A driving range provides a textbook example of the bare bones of business finance, right? Wrong.
When you dig into the art of operations, it’s more complicated than it looks. There’s more to it than hiring a high-school kid to run a lawn mower and pick up balls. It’s also potentially more lucrative than the average golfer might realize.
The Range at Boston Hills is one of two driving ranges in Ohio owned by Second Fairway, a limited partnership based in Beachwood. Dustin Murdock, a former Senior PGA Tour official, is company president and the man behind the concept of a high-end, year-round practice range.
Mike Vay is the general manager for both the Boston Heights and Avon facilities.
Most ranges are open from mid-April to mid-October, but The Range remains open year-round because of its sheltered, heated tees and powerful lighting.
Here are some of the details:
Location: The Hines Hill Road facility opened in June 1994, across the street from Boston Hills Country Club, an 18-hole public course with no practice range of its own.
Appearance: The Range uses traditional yard markers for distance practice, but also incorporates specially designed target greens, including a replica of the 17th-island green and surrounding pond at Florida’s Sawgrass—generally considered the most photographed golf course in the United States.
Vay says the facilities’ superintendent, Eric Eisner, must constantly re-seed and top-dress the grass. The Range uses computer-controlled irrigation, automated picking equipment for the retrieval of golf balls and specialized lawn equipment.
Remaining open in the cold weather poses challenges.
“Timing is everything in the winter,” Vay says. “The pickers can retrieve golf balls in 4 inches of snow, but there are still times we have to hand-pick.”
During the spring thaw, as many as 400 golf balls can be buried in a single mud puddle. They must be removed by hand.
Personnel is the largest expense, but according to Vay, the purchase of golf balls is a close second.
“We keep between 150,000 and 200,000 golf balls on hand at all times,” Vay says. “We update our inventory every year by purchasing 50,000 new golf balls.”
Vay says the company loses about 5 percent of the inventory each month, either as a result of theft, damage by mowers, or loss in the forested area near the range.
“I explain our business very simply by saying, ‘We’re in the business of leasing golf balls,’” Vay says.
The Range has a resident pro and several instructors on hand. Between the two locations, Vay says the company employs four to five full-time employees and 10 to 15 part-time/seasonal workers.
“We don’t gross what a public golf course does, but we have nowhere near their expenses, and we can ‘cash flow’ all year-round,” Vay says.
Vay, a skilled marketer, has been able to produce advertising through trades and special events sponsored by The Range. “We opened the Boston Heights facility in the summer,” he says. “During our first year of operation, our biggest marketing challenge was convincing golfers they would be comfortable practicing here in the cold.”
On some winter days, more than 500 golfers use The Range in a day, according to Vay.
Vay says his company is working to build three to five more ranges in the next five years.
The Range in Boston Heights can accommodate 110 golfers. The main building houses a snack shop and pro shop, which is leased to and run by an independent golf-equipment company.
The Range is open seven days a week and offers a frequent player pass program.
