The SEICon III stage at the Bellagio hosted two of the most interesting people in indoor golf on July 8. Adeel Yang runs Dryvebox, the company that turned sim golf into a members-only locker room experience with 24/7 access and no staff. Bryan O’Reilly runs Evenplay, the company that just launched the first AI-powered handicap system in golf. They sat down for the “Future of Golf” panel the night before Evenplay’s big keynote.
The conversation covered the rollback, the state of the sim industry, and where the data is pointing. It was refreshingly direct for a conference panel.
The Rollback Is a Non-Issue for the Industry
O’Reilly brought the data that killed the debate. Evenplay tracks shot data across 200,000+ simulator bays. The average male golfer on a sim carries it about 240 yards. The average female carries it about 170. The 15-yard reduction the USGA originally targeted affects a slice of the population hitting it over 300. For the other 95%, the rollback is a rounding error.
Yang agreed from the operator side. Dryvebox’s members span every skill level. The distance debate matters for the Tour and the equipment manufacturers. It barely registers in how people use a simulator bay. Nobody walks into a Dryvebox worrying about whether their ball conforms to a new ODS standard. They want to know if their swing is working.
The panel’s conclusion was that the joint statement from the four governing bodies — the USGA, R&A, PGA Tour, and DP World Tour — is an alignment story. The industry now has a 2030 timeline and a unified standard. The bifurcation debate is dead. The sim software companies will update their flight models when the new ball spec arrives. Everyone else moves on.
The Data Infrastructure Story
The more interesting part of the conversation covered what happens when you have 200,000+ connected simulator bays generating real shot data.
O’Reilly walked through how Evenplay’s system works. Millions of shots, captured across every swing type and skill level, feeding an AI model that predicts outcomes instead of averaging past scores. The panel framed this as the real infrastructure story of 2026 — the sim industry is building a data network that tells the truth about how people actually play golf.
Yang talked about what Dryvebox sees on the operator side. The 24/7 model works because the data supports it. Dryvebox tracks peak usage times, member retention patterns, and bay utilization rates. The company knows exactly when its members show up, how long they stay, and what they do in the bay. That data drives the business decisions.
What the Panel Missed
The panel was strong on the present and near-term. It was light on the technology changes arriving faster than most operators expect. Active-terrain floors, wearable biomechanics, AI swing analysis that predicts what you need to change based on what your swing just did. The Belfry opened Europe’s first active-terrain suite the same week. VITBIO showed full-body motion capture at SPORTEC Tokyo. Those technologies will hit commercial sims before they hit home garages, and the operators at SEICon III should be thinking about them now.
The panel also stayed in the lane of the established players. The story of 2026 in sim golf also includes price compression at the low end, the Shot Scope LM1 at $199, the smartphone launch monitors getting accurate enough to be useful, and the new entrants growing the market from the bottom up. That angle would have been worth time.
Where It Lands
The SEICon III confirmed what the data already shows. The sim industry is growing, the governing bodies are aligned on equipment rules, and the infrastructure for connected sim golf is getting built. The next SEICon panel will be about what happens when that data network is complete — when every shot from every connected bay feeds a system that knows more about how people play golf than any governing body has ever known.
That is the future of golf worth paying attention to.
For more on the technologies discussed: The Belfry active terrain suite, Shot Scope LM1 at $199, 24/7 sim facility model, and the AI golf swing analysis guide.
Cross-link: Indoor Golf Simulator Industry 2026, Commercial Simulator Business Growth Trends, Evenplay Index: First AI Handicapping System