Guests try new “VP Suites” indoor golf simulators at open house event on Thursday, January 25, at Van Patten Golf Club, in Clifton Park, NY. (PHOTO BY DREW WEMPLE)
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. — Watching the Super Bowl but need a break from the broadcast, likely over-showing Taylor Swift in the seats? Hit a golf ball. At a wedding but don’t know how to dance, or do it well? Hit a golf ball. Course booked-up, rained out for the day or closed for the winter seasons? Hit a golf ball anyways.
That’s just a part of the thought process for Van Patten Golf Club’s pair of brand new, indoor golf simulators, titled “The VP Suites.” It’s a growing rage amongst golf courses and aficionados of the game, spurring from the basic pursuit of playing golf all-year round, in climates that don’t lend themselves to doing so.
But more than that, for Van Patten Club owner Lance Orcutt and Director of Golf Bob Kennedy, the simulators are just the latest way of the club showing its dedication to improve both the golf and facility’s atmosphere for the community.
“In the past, we’d closed down in the winter. We’d close for eight weeks, now with the simulators and the restaurant open, we got people walking through the door,” said Kennedy. “We’re keeping people entertained, active and being part of the Van Patten community, here at the golf course.”
“A lot of golf courses are doing this because at every golf course, once golf season ends, so does your revenue, so does your client base. So we wanted to have something that brought in revenue and brought in people during the offseason, which is basically from Thanksgiving to April 1 or more or less Good Friday and Easter, so we thought this was this is a good way of doing it,” Orcutt said. “I researched all the golf-sims and I just wanted to be different from the golf sims that are out there, so I got hooked up with Aboutgolf, they have the curved screens, so that we were different from the competition in that in that respect and they’re just they’re just fantastic from when I’ve played on them.”
A just over three week-project, from December 3 until a soft opening that preceded the suite’s Thursday, January 25, Open House Event at the Club, the pair of immersive, 18-foot wide, 20-foot arced screens have been in turn drawing some early, rave reviews from the public, despite the fact it may mean their home course getting a little bit busier.
“It’s just the idea that we’re swinging a golf club. It’s fun to be swinging more than we would over the winter. I’m old, my back hurts, so swinging a couple times a week, we won’t come to the Spring and be like, ‘Oh my god, I haven’t swung a golf club (in) five months,’” said local, 15-year member Dennis Carroll. “I was saying to my friends, ‘it’s gonna be hard to get tee-times’…I think it’s gonna be a busy season because of a lot of improvements.”
The technology, designed by the company Aboutgolf, is both for the amateur, professional and even weekend-golfer, just looking to have some fun. With a software that can tell the user their club speed, ball rotations-per-minute and other flight physics, but also play a round at Pebble Beach, a game of cup-pong, or watch a movie, Orcutt is striving to provide a diverse, recreational opportunity.
However, this experience has been becoming more common not just in upstate New York, but across the country with companies like The Bunker, founded by another local in Troy Miller, and other golf courses opening up in-house simulators of their own. But the positive difference in Van Patten’s eyes is the Aboutgolf technology theirs’s provide.
“Aboutgolf simulators are not a Trackman (simulator), it’s not something that sits behind you and records you from behind, this is an overhead-projector, so it really does pick your shot up immediately,” Kennedy said. “The chipping and the putting are a lot better, they’re instantaneous, and I find a lot of people when they’re playing, they don’t use the six-foot or 12-foot gimmies, they actually put it out because you can.”
“The pro, Bob, has shown us a lot. He’s been playing around with it and he’s been messing with some stuff inside where now we feel like it’s really accurate,” added Carroll. “Like, a seven-iron for me is about 140-145 (yards), where I’m like, ‘damn, I didn’t think I was hitting them that way,’ but I think we’re all learning the system as it goes. It’s fun to play the courses and just hit balls, but I thought it was pretty real.”
Orcutt isn’t opening up his curved-screen simulators as competition to Miller’s, who is soon to have six locations in the Capital Region, as when describing the numbers and seeing how many courses can be booked-up in season on any given day, the market is far from over saturated. With that said, Orcutt used Miller as a friendly resource, with an already established model of success.
“Troy Miller, with the Bunkers he’s done an incredible job. I have a good relationship with Troy and I consulted with him on what works in this business and what doesn’t and Troy was fantastic with me and said, ‘this is this way you should do it, this is the way you shouldn’t do it.’ So Troy was a real benefit and asset to be able to lean on for some of that advice,” Orcutt said. “Troy can do like a push-fade, a push-draw, he can do standard draw or a regular fade, he can put it right down the middle and he learned all of that from the golf-sim.”
There will be those that will be hard persuaded to give indoor golf a try, holding out for the snows to melt or traveling south, with the luxury, but Kennedy has seen signs that the two aren’t staying far apart.
“We’ve had a lot of foursomes come out and use our simulators. We found it takes about two and a half, three hours for a foursome to play and as I sit and watch these foursomes play, I see the same camaraderie. Everyone stands and watches the guy hit, people cheer when you get a good shot, people groan when you hit a shot and it goes in the bunker, so the atmosphere is very similar to being out on the golf course and rooting your friends on or hitting good shots.”
Kennedy, since the simulators’ opening, has been able to expand his lesson-season to the Winter and furthermore sees even more potential with Summer golf leagues to continue on inside, and adding a third screen to the facility.
“We do a lot of leagues in the Summertime and it would be great to kind of carry those over into the Winter and do some Winter simulator leagues. We do have a few in our early days of being open, we do have a few that have already started doing that, but to keep it busy all season long, that would be a great pickup,” Kennedy said. “As far as having parties in the simulator room, we have sold it out for the Super Bowl. Our simulators you can watch movies on or you can watch the Super Bowl, while golfing; it’s a that can project the game.”
“The thought process is possibly a third one…we did have to take away one of our dining rooms, that we have two simulators in now, so we did lose some space, but as the momentum rolls, we’re hoping a third one will be used just as much.”
The “VP Suites” are far from the first or last renovation Orcutt and his team plan to make, since buying the club three years ago. On top of extensive brush-clearing, fairway repair, bunker replacement, the Van Patten team hasn’t just been doing the run-of-mill groundskeeping work, but have also been making changes indoors, via new bathrooms, new, revamped menus and of course, new simulators.
Carroll and the rest of his party with him at the open house event are seeing the recent changes and appreciating them.
“He’s (Orcutt) been a godsend. I tell these guys, ‘thank God he came and saved our golf course,” Carroll said with a laugh. “When you see now, what’s happened the last few years, it’s really fun.”
One point Orcutt closed with and emphasized, despite his passion for his new indoor simulator project, was: “Nine Weeks.”
That’s how long until he projects opening day on his, Carroll’s, Kennedy’s and one of Clifton Park’s home courses.
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