Most good business ideas don't come from inventing something new. They come from taking something people already love and removing what gets in the way.
For us, that was golf. We are longtime friends who love the game, and we kept running into the same obstacles: time, weather and the cost of a traditional club. That gap, between how much Texans want to play and how hard it is to fit the game in, became Inside 9 Golf & Social Club in Boerne, which we opened in January 2026.
A Texas problem, and an opportunity
Ask any Texas golfer about August and you'll hear the same thing. The course is open, the tee times are available, and nobody wants them. By mid-morning the heat index is past 100, and the round you planned with a client turns into a cooler of water and a sunburn. For a state that runs on relationships, and builds a good share of them on the golf course, that is a real problem.
It is also an opportunity. Across the state, golf is moving indoors. Simulator bays that once looked like a winter novelty for Minnesota are becoming a year-round fixture in Texas suburbs, office parks and shopping centers.
The technology finally caught up
Today's simulators measure ball speed, spin and launch angle well enough for serious practice. Ours are Golfzon units with a swing plate that tilts to give you uphill and sidehill lies, an automatic tee, high-speed swing cameras and network play against golfers around the world.
The bigger change is time. A traditional round asks for five hours and a weekday afternoon. Most professionals don't have that. A simulator session fits between school pickup and dinner, or before the first meeting of the day, at 72 degrees in any weather. Our members have access around the clock, so the bay is there whenever their calendar is.
We did not need to convince anyone to love golf. We needed to give them a way to fit it in.
Business golf isn't dying. It's getting shorter.
Texans still do business on the golf course. What has changed is the format. The four-hour round is giving way to a two-hour session in a simulator bay, with a lounge, a conference room and a locker a few steps away. Golf becomes the anchor for a meeting rather than the whole day.
You can see it in who joins. Dozens of local companies hold corporate memberships with us: banks and wealth managers, contractors and trades, accounting and law firms, medical practices, energy companies and auto dealers. They are buying a place to host clients and reward their teams, one that keeps their schedule rather than the forecast's.
That was our clearest lesson so far. Members are not really buying simulator time. They are buying a place that fits a busy calendar.
The third place goes private
Sociologists call it the "third place": somewhere that is neither home nor work, where people gather and get to know each other. Texas suburbs are growing faster than their third places. Today they are home to San Antonio commuters, people running businesses from a spare bedroom, and newcomers who moved here with remote jobs and no local network.
Those people need somewhere to go, not just somewhere to play. Clubs like ours fill that gap in a distinctly Texas way: part country club, part coworking space, part neighborhood hangout. Ours has a conference room that doubles as coworking space, a lounge and liquor lockers, a nod to an old Texas private-club tradition. Membership is a monthly fee, not a five-figure initiation, which opens the club side of golf to people who never expected to have one.
Why this matters for Texas
Indoor golf fits the state's realities. It uses no irrigation, in a region that spends every summer watching the Edwards Aquifer and living with watering restrictions. It needs a commercial suite, not 150 acres, when suburban land keeps getting more expensive.
It also grows the game. A simulator bay is a far less intimidating place to learn than a crowded first tee on a Saturday morning. Plenty of people who would never book a tee time will swing a club in a private room with friends. Some of them will end up on a real course, and that is good news for every club in Texas.
None of this replaces the courses that make Texas a great golf state. A sim bay won't give you a spring morning at a Hill Country course or the walk up the 18th. What it gives Texans is golf that fits their weather, their schedule and their way of doing business.
The clubhouse of the future
The Texas clubhouse used to sit at the end of a long drive past the fairways. Increasingly it sits in a suite off the interstate, open at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, with a client in one bay and a member's laptop open in the lounge.
Our lesson for other Texas entrepreneurs: start with what you know and love, then look hard at what keeps other people from enjoying it. The opportunity is often less about creating a new desire than meeting an existing one in a better way.
The game hasn't changed. Where we play it has.
Brendan Bean and Chad Taylor are longtime friends and co-founders of Inside 9 Golf & Social Club in Boerne/NW San Antonio, a members-only indoor golf and social club with four Golfzon simulators, including an enclosed private bay, plus 24/7 member access, a lounge and a conference room that doubles as coworking space. The club opened in January 2026. To tour the club or ask about individual and corporate memberships, visit inside9tx.com or email ctaylor@inside9tx.com.
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