Five Iron Golf, New Sports Simulation Bar, Opens Downtown Next Week

Five Iron Golf, situated near Euclid Ave. and East 9th, will open July 26 in the Euclid Grand’s ground floor retail space. Credit: Mark Oprea

Clevelanders are soon going to have another place to work on, and fine tune, their swings, after Five Iron Golf, a sports simulation bar founded in New York, opens up downtown July 26.

The bar, which occupies a massive 17,000 square feet in the first floor of the Euclid Grand, capitalizes on the growing active golf sim audience booming over the years, following concepts like Golf Galaxy in Akron, or Top Golf in Independence.

Kevin Boles, Five Iron’s 38-year-old general manager, paints his latest managerial endeavor as more technical and refined than their aforementioned competition, and real live courses dotting the region.

“I think the biggest difference for me with simulation and real golf is the actual stats you get here,” Boles said Monday. “The striking of the club. The club speed. It’s all very, very accurate.”

Besides the option to “play” some 250 courses, Five Iron, Boles said, aims to tap into the growing young professional population in Downtown Cleveland, a sect of the city’s core growing with every new apartment complex and the rising of the Sherwin HQ off Public Square.

Austin Karchefsky, assistant director of golf at Five Iron, tests one of the bar’s 15 simulation bays. Credit: Mark Oprea

Five Iron’s opening late July coincides with a batch of other summer openings close by, including F45 Training on Superior, IMAGE Studios next door on Euclid and D.P. Dough’s calzone restaurant. Coincidentally, as Five Iron opens up in the long-dormant retail space at the Euclid Grand, Rise Nation, a boutique gym beloved by Downtowners, will be closing its doors after five years in business.

Because of Five Iron’s proximity to Euclid Ave. luxury apartments, and Downtown’s central business district, Boles sees Five Iron’s adaptability mixing well with the vibes of the neighborhood.

Whether for an after-work happy hour, or for an off-season practice session, Five Iron will serve a variety of needs.

“I can set up putt putt, I can set up a Closest To The Pin match,” Boles said. “We can get serious golfers. Do corporate party putt putt. Do league night. We can do corporate party presentation day—whatever you need out of us, we can do.”

There are two PGA-qualified directors on staff and hundreds of Callaway clubs to pick from. Five Iron even has bathrooms with showers and a cabinet of products, for, as Boles calls them, “the 6 a.m., golf-before-work crowd.”

Boles said Five Iron will operate on sort of a bifurcated schedule: Peak hours, Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. And off-peak hours, every day after 4 p.m. An hour at one of the simulation bays costs $55 during off-peak, $70 during peak.

He’s also confident patrons will make use of Five Iron’s kitchen’s late closing hours—near midnight. Diners will find a typical sports bar menu: chicken sliders, boneless wings, flatbread pizza, pastrami egg rolls.

“Five Iron Golf’s grand opening in Downtown Cleveland perfectly complements the area’s ongoing revitalization,” Nora Dunnan, Five Iron’s co-founder, told Scene in a written statement. “Beyond being a golf destination, Five Iron is a dynamic hub that serves as a vibrant center for neighborhood enjoyment, attracting entertainment seekers and curious hobbyists alike, and inviting them to embrace a fresh approach to play or refine their skills.”

On Monday afternoon, Five Iron invited Scene on a tour of its new space, which was bustling with contractors and employees-in-training. Austin Karchefsky, their assistant golf director, demonstrated Five Iron’s Trackman 4 launch monitor system, the same golf trackers that, he said, PGA players use to fine-tune their swings.

“Everything in here is as top-of-the-line as you can get,” Karchefsky said. “For me, this is big city stuff, indoor golf. I love the fact that it’s growing here. I mean, people think you have to be country club type of guy.”

Which brings up an interesting irony for Boles.

“I’m actually not a big golfer,” he said. “In my interview for this job, they asked me the last time I played. I think it was four years ago.”

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