Where it started
Five Iron Golf launched in the United States in 2017 with a simple idea: bring golf indoors, make it social, and open it up to people who would never set foot on a traditional course. It worked. The brand grew across America, building a reputation for high-quality simulator experiences that worked equally well for serious golfers and complete beginners.
The UAE franchise was acquired by David Zabinsky and Matt Csillag, and in September 2024 the doors opened on the world's largest Five Iron Golf venue at The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi in Dubai Marina. Not a small pilot, not a soft launch. The biggest Five Iron in the world, in one of the most competitive hospitality markets on earth.
That tells you something about the ambition behind this.
Changing the perception
The UAE is a golf market built around outdoor courses. The big names, the famous layouts, the Dubai Desert Classic, the DP World Tour finale - outdoor golf has always been the product here. Indoor golf existed, but largely as a summer escape when the heat made outdoor play impossible.
What Five Iron UAE has set out to do is change that entirely. Not just a summer solution. A year-round, all-conditions, genuinely accessible alternative to traditional golf - and in many cases, something completely different to traditional golf altogether.
"We're not just bringing people inside when it's hot. We're changing what golf looks like in this part of the world."
Since opening, memberships and events have become the backbone of the business. Companies booking out the venue for team days and client entertainment. Golf societies running competitive tournaments on Trackman simulators. People who have never played golf in their lives coming through the door because a friend dragged them along and leaving wanting to come back. That shift in who walks through the door is what the whole model is built around.
More than 500 events in less than two years. That number says more than any marketing claim could.
Abu Dhabi and Yas Bay
The next chapter opens in August 2026. Five Iron Golf UAE's third venue arrives at Yas Bay Waterfront in Abu Dhabi - and it carries real significance beyond just being another location.
This will be the first large-scale commercial golf simulator centre in the UAE capital. Abu Dhabi has a growing golf scene and a population that spans Emiratis, long-term expats, and a surging tourism market. The Yas Bay waterfront location puts the venue at the heart of one of the most exciting areas of development in the city.
For golf in Abu Dhabi, this is genuinely new. There has been nothing like it. The potential to introduce the game to Emiratis, to expats who've never had easy access, to tourists looking for something different in the evenings - all of that opens up with this venue in a way it simply hasn't before.
What comes next
The plan is a minimum of five Five Iron locations across the UAE in the coming years. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the foundations, but the thinking goes further than that. Every community, every area where people live and work and socialise, is a potential home for this product.
The partnerships side is growing too. Big names, big activations, things that will continue to raise the profile of what indoor golf can look like in this region. I can't say more than that right now, but the pipeline is strong and the ambition matches it.
What started as one venue less than two years ago is becoming something genuinely significant for golf in the UAE. We're just getting started.
