Golf is experiencing one thing of a growth. Following a resurgence during the pandemic, participation numbers hit document heights final 12 months.
More than 160 million folks world wide performed some type of golf in 2025, marking an nearly 50% rise from 2023. The US alone is projected to cross 50 million contributors throughout 2026.
Driving ranges like Topgolf and indoor digital simulators have additionally helped develop participation within the sport, with a new wave of informal gamers driving demand for golf devices. And in 2026, the place there are devices, there is synthetic intelligence.
The world golf equipment market grew to an estimated $20.9 billion in 2026, according to market analysis firm Mordor Intelligence, and is predicted to attain $26.7 billion by 2031. Among essentially the most influential elements recognized for the projected rise is the adoption of AI-driven know-how.
Its affect is being felt from the club-factory ground to the golf green — all the best way to a digital model of the game’s most vital assistant: the caddy. Botronics, a startup based mostly in Nivelles, Belgium, has developed a self-driving golf trolley billed as a digital caddie that may not solely carry golf equipment, however provide recommendation too.
The iXi trolley makes use of two cameras and GPS that’s pre-loaded with maps of greater than 40,000 programs to autonomously steer itself, with gamers ready to situation instructions through hand gestures or voice management. Should the consumer take away a putter from the mounted bag, an AI-powered digital camera fitted to the trolley’s entrance will acknowledge that the consumer is on the inexperienced and can start preemptively rolling towards the subsequent tee.
The entrance digital camera can movie every swing and play it again on a display screen that gives frame-by-frame evaluation of approach, with footage sharable to coaches through an accompanying app. The display screen presents recommendations on membership alternative and the place to intention, with an onboard pc displaying a real-time visualization of the course.
“Think of it as a computer with wheels around it, which not only is programmed to do amazing things but will also keep on evolving,” Botronics chief income officer Laetitia Fraikin advised NCS.
“What is a caddy?” she added. “It’s someone who is in the right place at the right time, someone who looks at what you do and gives you advice, someone who basically gives you everything that you need so you can get the most out of your game, so you can perform better, so you make better decisions … all those things are now possible to do on a physical golf trolley.”
In growth since 2021 and beforehand scheduled to be delivered to prospects this summer season, the trolley is at the moment within the “advanced prototype” part and is hoped to start delivery in June 2027 following testing with golfers, Fraikin stated. Set to retail for $5,385, reductions had been provided to those that preordered the trolley as a part of a crowdfunding drive that raised roughly $1 million.
Around 125 models had been preordered throughout the first 10 minutes of being out there, stated Fraikin, who believes the uptake is reflective of the rising demand for AI-driven improvements amongst tech-savvy and conventional golfers alike.
“There’s a group of people who are saying, ‘Listen, I don’t really want to understand what happens (with the technology), I just want to be able to 100% focus on my game,’” Fraikin defined.
Club fittings and clones
The sport has been an early adopter of AI. Golf equipment big Callaway has been utilizing machine studying to develop membership design since 2019, and its vary of Ai Smoke Irons had been engineered utilizing an AI mannequin that scanned 1000’s of swings.
Rival producer Wilson launched its cell app Fit AI in 2024 to assist club-fitting workers at shops and programs throughout the US select the best choice for purchasers. Clients hit a few balls in entrance of a launch monitor — a gadget that measures the bodily knowledge of a golf shot and membership swing, after which feeds the findings in actual time via an algorithm to generate membership suggestions.
But now a vary of corporations are placing AI instantly into the fingers of golfers. In April, two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau led a group of traders within the acquisition, for an undisclosed “8-figure sum,” of Sportsbox AI, a know-how firm whose 3D Golf app creates a motion-capture avatar of a consumer swinging to give suggestions on the place to enhance.
Nicknamed “The Scientist” for his eagerness to leverage know-how within the pursuit of efficiency positive aspects, DeChambeau revealed earlier this month that he had consulted Google’s AI assistant Gemini to assist him work via some points in his swing. He additionally partnered with Google Cloud final 12 months, growing an AI coach that could run on a smartphone.
Similarly, SWEE is a cell app that is rolling out AI “clones” of real-life golf coaches as a part of a subscription-based service that permits customers to get personalised suggestions and apply plans on their swing.
Out on the course, AI is reworking rangefinders, gadgets utilized by golfers to measure distances. Arccos’ Smart Laser claims to take knowledge gathered from greater than 1.5 billion pictures and 25 million rounds to generate technique for every shot, suggesting a advisable membership and goal based mostly on elements together with wind pace and altitude.
Challenges and laws
However, there are boundaries to the uptake of those merchandise. The prices and complexities of adopting new AI applied sciences current “significant challenges” to their integration into sport, in accordance to a 2025 study led by the UK’s Loughborough University.
Golf already grapples with a perceived monetary barrier for entry, with Mordor Intelligence highlighting the excessive preliminary funding and total value of equipment as essentially the most important impediment to the expansion of the worldwide equipment market. The iXi prices 1000’s of {dollars} greater than a customary trolley, the Arccos rangefinder retails from $299.99 and requires an annual $199.99 subscription charge after the primary 12 months, whereas a set of Callaway’s Smoke Irons can fetch nearly $800.
What’s extra, golf is a sport famed for its adherence to custom, and never all technological advances are permissible in competitions.
The Arccos rangefinder has a “competition mode” setting that toggles off superior metrics to adjust to pro-tournament guidelines, a function that Botronics is additionally incorporating to guarantee its trolley can be used solely as a handbook service, as opposed to an clever caddie.
“Lots of things we do are not yet regulated, so that will be interesting as well to see where regulation goes,” Fraikin stated.
“Not everything will be a problem, but some things I expect will be.”