Weekend At Bob's

At a billionaire’s golf nirvana, you can spend three days getting fitted for the most coveted set of clubs in the game. By

- John Paul Newport

It’s not unusual for golf-addicted billionaires to drop a couple of hundred million dollars on the ancient game. Herb Kohler (of the Kohler Co.) built the famous Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run courses in Wisconsin. Paul Fireman (Reebok International Ltd.) created Liberty National Golf Club on a former Superfund site opposite the Statue of Liberty. Julian Robertson (Tiger Management) carved out two spectacular clifftop courses in New Zealand. Then there’s Donald Trump.

Bob Parsons has gone a different route. In 2013 the founder of GoDaddy Inc. (estimated wealth: about $2 billion) purchased a down-on-its-luck country club in Scottsdale, Ariz., and set about transforming it into a golf paradise, adding two courses, a second clubhouse, and luxurious overnight accommodations. Total cost when it’s all done later this year: $300 million.

Then in 2015 he started PXG (for Parsons Xtreme Golf LLC), a golf-equipment company that markets drivers, irons, and putters the way Rolex sells watches. Now Parsons is using his high-desert oasis, christened Scottsdale National Golf Club, as a tool for selling his luxury goods. For $17,500, PXG customers can buy a three-day “Xperience.” The sum includes a set of PXG clubs, custom-fitted at an on-site hyper deluxe practice facility, and the opportunity to use them on the club’s courses. Wining and dining at the club is also part of the deal, though customers stay at the nearby Four Seasons resort; the sumptuous on-site villas are reserved for the club’s 139 members.