How Infonaligy Rebuilt the Technology Behind Topgolf

Before Topgolf became a household name with venues across the country and a multi-billion-dollar merger with Callaway Golf, the company faced a technology crisis that nearly stopped its growth entirely. Infonaligy was the team that stepped in, rebuilt the technology from scratch, and helped put Topgolf on a path to national expansion.

This is the story of that engagement.

The First Dallas Venue on Park Lane

In 2009, Topgolf was still in its early growth phase. The company was building out its first Dallas venue on Park Lane and needed a local partner to manage network infrastructure and IT operations for the facility. Infonaligy took on that role, handling the foundational technology work that kept the venue running.

At the time, Topgolf’s core entertainment technology, including the RFID-based ball tracking system that made the entire concept work, was built and maintained by a separate technology vendor. That vendor owned the intellectual property and was responsible for the systems that tracked where each ball landed, calculated scores, and powered the gaming experience customers saw on screen.

The arrangement worked until it didn’t.

When the Technology Vendor Went Bankrupt

The company responsible for Topgolf’s proprietary technology went bankrupt. Overnight, Topgolf lost access to the engineering team and institutional knowledge behind the systems that defined their product. Without a functioning technology partner, they couldn’t maintain existing venues reliably, and they certainly couldn’t build new ones.

For a company whose entire business model depended on technology (every ball hit is tracked by sensors, scored by software, and displayed on screens in real time), this was an existential problem. Topgolf’s expansion plans were frozen.

Going Down the Rabbit Hole

Infonaligy’s founder, Jason Sifford, was already working with Topgolf on the IT operations side when the technology vendor collapsed. He sat down with then-CEO Joe Vrankin and CFO Neil Allen to assess the situation. The question on the table was straightforward but enormous: could Infonaligy reverse-engineer and rebuild the entire technology stack from the ground up?

Sifford’s answer was yes. The Infonaligy engineering team had the depth across hardware integration, software development, and IT infrastructure to take on a project of that scope. What followed was a multi-year development and operational support engagement that touched every layer of Topgolf’s technology.

Rebuilding Everything From Scratch

The Infonaligy team didn’t patch the old system or bolt on workarounds. They rebuilt it all:

• RFID ball tracking and reading system. The core technology that identifies each ball, tracks its flight path, and determines where it lands. This is the foundation of the entire Topgolf experience, and Infonaligy’s engineers rebuilt the sensor reading infrastructure and the software that interprets the data.

• Gaming system and game logic. The backend that calculates scores, manages game modes, tracks player sessions, and handles the rules engine. Every game variant that players select on their bay’s screen runs on this system.

• Game UI. The player-facing screens in each bay that display scores, animations, and game options. Infonaligy designed and built the interface from scratch, creating the interactive experience that millions of players now use without thinking twice about the technology behind it.

• Point-of-sale system for gaming. The POS integration that connects the gaming experience with billing, session management, and venue operations. This ties the entertainment side to the business side, so every session, food order, and transaction flows through a unified system.

The work spanned the full lifecycle: ideation, architecture, development, testing, deployment, and ongoing operational support. This wasn’t a consulting engagement where someone delivered a report and walked away. Infonaligy’s team was embedded in the operation, building production systems and keeping them running.

What Made This Possible

Taking on a project like this requires a specific kind of IT consulting capability. Most managed IT providers handle endpoints, networks, and help desk tickets. Rebuilding a proprietary entertainment technology platform from the ground up requires engineering depth that goes well beyond traditional MSP work.

Infonaligy was able to deliver because the team combined several disciplines under one roof: network engineering, custom software development, hardware integration, and operational IT support. The Topgolf engagement required all of those simultaneously, and having a single partner manage the full stack eliminated the coordination overhead that slows down multi-vendor projects.

The multi-year nature of the engagement also mattered. Infonaligy didn’t just build the systems. They operated and refined them over time, handling the kind of real-world issues that only surface once a venue is full of customers hitting balls on a Friday night. That operational feedback loop made the technology more reliable with each iteration.

Setting the Stage for What Came Next

The technology Infonaligy rebuilt became the platform on which Topgolf scaled. With a functioning, maintainable technology stack back in place, Topgolf was able to resume opening new venues and expand across the country.

That growth trajectory eventually led to Topgolf’s merger with Callaway Golf, completed in March 2021 in a deal valued at approximately $2 billion. Callaway saw a company with a massive, engaged customer base, a strong brand, and, critically, a technology platform that worked at scale.

None of that would have been possible if the technology had stayed broken after the original vendor’s bankruptcy. Infonaligy’s work during those early years in Dallas provided the technical foundation that made Topgolf’s national expansion viable.

What This Means for Businesses Today

The Topgolf engagement is the kind of project most companies don’t associate with a managed IT provider based in Allen, Texas. But it reflects what Infonaligy has always done: go beyond routine IT support to solve the hard problems that actually determine whether a business can grow.

Whether you need a partner to manage your day-to-day IT operations or you’re facing a complex technology challenge that requires custom engineering, the same team that rebuilt Topgolf’s technology platform is available to work with Dallas-Fort Worth businesses today.