Sneak peek: With new HQ’s opening inside the leather, take a peek at GolfTRK’s flagship scramble

Nothing illustrates how far Albatross Golf has come like the size of the putting green in its new, 15,000-square-foot headquarters and GolfTRK flagship, said Alex Reed, offering a sneak peek at the company’s completed buildout in Prairie Village.

“The putting green is actually the same size as our entire first location (in Lenexa), for some context,” shared Reed, co-founder and CEO of Albatross, a sports tech incubator of sorts for the GolfTRK, Noonan, and TRK Performance brands.

The new location at 7068 Mission Road opens to the public Friday with eight performance bays and a 2,000-square-foot PuttView short-game space, making the virtual reality putting green the biggest PuttView experience in the entire United States.

The sprawling 2,000-square-foot green at GolfTRK in Prairie Village; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

(opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) Attendees at a preview event for GolfTRK’s new flagship location try out the putting green; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

“Somebody really could walk in off the street here — having never picked up a club — and learn everything they need to know about the game,” Reed said, noting the company’s emphasis is on skills, rather than merely sports entertainment. “One of our primary goals is to give members confidence before they ever step out on a green.”

The headquarters also includes a conference room and two offices available for rent to members, a catering kitchen for events, and a back-of-house warehouse area with an extra bay that will serve as a production studio.

“It’s rare to find a space that has as much viability as a front-of-house location and also provides an economically viable back-of-house location, too,” he said of the mixed-use nature of the corporate flagship location and headquarters.

“It’s evident based on behavior from other locations that having GolfTRK as a third space — a place where you can come in between work and home that allows you to engage with the sport but also get some work done — is something that people will be attracted to,” he added. “So we’re trying to lean into that here, too.”

RELATED: Behind the new HQ: ‘We put real capital into this on purpose, because we wanted a real flagship’

Founded in 2023, GolfTRK — which offers premium indoor simulator facilities with Tour-grade technology — currently boasts seven franchise locations across the country, including four in the Kansas City area, with 15 scheduled to be open by the end of the year. With a new deal signed as recently as Wednesday, Reed said, the brand is up to 66 locations sold.

Matt Williams, co-founder and president of Albatross Golf, speaks to attendees at a preview event for GolfTRK’s flagship store in Prairie Village; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

“Walking the talk” to compete the buildout of GolfTRK’s corporate store — and navigating the challenges that came with it — has been instrumental in experiencing what franchisees will face in setting up their own spaces, he added, explaining that the team will be able to better communicate their processes as new locations roll out.

“We’re excited about what feels like a real inflection point in the business,” Reed said. “And it really feels like at this stage — with our growing team, with a growing backlog of contracted facilities and stores and development — that we really will start to see more and more of this bubble up to live open stores.”

Prairie Village is the perfect place for the new headquarters, Reed shared, noting its central location between the GolfTRK brand’s existing Kansas City locations, as well as the lack of public golf courses in the area.

He’s lived in the area for about a decade, and because he doesn’t belong to any of the private golf courses nearby, he was playing less and less with the expense and time commitment needed to travel the 45 minutes to an always booked-up public course.

“(In this area,) you’ve got just a plethora of folks that want to engage with the sport, are interested in doing so, but are landlocked or don’t really have a lot of options,” he explained. “So we have seen and felt the resonance of this as that outlet for them.”