How to Choose a Golf Simulator Installer for a Custom Build

TL;DR

Choosing a golf simulator installer starts with two tests: the builder should first ask what the space is meant to accomplish, and they should be able to show 50, 100 or 200 past projects and let you talk to those clients. Cliff Stevens, founder of ForeFront Simulator Solutions, describes a client who turned down a $42,000 proposal for a $25,000 general contractor build, then paid another $30,000 to $35,000 to have it torn out and redone. Corey Ferger of The Club Partners adds that piecemealing a simulator yourself rarely produces an acceptable result.

• The biggest mistake clubs make is not defining what the simulator is supposed to accomplish before they start.
• A client who chose a $25,000 general contractor build over a $42,000 specialist proposal paid another $30,000 to $35,000 to have it ripped out and redone, spending about $60,000 in total.
• Ask any installer for examples of work. If they cannot point to 50, 100 or 200 projects and let you talk to their clients, Cliff Stevens says they are not the right partner.
• Vetting matters 10 times more in a country club than at home, because club simulators take far more wear and tear and carry liability.
• A poor club simulator can push members to outside indoor golf venues two or three times a month, costing the club simulator, food and beverage, and equipment revenue, plus member retention.
• Corey Ferger calls it the first and most important red flag if a builder’s conversation does not start with what you are trying to accomplish.

What is the biggest mistake clubs make adding a simulator?

Corey Ferger: Biggest mistake: not knowing what the purpose is, not knowing what you’re trying to accomplish. Understanding the purpose solves a lot of issues down the line.

Now to start spilling the tea, as the kids are saying. I’m not going to say names. I’m not going to put anybody on blast, but I will use a very specific example. We had a potential client that we were looking at working with. Really interesting space that they were building out, mostly for entertaining clients and for employee retention. They asked us to get involved. We put together a concept, a proposal. They decided that it would be better to piecemeal everything themselves.

The worst mistake that you could possibly make is taking an arena that you are not an expert on, that you do not know all the intricacies on, and going, I could probably figure it out. I know it’s anecdotal when I say this, but I’ve not met a single person who has done an acceptable job piecemealing it together themselves where they haven’t eventually either scrapped the project or had to go back to someone like a ForeFront and have them build a more holistic concept.

Thinking, okay, well, I’ll buy the simulator separate, I got a good deal on a projector over here on Amazon, and I’ll go buy some turf at the local golf store. I need a screen. I want to find something to hit into. And thinking you’re going to have the same experience as having it wrapped by a professional who does this day in and day out is just ludicrous to me.

Is a cheaper general contractor build really cheaper?

Cliff Stevens: We see it a lot more in the residential space. We submitted a $42,000 proposal for a residential sim. The client said, I’ll have my GC do it. They can do it for 25. That client had their GC do it. They sent us pictures, and it looked like my 12-year-old daughter did it, because it’s not what that GC does.

So [the client] paid the GC $25,000, got a horrible result, and then I think he ended up paying us another 30 or 35 to come rip everything out and redo it. So [he] ended up spending about $60,000 instead of our $42,000. It’s a lesson learned: I can do it cheaper is not better.

I actually just sold a $15,000 project to go refurbish a simulator that another company in Atlanta had done. I actually don’t know what they paid for this one, but a hefty sum, and it’s really poorly done, and doesn’t match the quality of their house.

Corey Ferger: It’s so fun to see those baking fails where people watch a baking show and go, I can do that. This is what it looks like, and this is how it came out. We see a lot of that in this space with people going, how hard can it be? Well, actually, a lot harder than you realize to get it done to the professional level of ForeFront.

What does a poorly built club simulator cost?

Cliff Stevens: The thing that country clubs or commercial facilities don’t take into account in this scenario is the value of their time. If the general manager is having to chase all this stuff down to save $10,000 or $15,000, taking their eye off the ball of other strategic initiatives, that’s a huge mistake.

Corey Ferger: There’s a lot of competition for the golfer’s attention. We’re seeing more and more of these concepts pop up where there’s access to places to hit balls indoors. In the club space, you have a built-in inherent advantage where that member wants to come to the club, should want to come to the club, before they go to an outside entity to do the same thing. If you create a poor experience within the club, it’s likely they’re going to find a better experience outside of the club.

When that member is going to this other facility two or three times a month instead of coming to the club, not only are you missing out on whatever the simulator revenue is, but that’s the food and beverage. That’s the equipment. And the retention of the member themselves as a club member. So there is a significant dollar amount tied to doing it poorly.

How should you vet a golf simulator installer?

Cliff Stevens: You’ve got to really understand what you’re getting. Ask for examples of work. With ForeFront and The Club Partners, you can pick any project you see on our social media, on our website. You can pick from our clients. We’ll take you to that location, show you, let you talk to the customer, understand the experience.

If the people you’re talking to can’t point to 50 or 100 or 200 projects and let you talk to their clients, they’re not the people you should be using to put your golf simulator in, especially residentially. It’s 10 times more important in a commercial setting like a country club. These things get so much more wear and tear and abuse. They need to be built thoughtfully. There’s liability on the table.

What red flag should you watch for in a builder?

Corey Ferger: We’re working with one of the most premier universities in the country. Their golf program asked us to help them reimagine their performance center. The first questions were, what do you want the space to accomplish? Is it just a place for the student athletes to beat balls when there’s snow on the ground up in the Northeast?

I was a student athlete myself, and I played baseball. So I projected a little of my experience, and it led some of the questions to: do we want this to be a place that the student athletes want to come to? Not only to make their game better, but to congregate. Can we use this space for recruiting? Is this something that we can showcase the success of this golf program through recruiting channels? Is this a place that we can use for alumni, to get alumni excited about the program and donate money back to?

So it goes from, we need a place for people to hit balls indoors, to, we want to use this as a way to help funnel money back into the program through alumni donations. We want to be able to use this as a place to bring potential recruits and show them the value of becoming a student athlete at this university, as well as help the student athletes prepare for tournaments in the spring.

That first question, it all goes back to why, and what are you trying to accomplish. If you’re talking to someone about a simulator build-out and that’s not where the conversation starts, I would tell you that’s the first red flag and probably the most important red flag to take note of.

Why hire a specialist instead of a general contractor?

Corey Ferger: If we can acknowledge that there’s a solution to be found, all of the things that we’ve talked about point back to: then do it right. There are definitely wrong ways to go about this, and there are experts out there that do this all day every day. No one is going to care more about your project going well than people whose entire business revolves around projects like this going well.

So hiring a ForeFront and a Club Partners to manage these projects ensures that you’re going to have people who care as much as you do that this project goes the way it’s supposed to. That’s not to take away from other folks within the industry or GCs who might be able to do projects like this. But at the end of the day, Cliff’s company’s reputation revolves around making sure this looks good, this performs well, and that you’re happy with it. Because it’s awful hard to go get another club to do it if the last three clubs don’t think you did a good job.

So have those conversations on the front end: how do we elevate the member experience? What are we trying to accomplish in elevating that member experience? Acknowledge this is a great path to lean into, and then go from there: we’re the folks who are best equipped to make sure this goes well. Checking those three boxes is going to get you in a really good place.

Edited for length and clarity from a recorded conversation with Corey Ferger and Cliff Stevens.