SmartPlay AI investor & strategic partner overview: AI golf caddie and golf simulator AI
November 2026 · tim@smartplayapps.com · Download the deck (PDF)
Intelligence
made useful.
SmartPlay AI builds AI that makes the next decision clearer. We start in golf: a live AI caddie, an AI instructor for simulator bays, and a golf game in the browser, all on one intelligence engine. We also teach people to build with AI, and build it with them.
SMARTPLAY AI LLC · VETERAN OWNED AND DEVELOPED · MENIFEE, CALIFORNIA · SMARTPLAYAPPS.COM · NOVEMBER 2026
Golfers get numbers. What they need is the decision.
On the course
Golf apps give yardages and charts. The golfer still has to work out the club, the target and the miss to favor while standing over the ball.
In practice
Real coaching is scarce and costs money, so most practice happens with no feedback at all, and the same faults get repeated.
In the simulator
Simulator golf is growing fast. A bay produces data on every shot, but turning that data into a lesson still needs a person in the room.
Most AI products answer with confidence even when they are guessing. In a sport where trust decides whether advice gets followed, that is a product defect.
The golf triad: one game, three places to play it
SmartPlay Caddie
A voice-first AI caddie on the course. It calls the club, the target and the miss, and analyzes your swing from your phone.
SmartBay AI
An AI instructor for simulator bays. It gives a full lesson by voice, with no staff in the room: baseline swings, one fix, a drill, then a retest.
SmartPlay Golf
A golf game on real holes built from lidar, scored on your decisions as well as your strokes.
On the course, in the bay and at home, the player and the caddie are the same, and so is the data. The plan is to bring all three under one Pro subscription.
SmartPlay Caddie: your intelligent golf partner
- Live on the App Store and Google Play since September 2026.
- A voice-first companion you talk to on the course. Two caddies ship, Kevin and Serena, and players can also build their own.
- Swing analysis from the phone camera, with a skeletal overlay and comparison against a reference swing.
- Distances and targeting from real course geometry, plus acoustic strike detection in a practice cage.
- Works with Apple Watch and Wear OS, and takes in data from tablets, GoPro and simulator bays.
No extra hardware
No club sensors and no tags. It runs on the phone the golfer already owns.
Intelligence that compounds
It learns from every round and session, so the player is not getting a one-time read from a single swing.
Pricing
Free tier: GPS yardages, scorecard and round history. SmartPlay Full: $9.99 a month or $79 a year, with a free trial in the store.
Golf is growing, and simulators are growing faster
Total US golf participants in 2025, a record. Includes golf on and off the course.
Americans who played on a golf course in 2025. These are Caddie's core users.
US simulator golfers in 2024, up from 3.8M in 2015. These are SmartBay AI's users.
Facility opportunity
6.5% of US golf facilities have installed simulators, and 13% plan to add them within one to two years. Every new bay is a place a SmartBay AI lesson can run.
Expansion with the same engine
The engine is already in beta outside golf: SmartManage (a life and executive assistant), SmartPump (fitness training) and SmartMotion (camera motion analysis).
SOURCES: NATIONAL GOLF FOUNDATION. SEE THE SOURCES SLIDE.
Five reusable capabilities, each already running in Caddie
User Model
Player profiles and roster, swing and round history, coach notes with attribution, and tendencies tracked across sessions.
Context Engine
A GPS pipeline that rejects outlier fixes, uses authoritative course geometry and satellite imagery, and always respects a manual override.
Decision Engine
A tiered reasoning cascade. A local pre-classifier runs first, then a fast router, then a heavier model for substantive judgment.
Learning Engine
Swing capture that builds a labeled dataset, tendencies mapped to drills, and outcomes captured as part of the product rather than as telemetry.
Interaction Engine
Press-to-talk voice, camera swing analysis and acoustic strike detection.
Any new product gets these on day one, so the cost of building it is mostly the experience layer on top.
What is shipped, and what is planned
- SmartPlay Caddie is live and for sale on both app stores.
- A professional instructor uses Caddie inside paid lessons.
- SmartBay AI is running at a partner indoor golf facility. Paid pilots are next.
- SmartPlay Golf is playable free in the browser on lidar-built holes.
- SmartManage, SmartPump and SmartMotion are open to beta testers. The Inner Library is live.
- The SmartPlay Build Engine is live at build.smartplayapps.com, and veterans in our first class built a working app in about 20 minutes.
- Paid SmartBay AI pilots with indoor golf facilities.
- Multiplayer rounds.
- Illustrated, lip-synced caddie avatars.
- Smart-glasses and multi-sensor perception.
- An auto-compiled video highlights engine.
- Localization, starting with Japanese.
Traction
Several revenue lines, one engine underneath
Consumer subscription
SmartPlay Full costs $9.99 a month or $79 a year, with a free GPS and scorecard tier. There are no ads.
The Build Engine
A guided way for anyone to build a working app with AI. Foundations is free; the advanced tiers are paid.
Custom builds & consulting
We build apps and AI for businesses and keep them running, backed by 26 years of healthcare operations. Three deal options: client owns the IP, shared IP, or flat fee. smartplayapps.com/build
Facility licensing
SmartBay AI is running at a partner facility today, and is licensed to simulator facilities. The setup is one camera and one screen, so a bay earns lesson revenue without an instructor present.
One Pro plan across golf
Caddie, SmartBay AI and SmartPlay Golf under one subscription, which raises the value of each subscriber.
Golf venues
Year-round indoor golf in empty retail space, run on our technology, with real estate partners who bring the site.
From the indoor muni to the course
An indoor muni is an affordable, walk-in simulator venue: the public course of indoor golf. It is where new and returning golfers start, and SmartBay AI runs the lessons there around the clock, with no staff needed in the bay.
Indoor muni
A golfer walks in, scans a QR code and gets a full AI lesson in the bay: baseline swings, one fix, a drill and a retest.
Practice and play
The same player keeps the same caddie at home in SmartPlay Golf and on the range, so every session adds to one record.
The course
SmartPlay Caddie goes with them onto a real course, calling the club, the target and the miss from what the bay already learned.
Each venue is a revenue site and an acquisition channel for Caddie. Our first venue is the model; partner venues follow it.
Built to be trusted on the shot that matters
No hardware
There is nothing to buy, charge or screw into a grip, so a new player can start for free.
Decision, not data
One clear next action, with the reason behind it, instead of another dashboard.
Honest degradation
When the system cannot know something, it says so rather than guessing with confidence.
The human overrides the sensor
Every automatic detection has a manual override, and the system accepts it without argument.
Course to bay to couch
Point solutions cover one place. We cover all three with the same player and the same caddie.
Compounding data
Every round, bay session and game adds to one user model, which makes the advice better over time.
Deepen golf first, then extend the engine
Golf triad
- Caddie live on both stores
- SmartBay AI running at a partner facility
- SmartPlay Golf live in the browser
- Build Engine live
Scale golf
- Paid SmartBay AI facility pilots
- Build Engine paid tiers
- One Pro subscription across golf
- Multiplayer rounds
- Japanese localization
Platform
- Indoor golf venues with real estate partners
- Lip-synced caddie avatars and smart glasses
- Fitness, motion and assistant products on the same engine
Built by an operator, not a lab
Veteran Owned and Developed
Tim Gustafson, founder
Ten years in uniform: four in the Marine Corps as a military policeman, then six in the Army as a medic and radiology technologist. That was followed by 26 years in healthcare operations, including COO leadership in radiology and imaging. He is a PGA HOPE alum.
Why that matters
The products are aimed at the moment a decision gets made under pressure, with incomplete information, by someone who will own the outcome. That describes most of the founder's working life.
Tim came to software from operations and taught himself to build with AI. He took Caddie from idea to a live, paid app on both stores.
Lily, outreach lead
Lily leads outreach, bringing SmartPlay to golfers, facilities and partners, and guides development so each build answers what those people actually ask for.
The team around it: fellow veterans who test every build, advisors who pressure-test the business, and ambassadors who bring SmartPlay into their own communities.
Who we want to talk to
Investors
We are raising a significant round to take SmartPlay from a live product to scale. It funds paid SmartBay AI facility pilots, user acquisition for Caddie, the Build Engine launch, and our first venue.
Venues, facilities & real estate
Indoor golf venues, simulator operators and teaching pros who want AI lessons in their bays, and property owners with empty retail space or a struggling course.
Technology partners
Simulator and launch monitor makers, wearable and smart-glasses platforms, and course data providers who want to build on the same stack.
Sources and notes
- US golf participation for 2025: 48.1M total participants, and more than 29M on-course golfers. National Golf Foundation, 2026 Graffis Report, as reported by Club + Resort Business.
- Simulator golf: 8.1M simulator users in 2024 (3.8M in 2015). 6.5% of US golf facilities have simulators and 13% plan to add them within one to two years. National Golf Foundation, The Golf Simulator Opportunity (2025).
- Product status, pricing and capabilities are as of November 2026. "Live" means publicly available today, "Beta" means open to testers, and "Demo" means working and shown on request.
© 2026 SMARTPLAY AI LLC · VETERAN OWNED AND DEVELOPED · INTELLIGENCE MADE USEFUL