The Back Nine expands into downtown Lakeland
Over the past 20 years, “golf adjacent” business has continued to expand rapidly worldwide, arguably one of the strongest drivers of golf industry growth in recent history.
In 2020, one of those golf adjacent businesses, The Back Nine, arrived in north Lakeland. Soon, The Back Nine’s restaurant-plus-golf simulator concept is set to expand into downtown, going into the Federal Building on Tennessee Avenue.
“We are really excited to expand into downtown,” said co-owner Ethan Smith, a former baseball player turned golfer who owns the business with wife, Jenna. “I’m not sure we were even actively looking to expand, but between the opportunity and location it was too good to pass up.”
At the north Lakeland location, which boasts three high-end golf simulators, golfers can reserve time in the restaurants’ three bays and play one of 100 famous golf courses. Due to the indoor setting, golfers can play during hours where traditional golf courses are closed. During a recent league on Tuesday nights that spanned six weeks, two-man teams played alternate shot format on courses such as The Old Course at St. Andrews, TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course, and Pebble Beach Golf Links.
“The Back Nine is an awesome place to enjoy with friends,” said Lakeland’s Matt Miller, winner of the recent league. “The staff is great, and Ethan has put together a place I can enjoy with my family, too. The food is great, and I love getting to play awesome courses.”
Texas-based TopGolf, which many acknowledge as the catalyst for the two-decade long boom in the industry, began in 2000 in Watford, United Kingdom. TopGolf and has grown to 70 locations around the globe where multi-level hitting bays allow golfers to pick targets and play a variety of games while eating and drinking from a full menu.
Each TopGolf location is massive, around 65,000 square feet, and can hold up to 1,200 players at the same time. Cost to build has ranged from $18 million to $50 million for the Las Vegas location. Tiger Woods and his design team recently joined the golf-adjacent space with their PopStroke concept, which focuses on putting. Popstroke began in Sarasota, and has expanded to Orlando, Fort Myers, and Port St. Lucie, with another location set to arrive soon in Tampa.
At The Back Nine, Smith’s vision was originally to focus on golf, with small bites of food. Over the significant amount of time for the vision to come to reality, the concept changed dramatically.
“It took us a while to get everything off the ground," Smith said. "My wife and I bought a dive bar in Tampa first, owned that for a short time, but it was a smoking bar and Jenna was running it. Like two months in, Jenna got pregnant. We decided maybe she shouldn’t be running a smoking bar.”
Years after coming up with the idea, in the fall of 2020 and dealing with a worldwide pandemic, The Back Nine opened their first location.
“We had been watching that show Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives, and I was inspired to create a full-kitchen experience with good food," Smith said. "We wanted to attract people who didn’t play golf, and that is definitely the case today. We have lots of people who come in just to eat.”
Based on the size of the space downtown, the new location will have one less golf simulator than the northside but will have a similar menu and reservation system. Popular menu items, according to Smith, are the chicken wings and Cuban Egg Rolls.
The Back Nine is aiming to open the downtown location as early as November. For reservation details, visit https://www.thebackninelakeland.com.
FSC Mocs in 7th at Shark Invitational
The Florida Southern Mocs Men’s golf team is in 7th place through two rounds at the Shark Invitational in Davie, Florida, hosted by Nova Southeastern. The tournament concludes after press time on Tuesday.
The 18th ranked Mocs were led by sophomore Tyler Mistretta on day one, posting rounds of 72 and 71, a +1 total and good for a top 15 spot going into the final round. Adam Alvarez and Max Watson are T-35 after rounds totaling +6 on Monday. Clay Tucker and Bryce Walker round out the FSC lineup, posting +8 and +11 tallies, respectively.
No. 1 Barry University enjoyed a 14-shot lead at press time.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: The Back Nine restaurant/golf simulator expands into downtown Lakeland
