NAICS 713910Canadian industry · 6-digitlocal market2 market records

Golf courses and country clubs

SoftwareGolf & Country Club Management Software

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in operating golf courses and country clubs that operate golf courses along with dining facilities and other recreational facilities. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 1,714
Under 10 employeesA: 20%
Establishments · USA: 10,076
Employment · USA: 304,991
Payroll · USA: $12.0B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–41418%

5–920012%

10–1935921%

20–4954732%

50–9930918%

100–1991408%

200–499181%

500+0—

Of 1,714 Canadian establishments with employees, 20% have fewer than ten — weighted toward mid-sized establishments.

Where they areA

Ontario61036%

Quebec27916%

Alberta25815%

British Columbia23414%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation, US · opened 2020

81.3%

1 year

70.3%

3 years

57.1%

5 years

40.8%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 713, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 713 Amusement, gambling and recreation industries

Facility businesses — gyms, golf, ski, marinas, entertainment centres — with high fixed cost and revenue that follows weather, seasons and discretionary income. Gambling is a licensed exception.

Who sets the price: The operator, within what a local catchment will pay.
The software it runs on: Membership and class booking, tee sheets, point of sale, gaming management.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Golf Course AcquisitionStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

Buying a course is buying irrigation, drainage, fleet and land, then hoping for weather. Rounds have recovered from their long decline and that recovery is already priced into the courses worth having; the ones for sale are usually being valued by the buyer as future land rather than as an operating business, which is a rezoning bet with a maintenance bill attached.

NAICS 7139104 vendors named12 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Vertical softwareScreened

Golf & Country Club Management SoftwareOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Jonas Club Software (Constellation) and Clubessential (now Xplor) in private clubs; GolfNow (Versant) in public golf

Every layer of this market already belongs to a consolidator, and the public-course end is paid for in tee times rather than cash. Private clubs — member billing, statements, F&B minimums, dues, events — are held by Jonas Club Software, a Constellation Software company since 2003 that says it serves over 2,300 clubs in 20 countries [C, vendor], and by Clubessential, which merged into Advent-backed Xplor in a deal announced in September 2025 and closed in March 2026, creating a group with nearly $900 million of revenue across fitness, golf and club, recreation and field services [B]. Northstar (Alpharetta, Georgia) is the third private-club system, claims 1,500+ clubs and has bought its way into Australia by acquiring MiClub in 2021 [C, vendor]. Public golf is a separate fight, and GolfNow sets its price. GolfNow — owned by Comcast's Golf Channel from 2008 and now by Versant, spun off from Comcast in January 2026 [B] — says it reaches 3.9 million golfers and is connected to more than 9,000 courses [C, vendor; B, encyclopaedic]. It bundles tee sheet, POS and payments and is paid partly by barter: the course hands over tee times that GolfNow resells. The US course owners' association published a 62-page guide in 2020 called 'Beware of Barter' arguing it drives needless discounting [A, association]. Golf Inc. put GolfNow at 61% of the public-course software market in 2021 [B]. The cash-priced alternatives are already consolidated too: foreUP (Clubessential/Xplor since February 2021; claims 2,000+ courses), Lightspeed Golf (Chronogolf, bought by Lightspeed in 2019; 1,800 courses claimed), Club Caddie (Jonas since 2020, sold explicitly as 'cost certainty in lieu of barter') and Teesnap (Allegiant-founded, TELEO Capital growth investment in 2021) [B/C]. The anti-barter wedge exists but has been taken. Every cash-priced vendor already sells against barter, so it is a positioning, not an opening. The newest independent — TenFore Golf, $7M Series A led by Blueprint Equity in January 2026 [B] — is attacking municipal and multi-course operators with exactly that pitch; Whoosh ($6M seed led by Craft Ventures, 2022 [B]) chose the private-club tee sheet. Both are small next to the incumbents, and the lock-in (member ledgers, statement history, the tee sheet, and on public courses a marketplace that brings golfers) makes switches slow. Incumbent vulnerability decides it: neither Constellation nor Xplor is vulnerable, and the barter-fatigue gap is crowded.

NAICS 71391012 vendors namedOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 14

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
Club CaddiePrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	1/14
Club ProphetPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	2/14
ClubLinkTSX:TWC	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	3/14
foreUPPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	4/14
Golf GeniusPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	5/14
GolfNowPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	6/14
Jonas Club SoftwarePrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	7/14
Lightspeed Golf (Chronogolf)Private	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	8/14
Municipal and not-for-profit coursesPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	9/14
NorthStarPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	10/14
TeesnapPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	11/14
TenFore GolfPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	12/14
WhooshPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	13/14
XplorPrivate	Golf courses and country clubs713910	—	14/14

Who works here

The occupations employed in Arts, entertainment and recreation, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Occupations related to museums and art galleries Mostly one sector 63.2%

Support occupations in accommodation, travel, tourism and amusement services Mostly one sector 58.2%

Tourism and amusement services occupations Mostly one sector 51%

Program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness Mostly one sector 49.8%

Athletes, coaches, referees and related occupations Mostly one sector 45.3%

Managers in art, culture, recreation and sport Mostly one sector 44.1%

Support occupations in art and culture Mostly one sector 41.2%

Logging, forestry, landscaping and other related labourers Mostly one sector 13.7%

Librarians, archivists, conservators and curators One industry 10.4%

Technical occupations in motion pictures, broadcasting and the performing arts Mostly one sector 5.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 2.9%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.9%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 1.7%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 1.2%

Other technical trades Across the economy 1.2%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →