AFGL seeks hosts for 2026 and 2027 major tournaments

The American FootGolf League has opened bids for its 2026 and 2027 major tournaments, and the ask is specific: about 60 hotel rooms per night, space for 150 participants and 100 spectators, and an 18-hole golf course that can fit the field. The four-day listing puts the U.S. FootGolf National Championship, the U.S. FootGolf Open and the AFGL Tour up for grabs, making this a pitch to club operators, resort properties and destination marketers as much as to tournament hosts.

At the center of the bid is the National Championship, a 54-hole event built around a practice day and three tournament rounds for Men, Women, Senior and Club divisions. Players qualify through AFGL Tour stops around the country, so the host site is not just staging a final weekend but serving as the landing point for a season-long qualifying ladder. AFGL describes its combined AFGL Tour and U.S. Amateur Tour calendar as running from January through December, which gives the winning venue a place inside a year-round competitive circuit.

The history of the championship shows the kind of markets AFGL has favored. Sydney Marovitz Golf Course in downtown Chicago hosted the first National Championship in 2015. Desert Willow Golf Club in Palm Desert staged the 2016 and 2017 editions. Reunion Resort in Kissimmee took the 2018 event, Winton Farms Golf Course in Amherst, Virginia paired the 2019 championship with the State Games of America finals, and Brazell's Creek Golf Course at Jack Hill State Park in Reidsville, Georgia hosted the event from 2020 through 2022. Tahquitz Creek in Palm Springs held the 2023 championship, and Fox Hills and Royal Scot in Michigan shared the 2024 edition.

That rotation points to the venues best positioned to win the next cycle: resort destinations, multi-course operators and markets with enough hotel inventory to absorb a national field. The Orlando World Cup offered the clearest benchmark, drawing 972 players from 39 countries over nine days on five courses across Evermore Resort and Walt Disney World's Palm Course. For host cities, that is the upside AFGL is selling: room nights, repeat visitors and a format that can stretch across multiple facilities when the field grows.

The bid request also fits the league's longer build. AFGL says it was founded on November 19, 2011, and that the first FootGolf tournament in the United States was played on July 22, 2012, at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells. From that start to a national championship structure with regional qualifiers and World Cup-scale travel demand, the current host search reads like a map of where AFGL sees its next growth markets.