Won't You Be My Sim Neighbor?
Won't You Be My Sim Neighbor?
Fledgling Neighborhood National can help turn most any space capable of accommodating a golf simulator into a revenue-making proposition (think Airbnb).
Editor’s note: We are excited to announce that The First Call | Extra is, well, bringing you something extra to your inbox. Starting with this debut column, noted golf writer Gary Van Sickle will contribute his wit and wisdom to this space twice a month. Van Sickle has covered more than 200 majors — yes, majors — for such publications as the Milwaukee Journal, Golf World and Sports Illustrated. He’s been around.
And don’t worry, your weekly The First Call | Extra will continue uninterrupted.
The “Others” are here.
According to National Golf Foundation data, the number of off-course golfers — those who visit simulator stores, TopGolf and the like — has surpassed the number of actual green-grass golfers.
That is startling news but maybe it shouldn’t be. Golf simulators are a great indoor option and have been for at least a decade. Sim golf is fun. I stand behind that opinion as an FSU — Frequent Simulator User.
Sim golf has two minor drawbacks — putting, because the graphics and realism aren’t quite there yet, and price, which is higher at some simulator golf chain facilities than at a real golf course. It also has one potential major drawback is location — there may not be one near you.
Neighborhood National, a new golf simulator sharing program, solves two of those problems with an idea that makes you wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?” It is to golf simulators what Airbnb is to hotel rooms.
Here’s how it works:
Step One: You find the space — your garage, maybe; a room in your HOA community building; a vacant office; an extra room in a warehouse; the basement of your apartment building.
Step Two: Neighborhood National, with the help of Ace Indoor Golf, helps you buy the right simulator at your price point for the space you found and sets it up.
Step Three: Neighborhood National takes care of renting your simulator when you’re not using it, just like Airbnb turns apartments and homes into part-time vacation rental properties.
“Our vision is to create the world’s largest private golf club that anyone can belong to because it’s two minutes from your front door,” says Jeff Testa, NN’s “head pro” and founder. “We take advantage of non-traditional spaces so we’re able to make it super-affordable. Our members get unlimited use of a really nice golf simulator for a fraction of what they’d pay anywhere else.”
A simulator generates income thanks to Neighborhood National’s rental management and, with a stable base of members, each simulator should pay for itself. Just like that, you can be a member at a golf club in your area — hence the name, Neighborhood National. And if you start it, you’re the club pro. Your spouse will be so impressed. (Well, there’s no guarantee on that part.)
Testa is based in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he launched the first NN in his own garage. He got his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his masters degree in business administration from the University of Minnesota’s Carson School of Management, and worked in sales and marketing at a Fortune 500 company for nearly two decades.
He had an idea 17 years ago for a golf simulator business but he couldn’t justify the high fixed costs to start one location and the even higher costs of scaling it, which would be necessary to succeed. And, Testa says, he didn’t want to be in the restaurant business. Pushing food and drinks is key additional revenue for sim golf chains such as Five Iron Golf (in which Callaway invested $30 million), X Golf and other golf entertainment places such as Topgolf. So Testa stayed on the sidelines.
When the pandemic hit, he was riding his Peleton bike while his wife worked out at the gym. He thought about the Peletons that would eventually go unused post-pandemic and then had the same thought about the home simulators that had already been installed. How could he eliminate the fixed costs for a simulator business, he wondered? And then, bingo, it hit him — Airbnb meets simulator.
His wife came home. “How was the gym?” Testa asked. “Good,” she answered.
“I think I’m going to put a simulator in the garage and see if anyone in the neighborhood would like to share it,” he said, expecting some pushback.
“OK, sounds good,” she said.
Suddenly, Neighborhood National was born. That’s when the real work began to build the company.
Testa landed Ace Indoor Golf as a business partner to provides the turn-key sales and service solutions for the simulator installation, hardware and technology. Ace represents multiple simulator manufacturers and thus offers a variety of golf simulator brand choices.
“We all know technology can be complicated but all that’s been taken out of the equation,” says Jay Hubbard, marketing and e-commerce director for Ace Indoor Golf. “Jeff and Neighborhood National literally take out any potential obstacle that would prevent a golfer from running his own local club on a great simulator.”
Neighborhood National manages the bookings, dues, league activities and memberships. What does that leave for the club’s “head pro” to do? Play golf, basically.
Four Neighborhood National locations are off and running. Two are in garages — one in Raleigh, North Carolina, and another in Greensboro. One is in a warehouse space in Holland, Michigan. The fourth is in a fitness center also in Greensboro. The garages are single-bay locations using Foresight simulators. The Michigan warehouse is a high-end club with a Trackman simulator, plus an indoor chipping-putting area. The fitness center features multiple bays using Uneekor simulators.
These locations really are clubs. Neighborhood National features members-only facilities, so there are no worries about the identities of who is using them. Members sign up and pay a low monthly fee for access, just like they would at, say, a health club or a real private golf course. They do not pay by the hour, like at the new simulator chains, where $50 to $75 an hour on a weekend is standard.
In my experience, two veteran sim golfers can get around 18 holes in just over an hour (if they skip the putting and use the random tour stats option instead). A foursome will probably need at least three hours — that will cost $150 to $225 at an upscale sim chain outlet. Hourly fees add up in a hurry and that’s before retailer upcharges you for food and drinks.
There are no hidden costs at Neighborhood National. It’s just golf.
“It can be a backyard shed, or a handful of college buddies using a shared garage to an amenity club in a mixed-use property or spare space in the back of a church,” Testa says. “We don’t care if the space if fancy so long as it can fit a fancy simulator.”
In residential space, the location must be secured from the house. Also, a $50 initiation fee is used for background checks, but Testa says residential members are usually small in numbers and are often neighbors.
Membership rates vary, Testa says. The NN clubs fall into three ranges:
> Residential (garage or utility shed): $50-$75 per month.
> Commercial (warehouse, office, apartment building): $75-$100 per month.
> Executive (a prime site with additional technology and amenities): Price varies.
The prices are for unlimited use and unlimited guests, but Testa said each NN Club Pro can design a membership plan to exactly how he or she wants it.
“Look, you probably have a day job so you don’t have the time to deal with what amounts to 15 or 20 people who are coming and going from your garage or wherever you set up your club,” Testa says. “That’s where we come in. We provide help on the front end. We run all the marketing, member vetting and we coordinate the introductions.”
Testa is trying to blaze a trail in the rapidly advancing field of digital golf.
“If we can make golf way more convenient and way more affordable, we think it will be way more fun,” Testa says. “What we’ve learned so far is to focus on making sure this is everyone’s dream come true as opposed to focusing on making money. That might sound crazy but when we focus on making sure this dream comes true, well, then everyone’s dream does come true.”
I have one question if you already own a sweet top-of-the-line golf simulator, a line I’ll borrow from Mister Rogers’ long-running children’s TV show: “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
 | A guest post by
|