With its first decade coming to a close last year – culminating in a major rebrand and ambitious new investment – PLATFORM Golf has established itself as one of the most influential pioneers in the simulator world thanks to innovative technology that allows players to make putts on a true-to-life titling green and practice shots from uneven lies.
GBN sat down with PLATFORM Golf co-founder and CEO Thomas Hackett to discuss how the brand is bridging the gap between indoor and outdoor golf.
GBN: As co-founder you’ve been a part of PLATFORM Golf’s journey since the beginning – what can you tell us about your career up to that point and how you got started in golf?
Thomas Hackett: I’ve been involved in golf my entire life. Initially, my career took me into finance, technology, and venture capital, but golf has always been a constant in both my personal and professional journey. For years, I served as President of our regional golf association in New York, and that experience kept me closely tied to the governance and growth of the game.
Professionally, I spent over a decade in finance and technology, working at the intersection of capital markets and emerging platforms. My last role before founding PLATFORM Golf was as Chief Growth Officer, where I helped lead a company through a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
Golf also runs deep in my family. My grandfather, who served as President of Olin Chemical – at the time a Fortune 100 company – managed a portfolio of PGA Tour professionals through sponsorships. He became my mentor, and his advice and guidance shaped much of my professional career. That blend of corporate leadership and golf DNA was formative, and it gave me a long-term perspective on how the game connects with business at the highest level.
Ultimately, it was through my venture work with TheStartup.com that I reconnected with a childhood and college friend in PGA Professional Robb Gibb. What started as a business consultation and advisory quickly evolved into a shared vision for transforming indoor golf.
For readers who may not be familiar with exactly what you do, what makes PLATFORM Golf’s platforms different from the traditional golf simulator experience?
Even as we were witnessing golf simulators get better and better with every passing year, there were still two key areas where the ability to mimic an outdoor course accurately remained elusive. We set out to resolve both of those problems.
Firstly, we created a putting surface that tilts and shifts to match what you’re seeing on the screen. It’s one thing to make a putt on a flat surface, but that practice doesn’t necessarily translate to the course when the golfer suddenly has to putt uphill, for example, or on a green that slopes left to right. So, PLATFORM allows for putting coaching that matches the level of challenge players will face on an outdoor course.
Then the other important element is uneven lies. For most golfers, a huge proportion of their shots will be taken from uneven lies across a typical round. Still, simulators would previously treat every shot as though the player was standing on a completely flat fairway. That fell short of the level of authenticity we wanted to deliver, and so we created a tilting platform for full-swing shots, too.
Think of the Masters this past year and what Bryson DeChambeau was quoted saying upon getting off the course after losing his showdown with Rory and his approach to make eagle on 15; “I’m trying to hit the green up close, I was on a side slope, i gotta work on side slopes with my irons, felt really uncomfortable on side slopes then i go stuff one on the next hole (flat tee box) its just the side slopes not being comfortable”. It is clear to us that this, plus that ‘made putt’ feeling, is the final piece of the off-course golf and training for on-course performance puzzle.
PLATFORM Golf recently underwent a major rebrand – what was the thinking behind the company’s name change?
Firstly, the new branding was launched simultaneously with a huge scale-up of our operations, a multi-million dollar investment. Our vision for what the company was going to offer became far broader, too.
We obtained capital from some very high-profile investors who believe in what we do, and we partnered with some of the best golf coaches in the world. It was very much the start of a new chapter in the company’s history, and so it was the perfect time to revisit our name and branding to signify the change across the industry.
As for why we picked PLATFORM Golf specifically, there’s a dual meaning to the word that we felt was really resonant. Of course, platforms are what we make in a literal sense, but we also want our units to be a ‘platform’ for coaches and golfers to work together and take their game to the next level. So we couldn’t have imagined a more fitting name.
How has your technology been received by the rest of the golf industry so far? Has the response been what you expected?
Overall, we feel that the response has been excellent. It’s a very exciting time for the simulation and coaching industries, and the overwhelming feeling has been that people are very excited to be a part of that alongside PLATFORM Golf.
But on the other hand, no business gets much value out of unanimous praise, especially a company still very much developing new ideas and new products. That only breeds complacency and makes it tougher to identify potential areas of improvement. So the constructive criticism has been even more valuable than the positive feedback, and we expect things to continue on that trajectory.
Your products have been used and endorsed by world-class PGA teaching professionals and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. How have those collaborations helped showcase your product to a wider audience?
We’re very excited and fortunate to have an eight-time PGA Tour winner in Brad Faxon, who was of course, famous for his incredible putting ability, on board as an ambassador. Equally, Stephen Sweeney – who is one of the most in-demand putting coaches in the world for good reason – has been supporting us since the rebrand. And having athletes of that calibre championing our technology, using it in their day-to-day work, has been crucial for us. It lends us some additional legitimacy and more ways for us to understand how PLATFORM Golf can be applied to coaching at even the very highest level, which in turn helps us understand how the experience could be improved.
As for the NCAA, their decision to use PLATFORM products is certainly an affirmation that we are now considered a tool suitable for what they need to develop young players to reach their true potential.
What are the biggest challenges facing PLATFORM going forward?
The biggest challenge in almost any technology industry is also one of the most important strengths, which is finding ways to keep innovating and improving. How else can we go about making our simulators even more realistic? Is there a point at which too much authenticity becomes detrimental to the player experience, and if so, where is the line?
Also, we want to make sure that PGA Teaching pros have the best possible tools to support their process and client base. They are only one person, but their brands and intelligence can be expanded more, and we plan to facilitate that in a big way with our product roadmap.
And all the while, there are other simulator golf tech companies seeking to make forward strides too. There are plenty of smart, innovative people in this industry, and only a small percentage of them work for us. We can protect our hard work with patents in some places, but it should never be taken for granted that we will always be on top, and we have to keep pushing to stay ahead.
The company celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024; what were some of your highlights of the first decade, and what do you expect your second decade to bring?
Broadly speaking, the plan is to continue looking for ways to innovate, to grow our existing relationships with top coaches and of course to keep partnering with exceptional venues – and to expand the geographic range of those venues so that as many people as possible can experience what we have to offer both as coaches and as developing golfers.
However, one of the most exciting things about the space in which we exist is that there is always a degree of unpredictability in terms of what our product range might look like in ten years. A decade is a long time, and technological advancements may mean we can do things in 2035 that we couldn’t possibly foresee now. We never add new technology to our platforms just for the sake of it, but if we think it could improve the experience for our coaches and players, you can be sure we’ll take a look at it.
For more information on PLATFORM Golf, visit platformgolf.com