Versant, parent company of Golf Channel, is going bigger on golf by buying the golf simulator company Full Swing (no connection to the Netflix golf show) for an eye-popping $530 million.
Tiger Woods invested in Full Swing in 2015 and has been an ambassador for the company ever since. Its technology powers TGL, the indoor team golf league founded by Woods and Rory McIlroy that completed its second season in March, using virtual holes projected onto a 53-feet-tall high-tech screen at the 1,500-seat SoFi Center in South Florida. Full Swing is also the official licensed simulator of the PGA Tour.
Versant—the publicly-traded Comcast spinoff company—is acquiring Full Swing from George Pyne’s Bruin Capital, which bought it in 2021 for $160 million, a 3x return on investment after just five years of ownership.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of this year.
Woods’s current ownership stake in Full Swing is between 1% and 2%, a source tells Front Office Sports. The golfer made at least one additional investment in the company after his initial deal in 2015 to reach his current ownership stake, but it’s unclear how much total cash he’s put in over time. Under Full Swing’s new valuation, a 2% stake would be worth $10.6 million.
