We'll All Have More Time.
Now What?

Try Getting a Golf Tee Time on a Saturday

This is not a metaphor. Go to any reasonably good golf course near a major city on a sunny Saturday morning and try to book a round. You can't. The courses are full. Membership waitlists at private clubs run to years. Golf is one of the most land-constrained leisure activities there is — you can't build a new 18-hole course in central London or New York — and participation has been growing steadily for a decade.

That is your research, right there. When demand is growing, supply cannot keep up, and pricing power follows inevitably — that is the definition of a good business. The golf example is one instance of a much broader structural trend: the Leisure Economy.

The Historical Pattern: Technology Buys Us Time

The Industrial Revolution mechanised physical labour, eventually giving rise to the 8-hour working day. The second industrial revolution (electricity, mass production) gave us weekends and the concept of a holiday. Computing and the internet created knowledge work efficiencies that, paradoxically, often made us work more — but it also spawned entirely new leisure industries: streaming, social media, gaming.

Artificial intelligence is the next inflection point, and it is different in scale. AI is not just automating physical or repetitive tasks — it's automating cognitive work. The productivity gains for knowledge workers are estimated by McKinsey at 30–40% across white-collar roles. That time has to go somewhere. And increasingly, it's going to the gym, the golf course, the restaurant, and the concert.

Add to this the parallel cultural shift towards self-care and wellbeing — particularly among millennials and Gen Z — and you have a multi-decade tailwind for leisure spending. People are exercising more, spending more on nutrition, prioritising mental health, and trading material goods for experiences at rates that economists are still trying to fully explain.

The Golf Case Study: Scarcity + Demand = Pricing Power

Let's stay with golf for a moment because it illustrates the investment thesis perfectly. Global golf participation grew significantly during COVID (people needed outdoor activities) and has remained elevated rather than reverting. In the US, there are approximately 16,000 golf courses. That number has been essentially flat for twenty years — land near cities is too valuable for new course development, and existing courses can't expand.

Meanwhile, participation is growing. Green fees at top courses are up dramatically. Equipment spending hit record levels. And the rise of TopGolf (now part of Callaway) has created an entirely new entry point for the sport — bringing in a younger, more urban demographic that then often migrates to traditional courses.

Acushnet Holdings (GOLF), which owns Titleist and FootJoy, is the premium golf equipment company with pricing power in a segment that is structurally allergic to trading down. When you're a golfer who's committed to the sport, you don't switch to cheap balls because they make you worse. Acushnet sells to committed players. Its customer base grows as participation grows, and it has pricing power because its products genuinely matter to performance.

Beyond Golf: The Three Pillars

1. Sport & Active Fitness

Founded in Switzerland in 2010, On Holding set out to build the performance running shoe that serious athletes would genuinely prefer — and then watched that performance credibility spill into lifestyle. With Roger Federer as both investor and ambassador, and a 64.2% gross margin in Q1 2026 on CHF 831.9M in revenue (up 26.4% at constant currency), On is executing one of the most disciplined brand-to-lifestyle crossovers in recent memory — growing rapidly across Europe, the US, and Asia in a market where premium athletic brands have structural pricing power and loyal repeat customers. Life Time Group (LTH) complements this from the venue side: 180+ luxury fitness and wellness centres operating as premium lifestyle destinations. The fitness market is bifurcating — budget gyms face structural pressure while premium experiences command premium prices, and both On and Life Time are clearly on the right side of that split.

2. Live Entertainment & Experiences

Live Nation is the operating system of live entertainment. They own Ticketmaster, hundreds of venues, manage thousands of artists, and control the economics of an industry where demand consistently exceeds supply. A Taylor Swift concert is not competing with Netflix — it's a fundamentally different and irreplaceable experience. As incomes rise in emerging markets, appetite for live events follows: the fastest-growing markets for Live Nation are currently in Asia and Latin America.

3. Premium Travel & Hospitality

The consumer has been very clear for the past decade: given a choice between buying another thing or having an extraordinary experience, they choose the experience. Booking Holdings (Priceline, Kayak, Booking.com) sits at the centre of global travel demand. Marriott and Hilton operate asset-light models that scale with travel demand without taking the capital risk of owning hotels. The premium end of the market — luxury travel, boutique hotels, safari and expedition travel — is growing faster than the mass market.