The average Five Iron Golf unit reports $128k/mo in revenue.
Opening one costs $2.0M–$4.7M.
DisclosedItem 19 · 20 units reporting · Item 7 · 37 open units · 2026 FDD
Both figures are the franchisor’s own, straight out of the disclosure document. What is masked below is the rest of the analysis — and the capital check that follows measures your cash against that opening range.
14 sections · 123 cited figures · 0 operational tripwires · 10 diligence questions
Everything below is in the report. Every figure is cited to an FDD Item and page, and labelled with where the number came from. The labels are free. The numbers are what you are buying.
Franchise Edge automates franchise diligence. We read the franchisor’s own Franchise Disclosure Document — the filing a franchisor is legally required to hand you at least 14 days before you sign anything or pay anything — and run the work that takes a buyer weeks by hand: every disclosed cost, the unit economics behind the headline, the full fee stack, and what happened to the units that opened before you.
Your analysis is ready. The framework is below — every section, every cited figure, every question, exactly as it appears in the report.
An FDD runs to 23 numbered Items and a few hundred pages. Four of them do most of the work in this report:
Every figure in the report is cited to its Item and page, so you can check any of it against the document yourself.
Questions before you buy? jason@foundersplinko.com — a person, not a ticket queue.
Against the total investment the franchisor discloses in Item 7. What it means for your loan, your coverage ratio and your payback is locked.
Item 7, as the franchisor states it. 14 line items.
What the deal asks of you, against what you told us you have.
13 rungs, monthly, from disclosed revenue down to what the operator actually keeps. Every rung is labeled with where its number came from.
Not profit. Cost of goods, labor and operating costs have not been subtracted yet.
Before debt service, owner compensation, depreciation and taxes. The modeled cost range straddles zero: at its favorable end this unit turns an operating profit, and at its unfavorable end it does not turn one at all. The range is this wide because cost of goods, labor and other operating costs are not disclosed in an FDD and are modeled from category bands.
The operator has not been paid out of this yet. Rung 9 straddles zero, so this rung inherits that: the unfavorable end of the modeled cost range leaves nothing to draw from.
Lenders typically want 1.25 or better: $1.25 of operating profit for every $1.00 of loan payment. This ratio inherits rung 9's straddle: at the unfavorable end of the modeled cost range there is no operating profit to cover the payment at all, so the low end of this range is negative and no lender would underwrite it.
Recovery of the build-out only, and it does not include the operator's own time. At the low end of the modeled cost range the unit does not generate operating profit, so the build-out is never recovered.
The loan this unit would need, and whether the unit can carry it.
9 separate charges in the agreement. Most buyers find four.
The franchisor's own numbers, and how wide the spread really is.
10 Items located and parsed. Every figure above cites one of them.
4 things this document cannot settle, and how to settle them.
12 findings from the audited statements.
No clause here carried enough detail to report. That is not a clean bill of health — Items 8, 12 and 17 are where these live.
Item 20, year-end.
Item 20's own outlet table does not close: the outlets the franchisor states were open at the start of the year, plus the year's openings, less the year's closures, do not come to the year-end count in the same table. One of those four figures is wrong, or Table 3 breaks closures out in a column this reading missed. Ask the franchisor to walk you from Table 1 to Table 3 before you rely on any turnover figure — the one on this page or the one in the document.
28 outlets were open at the start of the year, as Item 20 Table 1 discloses. Every rate below is a share of that starting count, not of today's.
Item 17, counted rather than characterised. 19 terms the table states, across how long you are in, how it ends, how you sell it and what happens after — plus the grounds it gives each side to end the agreement, and 12 questions to take to a franchisee.
10 questions, grouped for operators running a unit today, operators who left last year.
6 executives, with tenure and prior operating history.
14 sections · 123 cited figures · instant access
Unlock the full report — $199One report, one brand, instant access. Not a subscription.
Get our free Playbook — the 90-day checklist, cost worksheets, and location math the pros use, in plain English.
No spam. The Playbook, then occasional notes as you go. Unsubscribe anytime. This email is not the report.