work, while storing their clubs with us. Our morning crew is made up of true golf nuts, who are mostly our members and can come every weekday from 6am-4pm for no charge. These members are some of our best brand ambassadors and have truly become friends and playing partners to each other and our staff!

BA: I know you offer club fitting…can you tell me more about that?

JS: We always hated going to driving ranges or even other golf entertainment options that only had beat up, outdated equipment that never seemed to get replaced. In all of our house sets, we offer new Mizuno JPX919 irons and a mixture of the newest hybrids, woods and drivers by the top manufacturers – all free to use with any booking! You also have the option to choose which ball you’d like to play with – we have just about every major brand.

We’ve partnered with Club Champion in our two NYC locations to offer our customers access to customized equipment that is made especially for them by master fitters and builders. Club Champion is available six days a week at both NYC locations for everything from a putter regrip to a whole custom bag fitting. The way our two businesses align it is a naturally symbiotic relationship with 5i and Club Champion under one roof.

BA: Can you discuss membership options? Is there a way for a golfer to walk in off the street and log some simulator time…à la a bowling alley?

JS: Anyone and everyone can walk into a 5i and (availability permitting) be hitting balls in minutes; there are no membership requirements. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming and inclusive golfing experience.

That being said, in order to cater to our dedicated regulars we created what we like to call a “too-good-to-be-true” membership package. For $260 a month our members get unlimited off-peak sim rentals, bag storage, and a 20% discount on peak rentals, lessons, and at the bar. We’ve also recently introduced spousal add-on memberships at only $100 a month to encourage more families to take advantage of our membership program.

BA: Any other offerings you’d like WRXers to know about…?

JS: A few for sure! We have some of the top teachers in the area who supplement lessons with technology to make the Five Iron lesson experience more helpful than normal outdoor ranges. In addition to getting accurate ball and spin data from our Full Swing simulators, we use tools like Trackman, Body Track, and several video analysis apps. These allow players of any skill level to learn why their shots do what they do and to come up with a customized improvement plan that can be monitored over time.

Also, women in golf! We are passionate about helping women feel comfortable learning the game in a friendly and convenient setting. Our women’s golf clinic, Sip & Swing, runs on a monthly basis through the fall and spring providing group instruction, an open bar, food and prizes. Each event is led by our female golf professionals, creating an inviting environment for women to network and make new friends while working on their game.

We’ve also partnered with Grueter Golf to strengthen our mission and support theirs: “getting girls on greens since 2016.” During the fall and winter they host a monthly group clinic, Weekend Warmup, at Five Iron, featuring instruction from our PGA professionals, drinks and prizes. Pairing their Five Iron clinics with on-course spring and summer events, Grueter Golf has done an incredible job breaking down barriers to the golf world and creating a welcoming environment for all women.

BA: I assume the adult beverages flow during league play and corporate events, but what food and drink do you offer beyond said libations?

JS: As one of our members called our food “laughably good for a golf place,” we pride ourselves on having a great menu. Our head chef, Maria Martinez, has developed a creative and innovative selection. With flatbreads, sliders, veggie wraps and a quinoa-kale salad, you’re able to pick a meal that is not only delicious but also suits your mood.

BA: Anything that has pleasantly surprised you?

JS: The strength of community. We started with a membership offering that was supposed to be a too-good-to-be-true deal allowing players to have unlimited hitting time in our off peak hours (6 a.m.-4 p.m.). Two years in, our members have become some of our best brand ambassadors. They play in our leagues, rep our swag on the course, and bring their company events here. Building something that others have come to love as a sanctuary and a reprieve from their busy day has been incredibly important to our growth and a very pleasant surprise.

BA: Have you learned anything new about golfers?

JS: We see a ton of players come through who have never touched a club, let alone played on a real course. There can be a stigma in the game where people assume they need to be better than they are to play golf. The truth is, most people aren’t that great, and we are OK embracing that and getting new golfers to let their guards down. There is plenty to learn, but our stance is that playing golf really isn’t that hard. Anyone can enjoy the game, especially when you’re in a simulator where you don’t have to worry about losing any balls, dealing with bad lies, or having a group or ranger tell you to go faster. The rules and etiquette people have anxiety over are non-existent here. Wear what you want, play music, use our clubs, and in general relax and enjoy hitting balls! Also, plenty of people who stopped playing when they moved into the city started to pick up the game again because of the ease of access. When you come to 5i it’s easy to get bitten by the golf bug.

BA: Tell me about the newest locations. You have the two locations in NYC…what’s the plan beyond that?

JS: With our two locations in Manhattan and three on the way in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago, our goal remains the same across the board: make golf more accessible and less intimidating for everyone. We prioritize a superior customer experience over everything else on a daily basis and plan to bring that to each location. That being said, building a strong team and empowering all of our staff to take ownership and make decisions is critical to our long-term success.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

1 week ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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