Thomas Hackett is the Co-Founder and CEO of PLATFORM Golf, a company redefining off-course golf through cutting-edge training technology and immersive playing experiences.
With a career spanning entrepreneurship, technology innovation, and sports business, Thomas has built PLATFORM Golf into a category-defining leader, integrating real-time slope-adjustable platforms, advanced simulation, and performance analytics into one seamless experience.
When he’s not leading PLATFORM Golf’s global growth, Thomas can be found on the course working on his game, exploring the world’s best golf destinations, or spending time with family.
The Hackett Story
I have been a lifelong golfer, and as an entrepreneur I bring a unique blend of strategic foresight and hands-on operational expertise to PLATFORM Golf. Before launching PLATFORM Golf, I held senior roles in high-growth ventures, where I specialized in scaling technology-driven businesses and building strategic partnerships with leading brands.
My inspiration for PLATFORM Golf came from a desire to bridge the gap between professional-grade training and accessible, engaging golf experiences for players of all skill levels.
Through strong industry connections and high-quality product offerings, I’ve led PLATFORM Golf to forge partnerships with industry leaders such as TruGolf, Science & Motion, and Synlawn, while also helping expand our installations globally across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. TrueSlope™, our newest product development at PLATFORM Golf, lineup, debuted at the 2025 PGA Show and is a game-changer for the indoor golf industry.
It combines a full-swing platform with a putting platform to create an integrated off-course golf solution that allows golfers to take full swings from uneven lies and sink real putts that mimic the actual slope of the green, all within a simulator experience. I also oversee PLATFORM Academy, a subscription-based coaching ecosystem featuring top PGA professionals and integrated data capture for personalized training, that’s currently in development and will come to market in 2026.
I’m passionate about the future of golf technology, the gamification of training, and the creation of standardized off-course competition formats. I regularly speak on topics including sports technology innovation, market expansion strategies, and the evolving culture of golf in the post-pandemic era.
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You wake up in the morning — what’s the driving passion?
I am solving a problem I grew up with. High school and college golfers growing up in the northeast had, and still have, a major disadvantage in golf’s offseason.
No matter how much you practice in a simulated environment, it just doesn’t replace on-course golf. PLATFORM Golf is on a mission to unify the on and off course experience as much as humanly possible.
What was the genesis for PLATFORM Golf?
PLATFORM Golf was born out of an idea at the 2023 PGA Show.
I looked over at a booth that was projecting a path tracking tool on the surface inside of a simulator bay and realized there might be a way to combine that concept with our platform to create an experience that allows golfers to have that made putt feeling in a simulated environment for the first time in the history of indoor golf.
How does PLATFORM Golf go beyond what others in the field are doing now?
Accuracy. PLATFORM Golf has the only real standardization tool in the industry that accurately measures slope.
We built an inclinometer underneath its substructure to get a true reading of slope in real time. If you use a competitor platform without this technology and want to check that your slopes are what they say they are, you’d actually have to get out a spirit level to manually confirm.
How do you see the marketplace evolving in the technological world you operate?
Precise, and more in-depth data measurements off-course. With PLATFORM Golf, our added pitch and roll data, that we enable coaches to track, could change the course of golf coaching as we know it today.
Our TrueSlope product is unlocking a new frontier of data that is providing coaches and teaching professionals with a huge opportunity to innovate and use our analytics to change their coaching philosophies entirely.
Who is your customer?
The PLATFORM Golf customer is anyone who plays golf. While we’re focused on coaches and industry professionals who can benefit from having our TrueSlope product in their teaching studios, we’ve also installed versions of our TrueBreak putting product in elite college practice facilities.
Looking ahead, we plan to launch PLATFORM Academy in 2026, allowing any golfer to digitally access lessons and golf drills from elite coaching talent around the world.
Customer service is constantly stated as a key emphasis. Define the term and the approach followed by PLATFORM Golf.
For us, it’s showing up for our partners and players at every turn – no matter what. We’re about real relationships, not transactions, and we try to solve problems the moment they surface rather than passing them down the line.
The whole team is empowered to act if something’s off, and we’re always refining the experience based on what we hear from the field.
What role does customer feedback play with your future design efforts and how have you incorporated such comments previously?
Customer feedback is the foundation of everything we do. We actively invite feedback – good, bad, and everything in between – and use it to drive product and service updates.
A lot of what we’ve improved (ex: onboarding flow, new features) came directly from customer suggestions and real-world use. We’ll always prioritize open channels and fast iteration.
If you could change one thing in golf unilaterally — what would it be and why?
I want to bridge the experience gap between off-course and on-course golf. It’s just as much my personal hope as it is the mission of PLATFORM Golf.
I want to make it possible for emerging golf talent to continue improving in the off-season and even the playing field, so no matter where you live and what the weather conditions are, you can have a true-to-life practice experience.
Best advice you ever received – what was it and who from?
“We must be pioneers in the art of managing acceptable risk,” from my grandfather William Thomas Rossiter. He was an incredible mentor and Tom Watson’s first sponsor out of college after playing in a program with him just after his Stanford days.
He was a massive believer in understanding people and having constant thought of others to guide action to enact one’s mission, vision, and values.
He used to say complacency is the enemy of growth, and that asking one more question – or listening just a bit longer – usually makes all the difference.
Complete the sentence — Thomas Hackett is —
Thomas Hackett is a person who gets the job done and in doing so will always set a plan and execute. Integrity, Partnership, and Grit are our corporate values and both myself and Rory Flanagan, my co-founder, live them on a daily basis in all of our efforts.
Innovation is tricky because you can know that the goal has a binary path but as they say; we make plans and god laughs. It’s never a straight path but our mission is to transform golf by enabling our partners, players, and coaches and we never waver from said mission.
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