- November 21, 2024
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Jeremy Finney squares up his driver, looks out over the choppy hills of St. Andrews Links golf course, shakes his shoulders, takes a smooth swing and cleanly strikes the golf ball. The thwack of the club hitting the little white orb is immediately followed by a loud pop. The ball has been abruptly stopped by a screen — a 15-by-10-foot screen that covers an entire wall and projects a simulacrum of the legendary Scottish golf course.
Finney is demonstrating what it’s like to hit off the tee at The Golf Society, Manatee County’s newest golf simulator experience. Well, it’s only a partial demo. On this afternoon in early September, the suite is short a key component — the Foresight Falcon ball tracker, a high-tech device that allows a player to watch the ball’s flight path, see where it lands, and access a host of metrics such as ball speed, spin and apex, and clubhead speed. Without the tracker, we’re left with thwack pop thwack pop. We have no idea where, or if, our shots have landed on one of St. Andrews’ hallowed fairways. Not to say that it isn’t fun.
The Golf Society is a private club that provides members 24-hour access to its three golf simulators, which are housed in separate, closed-door rooms shrouded in flat black with the exception of a big-screen TV on a side wall. The 2,000-square-foot space is located in a light industrial park just west of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard at 44th Avenue East in Bradenton. At the time of my visit in September, Finney said he expected The Golf Society to open on Dec. 1.
The Golf Society experience is meant for people wanting to play golf but who are finding it harder to get onto local courses, which are becoming increasingly privatized and expensive. It’s meant for serious golfers who want to work on the finer points of their game and walk away with useful data. It’s meant for duffers who enjoy playing but aren’t comfortable spraying balls all over the fairway while impatient golfers wait on carts for them to free up the hole. It’s meant for couples who have been out to dinner, enjoyed a couple of adult beverages and don’t want the evening to end. It’s meant for people who find playing golf during the summer on Florida’s Gulf Coast just too damn hot.
Members use a smartphone app to schedule access and let themselves inside the space. They work a touch screen to choose from dozens of renowned golf courses on which to play. Each member is afforded 90 minutes of simulated golf per day. Their rounds can range from playing an entire 18 holes — there are no cart rides, no looking for balls — to repeatedly hitting a wedge onto the green from 80 yards out. The Golf Society provides the balls. Members can’t use their own.
Because everything is done via technology, The Golf Society will have no employees. “The biggest pain in all of my businesses are the staff, not the customers,” says Alistair Weatherstone, the project’s primary investor who has built and sold a variety of companies over the years.
No on-site staff? What if a player shanks a few shots and decides to take it out on the walls? Not a good idea. The space is outfitted with multiple cameras and sound sensors, and uses facial-recognition software, all of which discourages bad behavior. But the partners aren’t terribly concerned about those kinds of problems. With memberships costing $200 to $300 a month, they’re targeting an upscale crowd, most of whom will use the Golf Society as an adjunct to regular outdoor play.
Playing simulated golf is novel, fun and can be useful. But, Finney says, “granted, you can’t replace being outside on a beautiful day on a beautiful course,” Finney says. “You just can’t do it.”
It all began with four neighbors who live within a chip shot of each other in the Reserve at Twin Rivers in Parrish. Dannehl has a golf room set up in his garage that includes a simulator. People would pop in to hit a few balls, maybe get into a friendly contest. It occurred to Dannehl, who runs his own consulting firm, that the simulator might have a commercial application.
Doug Patterson, a sales rep for Panasonic and a golf coach at Parrish High School, was a frequent visitor to the golf room. The Patterson and Dannehl families had become close. Their sons were teammates on the Parrish High golf team; they now room together at Florida Gulf Coast University and are both in the Professional Golf Management program.
Meanwhile, Finney, whose wife is from England, befriended Weatherstone, a Brit who spends most of the year overseas. He has homes in Cambridge, England and Marbella, Spain, and recently sold one in Dubai. The Finneys and Weatherstones bonded over dinners and a fondness for bourbon. All four play golf, but on a recreational basis.
Dannehl and Patterson came up with a business plan and brought it to Finney, who was between jobs at the time. He now works for Aflac in risk management. “So, I had some time, and some extra money,” he says. But to create the experience they envisioned, the partners in waiting needed more capital, and they had a good idea where to turn. “I had a relationship and a trust factor with Alistair, and we felt that I was the best one to approach him,” Finney says.
Weatherstone was receptive. “There were a number of things that got me interested,” he says. “They came to me with a business plan, not just an idea. They wanted a fairly significant amount of money. I was insistent that the other partners have some skin in the game. I was fairly direct about what I expected them to put in as a minimum [in dollars].”
Then, Dannehl says, “We all got together in my garage, hit some balls and put together a plan going forward. We discussed if we thought it was viable, figured out how we can make it work, and came to an agreement.”
They found the space, which is situated around the back of a large building. The location is not sexy, but it is smack in the middle of a cluster of upscale neighborhoods and a vast population of golfers. Because it’s a private club, there was no need for signage other than The Golf Society logo on the door.
Rather than hire a contractor, Finney, who has “an affinity for building things,” took the lead in design and construction. Starting in April, Finney, Dannehl and Patterson spent long days building out The Golf Society space. “Definitely many hot, long days,” Dannehl says. “We did much of the work prior to AC being installed so that made for some less-than-desirable conditions to work in. We did have to contract some things.”
Weatherstone appreciates their efforts. “These guys have given three or four months of blood, sweat and tears, working every day to get it ready,” he says. The foursome held weekly team meetings to discuss progress.
The Golf Society partners admit that their working relationship has hit a few bumps. “When you’re building your first business, it’s easy to think, ‘Well, you know, we’ve got all this money in the bank,’” Weatherstone says. “I know from experience that it goes very, very quickly, and you always spend more than you think you’re going to.”
Then there was the matter of the couch. Dannehl wanted to splurge on one for the lounge in the front of the Golf Society space. “Why spend five grand on a couch when a thousand will do?” Weatherstone says. “I’d rather spend money on the best technology possible. And if in six months the place is full and we all hate the couch, you can buy whatever couch you want.”
The partners agree that these tense moments were simply part of what happens when four new partners embark on a new business. There are no hard feelings. No fractured relationships.
With the build-out all but complete, building a membership base is now job one. The partners say there’s been considerable interest. “One doctor called, saying, ‘Hey, are you guys open?’” Finney recounts. “We weren’t, but he liked the concept and bought a membership right then and there. Scott went down at six in the morning and showed him the space, even though we weren’t open.”
The partners invested in a portable simulator to showcase at events. They brought it out to a charity gathering held by Elite Motor Works of Lakewood Ranch — a high-end mechanic shop just a 7-iron shot away from The Golf Society — and set it up amid Ferraris and other European sports cars. Attendees competed in closest-to-the-pin and longest-drive challenges. “It was a smash hit,” Finney says. “A lot of business owners were there and asked about having our simulator for their events.”
Dannehl and Patterson are the golf-centric partners. Dannehl already has plans for merchandising and creating partnerships with other golf-related businesses. Weatherstone and Finney are eyeing potential expansion into Fort Myers and perhaps Tampa if the mothership takes flight.
The Golf Society foursome expects considerable membership growth to result from making personal connections. “Scott is more introverted, so from the get-go, he was like, ‘You’re gonna be the guy going to parties and rubbing elbows because it’s just not my thing.’” Finney says. “So, I was like — Yeah, that’s fine with me.”
