The Charlotte Observer- June 10, 2009- Golf Page
www.charlotteobserver.com
Featured in Golf Business Magazine- June-2009
Strategy
Worlds Away
By Mike Purkey
It’s tax season, and Mitzi Nelson’s desk is landscaped in paper. That should come as no surprise, really, considering she works as a certified public accountant.
But it’s also early spring, and golf season is about to gear up in earnest. Even when she’s swimming in paperwork, all Nelson has to do is look out her window to immediately remove herself—at least briefly—from Schedule C and itemized deductions. There, less than 100 yards away from her office, sits a driving range known as Northlake Golf Club, a small oasis that has become a source of inspiration for Nelson and hundreds of local golfers.
Northlake Golf Club is Nelson’s creation, born of a desire to watch others in her community improve their games while enjoying a place to gather with friends who love golf. The practice facility features the requisite grass and artificial tee stations, flag targets and barber poles for distances, as well as a short-game area that includes putting and chipping greens and three sand bunkers. But, unlike most driving ranges, this Charlotte, North Carolina, facility isn’t open to the public and balls aren’t sold by the bucket. Northlake is private, and the only way to tee it up at this real-life field of dreams is to purchase a membership.
“We wanted to be private from the beginning,” says Nelson, who “asked some golfers for their feedback and got positive response” before deciding to transform the 4-acre parcel of land that was already cleared and had been in her family for years into a practice facility. “I didn’t want to spend all my time counting balls and selling buckets.”
That’s just one of a number of reasons Northlake doesn’t feel like your “typical” driving range. In addition to the practice areas, the club boasts a covered pavilion replete with flat-screen televisions, rocking chairs, coolers filled with complimentary water and a grill area where members can bring their own food and cook. Future plans call for a miniature golf course.
“We have a club atmosphere in which members can come any time they want, hit as many balls as they want and experience something extra,” says Nelson, who was introduced to the game in 2003 then soon realized that she and her father, who is her partner in a small accounting firm, had plenty of land already cleared to start a practice facility of their own.
As the daughter-father team started ordering balls and range equipment, Nelson says, “We didn’t want to stop.” They used profits from their accounting business and a small-business loan to fund construction of the short-game area. Friends, who helped build the covered pavilion for the facility, were more than happy to lend a hand in other areas. A neighbor cleared what would become the short-game area, and a local landscaping company constructed the green and bunker. They even planted palm trees.Construction, which began in January 2007, was complete by June. Nelson opened the facility two months later.
Today, Northlake’s membership roster stands at 130. Some of those were attracted to the facility—a place that’s a little off the beaten path but one Nelson says is “five minutes from anywhere”—through advertising efforts in a regional golf publication, but many learned about Northlake the old-fashioned way: word of mouth.
“Every time I play golf, it’s advertising,” Nelson says. “I play three or four days a week, and people in the area know me. It’s how I introduce them to Northlake.”
For golfers looking for something more than just a place to bang balls, that introduction is a sales call that’s tough to resist. Nelson offers several options for Northlake’s individual memberships: $500, if paid in full, $135 quarterly or $50 monthly. Family memberships are priced at $700 annually (if paid in a lump sum), with quarterly options at $185 or monthly at $65. Though the club doesn’t sell balls by the bucket, first-time visitors can pay a $15 daily fee for that visit as something of a “test drive.”
According to Nelson, members are getting plenty of use out of the facility, both as a practice center and as a gathering place. “I had one guy come out yesterday who I thought was coming to practice,” she says. “But he got out of his car with his laptop and stayed all day. He’d hit a few balls and go back to his computer.”
Looking forward, Nelson hopes to have 250 members by this fall. “I don’t think that’s unrealistic,” she says.Given her knack for successfully navigating IRS code, achieving that goal might prove as easy as filing a short-form tax return.
Mike Purkey is a North Carolina-based freelance writer and former senior editor of GOLF Magazine.
