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What 50,000 Trade-In Transactions Reveal
Most golf shops think of trade-in as a convenience perk, something to offer when a member brings it up. The data tells a completely different story. Across more than 50,000 trade-in transactions at 600 partner facilities, one pattern keeps emerging: the members who trade in are your highest-value customers, and the fitting appointment is the moment you can reach them. At the 2026 Middle Atlantic PGA Teaching Summit, Next Round shared the trends shaping this upgrade cycle: who
5 min read
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How One Email Supercharged Trade-Ins
Over the course of a single month-long promotion, Charlotte Country Club generated more trade-in value than they had in any comparable stretch before it. The promotion did what promotions do: it drove a spike. But what Charlotte did with that spike, and how they sustained it afterward, is the part worth studying. Their result came down to a single, repeatable move most shops overlook. The final push Charlotte's biggest lever was a final-push email, sent with five days left in
3 min read
The Putter Is the New Iron Set
Putters have always been the afterthought of the trade-in conversation. Less than 10% of upgrade trade-in volume. For most fitters, a rounding error against drivers and iron sets. That math is changing, and the brand driving the change isn't the one most people would guess. L.A.B. Golf generates the highest value per unit of any brand in our 2025 trade-in dataset. Not the highest among putters. The highest of any brand, in any category, drivers and iron sets included. For fit
4 min read
The Iron Set That Won't Die
A six-year-old iron set is outperforming most current-generation iron sets from competing brands on trade-in value retention. That's the TaylorMade P790, and it's the cleanest single-model story in our 2025 trade-in dataset. For fitters and pro shops, this matters in practice. When a member walks into a fitting with P790s of any vintage, the trade-in math is meaningfully different from any other iron set on the floor. Recognizing that changes the conversation, the credit calc
3 min read
Why Old Putters Hold Their Value
Every club in the bag loses value with age. Drivers fall behind on ball speed. Irons lose forgiveness. Wedges wear out at the grooves. Putters are the exception. They are the one club that holds value across generations, and most golfers have no idea. That gap between what members assume and what the data shows is an opening for any fitter. A member hesitant to upgrade because they think their current putter is worth nothing on trade is working from a false premise. The trade
4 min read
The Most Important Question in Every Fitting
Drivers get the marketing. Irons get the margin. But the conversation that opens the most upgrade cycles in your shop starts with a club most fitters barely mention. Wedges. Across 50,000+ trade-in transactions from 600 facilities in 2025, wedges were 23% of all units traded by upgrade customers, the highest-volume category in the dataset. But they accounted for just 8% of total trade-in value. That gap is not a demand problem. It is a timing problem. And it is the most addre
4 min read
No Brand Holds Its Value Like Ping
In a dataset of 50,000+ trade-in transactions, one brand holds its value better than any other. Not by a little, and not in one category. Across both drivers and iron sets, deep into the lifecycle, Ping retains more relative value than any other major brand we measured. For a fitter, that's a useful thing to know the moment a member answers "what are you playing." A Ping in the bag is one of the most reliable trade-in assets a member can carry, and the credit it generates ten
3 min read
The Simplest Trade-In System We've Seen
Ryan Hall, Master Fitter at Kinloch Golf Club, is running a trade-in promotion. In under a month, he’s already top 10 in the Next Round network for quotes generated in 2026 — and he did it without adding a single step to his fitting process. Here’s exactly what he’s doing, and why it works. The Setup Ryan isn’t relying on remembering to bring up trade-in at the right moment in a fitting. He built it into two touchpoints that run automatically — one before the member walks in,
2 min read
The Two Golf Club Trade-In Customers Every Pro Shop Has (And How to Sell to Both)
Not every member who walks in to trade golf clubs is walking in for the same reason. On the surface they look identical: they have old equipment, they want pro shop credit, and they are standing at your counter. But what happens next, and how much revenue that visit generates for your golf shop, depends almost entirely on which type of trade-in customer you are actually talking to. Understanding the difference is one of the most valuable things a pro shop operator, director o
5 min read
How Army Navy Country Club Generated $18,000 in Pro Shop Sales in One Month
For most pro shops, trade-in has historically meant one thing: a periodic promotion where members clean out their garages, drop off old golf clubs, and walk away with a little store credit. It is a nice service. But it is not a revenue strategy. Army Navy Country Club Director of Retail Jonathan Sands saw a different opportunity. Rather than treating trade-in as a member benefit aimed at clearing out unused equipment, he used it as a mechanism to help members fund meaningful
4 min read
2026 Survey: What Golf Facilities Are Telling Us
Trade-in is one of the most talked-about topics in the pro shop today, and one of the least consistently executed. The 2026 Next Round Benchmark Survey set out to find out why. The data paints a clear picture: most shops understand the value of trade-in but have not yet built the process to activate it where it matters most. This post breaks down what your peers said and what it means for your shop. Who Responded The respondents skew toward fitting-forward facilities. Nearly
4 min read
What 50,000 Trade-In Transactions Reveal
Most golf shops think of trade-in as a convenience perk, something to offer when a member brings it up. The data tells a completely different story. Across more than 50,000 trade-in transactions at 600 partner facilities, one pattern keeps emerging: the members who trade in are your highest-value customers, and the fitting appointment is the moment you can reach them. At the 2026 Middle Atlantic PGA Teaching Summit, Next Round shared the trends shaping this upgrade cycle: who
5 min read
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