Ever since I saw a video of someone at Topgolf on Instagram I had been wanting to go, but there are no locations in New England. I think the closest one is in New Jersey, but I wasn’t desperate enough to drive four to five hours to hit some golf balls. I have zero experience when it comes to golf. I may have accompanied my brother, dad, and grandpa to the golf course once or twice in my life to hit a few balls and ride in the golf cart, but nothing more. So, I found the concept of Topgolf inviting and fascinating.
I thought I was going to try Topgolf over winter break on a family vacation to Florida, but we never ended up going because we couldn’t get ourselves to leave the beautiful resort on the water with bar service. Recently, over spring break my mom and I visited my dad who lives in Virginia, and we had plenty of free time, so we finally went to Topgolf! It was a Saturday night, so before leaving we tried booking a reservation online but there were none left. We weren’t sure if we would have to wait. We arrived around 5:30 p.m. at the Topgolf in National Harbor and to our surprise, we didn’t have to wait. The employees were great and led us to a “golfing bay” and showed us how everything worked.
If you’ve never been to Topgolf, I would compare it to the experience of a Bowling Alley. Each party has its own lane called a “bay” with a full set of clubs, a table, chairs, a television screen, and a putting tee. You can order food and drinks while playing. We decided against it because we were only playing for a short time and had dinner plans following it. Although we didn’t order food, some of the parties next to us did and it looked like average grill/bar food, nothing fancy. I checked out the menu and I would say the food and drinks are overpriced. I did find the drink menu intriguing; it had some fun cocktails with clever names like a “Mulligan.”
We got a bay on the top floor and the view was amazing. It made up for the cold and windy weather. I was surprised by how busy it was even during the cold weather. I was a little disappointed by the false advertising on the website. It claimed that all the bays were climate controlled, and guests can play in any type of weather. There were heaters above us, but they barely worked. I was more so disappointed with the false advertising because if I had known the heat was minimal, I would have worn more layers and been fine. It worked out in the end because we were able to go inside to warm up and we only paid for a 30-minute session.
While getting settled in our bay, I noticed that most people surrounding us seemed like they knew what they were doing, probably “regulars.” My mom, dad, and I had absolutely no idea what we were doing. There is a lot of technology involved, which made it a little more difficult for my parents at first. You must wave your club over a sensor to get a ball. And the balls have some sort of chip or tracker in them so you can see on the television screen where your ball lands. Then the screen shows all the statistics, like distance and speed. I guess there were options to change the screen to play different games like Angry Birds, but we kept it simple.
In my opinion, I would say Topgolf is slightly overrated. If I lived near one, I don’t think I would go all the time. In fact, if I felt like golfing, I’d rather go to a local range to hit some balls because it would probably be cheaper. Don’t get me wrong it was a cool experience, but I don’t think it was a necessity. I think it would be fun to go back with a large group of friends.