The Brief
SmartGolfHub
Intelligence 14 stories published

The business of golf.

Deals, sponsorship, technology and club economics — analysis for people who operate in golf, not just watch it.

Featured Opinion

Why golf is the most under-monetised premium industry in the world.

Golf is the most under-monetised premium industry in the world because two things are true at once: tee sheets are full and revenue per member has barely moved in a decade. That gap isn't a demand problem. It's a commercial infrastructure problem.

David Mullins
Read the thesis →

More from Intelligence

An abstract ink-and-forest editorial graphic: two circles, one outlined in ink and one in forest green, converge into a shared gold lens where they overlap -- representing Royal Aberdeen Golf Club and Aberdeen Ladies Golf Club becoming a single institution on 1 September 2026. Not a photograph; no club crests, logos or course imagery are shown.
Clubs & Resorts

Golf may need fewer institutions, not fewer golf courses

Royal Aberdeen Golf Club and the neighbouring Aberdeen Ladies Golf Club -- two separate institutions sharing the same Balgownie links -- are now formally one club: members voted in late August 2026 to integrate, and the change took legal effect on 1 September 2026. It's a small, specific merger. It's also a clean test case for a question UK club golf will keep running into: is the real constraint course supply, or duplicated institutional structure?
An ink-and-gold financial line chart rising, breaking sharply downward, then levelling onto a lower, steadier plateau -- an abstract editorial graphic representing LIV Golf's financial restructuring, not a photograph.
Tours & Media

LIV Golf spent billions buying attention. Bankruptcy is where it finds out if that's a business.

LIV Golf could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as soon as the week of 7 September 2026, after Saudi Arabia's PIF confirmed in April it will fund the league only through the end of this season. The restructuring underway — smaller purses, a roughly 10-event 'LIV 2.0' calendar, and settlement talks with players owed guaranteed money — is the clearest test yet of whether LIV's spending built a sustainable business or just bought attention.

Also covered

Original research — in development

Research & Data

A premium research product sitting alongside Intelligence's day-to-day coverage — original data and analysis on golf's commercial economics, not recycled industry commentary. Nothing published yet; here's what's in build.