Platform letter

Built to institutionalize a global category through focus, access, and long-term ownership.

Old Tom Capital was formed around a simple observation. Golf is one of the few global industries that is large enough to support institutional-scale outcomes, yet small and relationship-driven enough to reward true specialization.

At more than $140 billion in global economic activity, golf is not a niche. Participation is at generational highs. Utilization across facilities is strong. Demand spans real estate, media, technology, travel, apparel, and infrastructure. Yet ownership remains fragmented, capital access uneven, and institutional control limited. This gap is not theoretical. It is structural.

Golf has never had a dedicated institutional platform designed to own its consolidation phase. Old Tom Capital exists to build that platform.

We focus exclusively on golf because focus creates advantage. The category’s complexity, from agronomy and water rights to governing body dynamics and operator culture, creates natural barriers to entry. Generalist capital often misprices this complexity. Specialists who understand it can reduce risk, improve underwriting, and compound value over time.

Our access reflects that specialization. Many of the most attractive opportunities in golf do not run through broad auction processes. They emerge through trust, long-standing relationships, and alignment with operators, founders, and governing bodies. Being embedded in the ecosystem is not an edge layered on top of the strategy. It is the strategy.

This access allows us to see deals earlier, structure them more conservatively, and underwrite with a level of operational insight that reduces downside exposure. It also allows us to build alongside the category, not simply allocate capital to it.

Old Tom is structured as a multi-engine platform because golf rewards integrated ownership. Advisory, private equity, credit, and platform builds are not separate businesses for us. They are reinforcing tools that convert access into ownership and ownership into durable economics. Each engine produces its own returns. Together, they create institutional control.

We invest across the full lifecycle of the industry. From early-stage technologies that shape how the game is played and operated, to control assets that anchor long-term cash flow, to infrastructure and media platforms that define how value moves through the ecosystem. The unifying principle is always the same. Control where it matters. Align with operators. Build for permanence.

Our perspective is long-term. Golf has always rewarded patience. Capital in this category compounds through steady improvement, disciplined ownership, and trust built over decades. We write and invest with that horizon in mind.

The insights we share reflect this platform view. They are not market commentary for its own sake. They are observations from inside a category undergoing institutional change. We publish them to clarify how we think, how we underwrite risk, and why we believe golf is entering its most investable era.

Old Tom Capital is not a generalist firm with a sports allocation. It is a specialist platform built to own a category. Broad enough to matter. Narrow enough to master.