A private club built for people who love golf but not the country-club commute has opened inside Raleigh's North Hills, and there isn't a blade of grass in sight. Intown Golf Club's new 13,000-square-foot facility features eight golf simulator bays, a cocktail lounge and an outdoor patio, all tucked into a development better known for office towers and apartments than fairways.
The Atlanta-based company built out the space at 541 Church at North Hills St., Suite 200, with roughly $7 million in private investment, according to Triangle Business Journal. As Axios reports, Intown Golf Club is designed as a private social club for golfers who don't belong to a traditional club, often because existing options are too pricey or too far from home. Membership includes access to food and drinks, a full calendar of social events, and member trips, though the article notes that Intown has not yet listed membership costs for the Raleigh location.
What Members Get Inside
Each bay runs on TrackMan virtual swing simulators, which use radar, high-speed cameras and 4K graphics to let members digitally play more than 170 international courses, including St. Andrews, according to WhatNow. The technology traces back to 2018, when co-founder David Cummings installed a simulator in his own basement and tested member demand at the Atlanta Tech Village startup hub, per Buckhead. He later co-founded the company with tech executive Michael Williamson and golf industry veteran Clint Jarvis.
While Raleigh pricing hasn't been released, the club's Charlotte location offers several types of memberships, with initiation fees ranging from $5,000 to $8,000 for people older than 35 and $3,000 to $6,500 for those younger than 35, per Axios. Since its 2021 founding in Atlanta, Intown Golf Club has expanded to seven operating or announced locations nationwide, including Charlotte, Columbus, Philadelphia, Nashville and Houston, with Dallas, Austin and Scottsdale also targeted for future markets, Buckhead reports.
Celebrity Backing and a Booming Off-Course Golf Market
The company's investor group includes former professional tennis star Andy Roddick and model-actress Brooklyn Decker, alongside founding venture capital firm Blue Rhino Capital, according to Buckhead. That celebrity and venture backing has helped fuel the brand's rapid scaling across Sun Belt and Mid-Atlantic cities.
The Raleigh opening also lands amid a broader surge in off-course golf. U.S. golf participation hit a record 48.1 million people in 2025, with 19 million of those Americans playing exclusively at off-course venues like simulators and driving ranges, according to the National Golf Foundation. Survey data from early 2026 found more than 28 million non-golfing Americans expressed strong interest in trying simulator golf or similar entertainment concepts, per the same organization. Women and girls also accounted for 52% of all net gains in traditional U.S. golf participation between 2020 and 2025, pushing female representation among total golfers to a record 28%, the foundation found.
A Landing Spot Inside North Hills' Big Bet
Intown Golf Club's new location sits inside Kane Realty Corporation's 33-acre, $1 billion North Hills Innovation District, a walkable mixed-use hub combining Class A office towers, multi-family residences, micro-retail and greenway connections, according to Kane Realty Corporation. The district is designed to draw tech, legal and lifestyle tenants looking for walkable amenities close to work, and a private golf lounge with a cocktail bar fits squarely into that pitch.
The opening also means new local jobs. Job listings reviewed by Vaia show Intown Golf Club in Raleigh has been recruiting operations staff, including Golf Services Associates earning between $16.00 and $18.00 per hour plus benefits. Whether Raleigh golfers ultimately embrace the club at Charlotte-style pricing or something different remains to be seen, but for now, the eight simulator bays, lounge and patio are open for business without a single hole of real grass anywhere on site.
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