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Marty O’Brien is smiling a lot these days—even though he routinely works 13-hour shifts at Deer Creek Golf Practice Center, a 12-acre range in Greenwood, S.C. In fact, he’s eager for spring, when his workdays will grow even longer, but never unsatisfying.
After 25 years of working for others, O’Brien loves picking his own range balls, mowing his own grass, moving merchandise in his pro shop and helping his customers. When he’s out on the range working, his wife, Beth, is in the clubhouse running the counter and keeping the snack bar humming and the customers in bucket tokens.
The couple opened Deer Creek Golf Practice Center, third-place winner in Golf Range Times’ 2003 Best New Range contest, in August 2003, and O’Brien jokes that he should have built bedrooms onto the clubhouse, they spend so much time there.
“It started out as a part-time thing,” O’Brien says. “I was going to cut the grass at night and have my wife run [the center] during the day, and I was going to go off to work [in computers]. And it got more and more involved and more and more expensive. We had so much invested in it, we had to do it full time.”
He’s not complaining, though. Far from it.
“I worked 13 hours yesterday and I had a great time,” O’Brien says. “I had to stay late. I had clubs I had to re-shaft, and the guy wanted them today. I had a tremendous amount of balls to pick. I was out here late picking and working on that shaft, but I don’t mind. This is great.”
Starting Over and Starting Up
O’Brien worked in retail, then restaurant management and, finally, computer networking before taking a swing at something completely new. Years ago, he and Beth invested in a 56-acre tract of pine-covered land in a mostly rural section of Greenwood.
Though the couple hadn’t purchased the land with any particular purpose in mind, O’Brien was ready for a new challenge.
“I’m 45 now and I had gone back to school for computers,” he says. “I was starting at the bottom again, working for guys who were 23. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I have kids older than that [from a previous marriage].”
So O’Brien, who likes to golf, took notice that Greenwood and the surrounding areas, while chock-full of courses, didn’t have many quality driving ranges dedicated to serving the avid golfer.
“There wasn’t a decent place in town to hit balls,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of golf courses around here but no place to go hit at night, no place to really practice.”
So the O’Briens studied the golf range business, and the more they learned, the more they thought about building a facility.
“It made a lot of sense in a lot of ways,” O’Brien says. The only problem was figuring out what to with the power lines that ran through their property. As it turns out, those lines, and the accompanying road, became an asset. While the power lines are mostly hidden by the forest of pine trees, the hidden road now affords access from the front of the facility to the back of the landing area, where there’s a second tee line.
Grading the property took 11 months, partly because of natural rock deposits throughout the hilly tract, and partly because of rain. “We had to clear 12 acres, and this section of town is sitting on a big vein of rock,” recalls O’Brien. “When we started moving the dirt, all these rocks started popping up.”
But instead of getting caught between a rock and a hard place, the outcroppings became a signature in Deer Creek’s design, jutting prominently alongside the spacious short game areas between the clubhouse and the tee line. The O’Briens contracted noted course designer Luke Kinder to give the facility its sleek golf course look.
“He had a big construction company come in here and clear it off, then he came back in with one small bulldozer” and shaped the land, explains O’Brien.
The 150-yard-wide by 320-yard-long landing area is covered with Bermuda grass and surrounded by Carolina pine trees. In addition to Kinder, the O’Briens hired Billy Ford, superintendent at the local Patriots Point Links, to help in the range’s design.
Part of Ford’s contribution is another Deer Creek trademark—seven extra-large target greens on the landing area, ranging from 100 to 300 yards.
“They’re the size of [golf course] greens and they act like greens, too,” says O’Brien. “If you hit the green, the ball will stick. And if it lands and bounces on, it’ll take a couple of hops and stop.”
Creating a golf course feel was a top priority for the O’Briens, and they’re not adding any amenity that doesn’t enhance Deer Creek as a golf-first facility for Northwest South Carolina.
“We’re going to keep it strictly golf,” O’Brien says. “What we want to do is get the whole family out here for golf. We’ve thought about putting a nice little miniature golf setup in the front, and in the back, maybe putting in a nine-hole par-3.”
The Grass Is Always Greener
A Tifway 419 Bermuda grass teeing area with room for 25 sits to the right of a small covered tee line. O’Brien rotates the grass tees daily to ensure maximum customer comfort.
“Everybody comments on the grass,” he says. “Everyone thinks this is as nice a practice facility as they’ve ever seen.”
They can thank O’Brien, a stickler for details, for that. “I was watching ‘Tin Cup’ the other night and [Kevin Costner’s] out there on the range and you can see the 150-yard sign but it’s completely black behind that,” says O’Brien. “Being able to practice at night and being able to see your ball is very important to the kind of customers we want to draw.”
There’s no problem seeing ball flight at Deer Creek. Lights on 40-foot poles behind the tee line illuminate the front part of the landing area, and berm lighting at 150 yards lights the range all the way to the back.
The 6,000-square-foot Tifdwarf Bermuda grass putting green is also lit, as is the adjacent 8,000-square-foot Bermuda grass chipping green. Those areas are available to customers just 30 feet up a scenic walkway, accessible from the clubhouse backdoor. A little farther to the top of the hill is where the tee line begins.
A quaint wood shelter covers eight SofTee mats next to the grass area. O’Brien had planned to heat these covered stations but contractors told him that winds would counter any warmth. The shelter, however, still gets plenty of use.
“It’s not that it gets that cold, but sometimes it’s raining,” says O’Brien. “Sometimes when it rains, it stays wet up there and it’s good to have the mats. I think it’s also better to start little kids off on the mats, too.”
The covered tees also provide shade on the hottest summer days, with ceiling fans helping to keep golfers cool.
Though sunsets are breathtaking from the tee line, golfers are hitting into the sun for up to two hours every day. That’s when that teeing area in the back really comes in handy, O’Brien says.
Driving golf carts, customers can take the road to the left of the landing area to the extra teeing line. He also allows customers to drive their own vehicles back there if they’d rather do that, taking full advantage of the hidden road.
The two tee lines—on opposite ends of the range—are more than 300 yards apart, and the middle of the landing area is slightly elevated so that there’s a feeling of hitting uphill from either direction. The distance allows both areas to be used at the same time. In addition to sun-challenged patrons, local high school and college golf teams use the back, more-secluded area to practice.
Because of the trees surrounding the landing area, there’s no need for netting. The tee line and landing area are angled to the right a bit (though it’s not really visible to the naked eye), so O’Brien doesn’t often have to chase balls into the woods.
“If you slice the ball, it pretty much stays in [on the landing area],” he says, adding that taking the time to hire professionals and plan out such design details is key. “Find people who know what they’re doing, who have done it before,” O’Brien advises. “It’s not like I hired a landscaper to come out here and run some irrigation pipe. I got professionals who all knew what they were doing. I haven’t had the first problem with anything.”
Do-It-Yourself Golf Range
It’s a good thing the balls stay on the landing area, because it’s just O’Brien clearing the range these days, and he says (jokingly) that he can’t afford to hire any more help.
“We spend all our money on baby sitters,” he says, referring to his and Beth’s two young children.
The O’Briens did have several students working part time last fall, but the business hadn’t caught on yet. Next thing, it was winter and there just wasn’t much need for more staff. The O’Briens could handle the traffic, with him usually outside and she, behind the counter. And while Beth isn’t immersed in the game of golf, when she gets golf-related questions she can’t answer, her husband is just a cell phone call away.
“The first few months that we were open, school had just gone back and summer was ending,” says O’Brien. “We were just getting by. But each month has been better than the one before.”
So much so that he’s thinking he might have to hire part-time help this summer.
“There have been days this winter when I could have used some help,” O’Brien says. “Hopefully this summer I’ll have to hire somebody to pick balls and help out, because my club repair and my pro shop will be keeping me busy.”
O’Brien serves up first-class swing analysis and club fitting, combining a computerized Bengston swing analysis program with tee line shots.
“The nice thing is that we can use the swing analyzer here and they hit into a big net and the computer registers everything—swing speed, launch angle, trajectory and all those measurements,” O’Brien says. “Then we go up on the range and hit some more, which only validates the machine. They can see what happens instead of just hitting into a net, and it confirms they’ve got the right club.”
In addition to club fitting, O’Brien specializes in club repair. He completed a two-week program at Golfsmith in Austin, Texas, last year to learn those skills, and that’s a growing part of his business these days.
O’Brien is hoping lessons, too, will be a revenue generator for Deer Creek this summer. The center doesn’t have a full-time golf professional on staff, but through some creative arrangements, O’Brien began marketing golf instruction this season. Jack Smith, a PGA pro from nearby Ware Shoals Golf Course, is scheduled to regularly conduct clinics at Deer Creek beginning this spring. With nothing else open at night in the region, it’s a win-win situation for Smith and for Deer Creek.
“I contacted him first a year and a half ago when we were in the development stages,” says O’Brien. “I contacted a lot of people, but a lot of them were already working and, in some cases, there was a conflict of interest.”
Ware Shoals is 30 miles away from Greenwood so there’s no real conflict in Smith providing private lessons and group clinics at night. O’Brien knows having such offerings is a prime way to attract first-time business, and he thinks once he gets serious golfers to come take a look-see, they’ll be back.
“If they come here and take a group lesson and they’re comfortable, they’ll come back and practice during the week or whenever,” says O’Brien. “They’re going to practice where they take lessons.”
In addition to adult lessons, Smith will offer several junior clinics, and that’s a point of emphasis at Deer Creek. “If we get a kid when he’s 8 years old and we do it right, I’m looking at that kid coming out here for the next 10 years,” says O’Brien. “That’s one of the things I really like about Jack. He’s great with the kids and really cares about teaching the game to them.”
Last fall, before the weather turned cold, a local LPGA pro held a four-hour clinic at Deer Creek, charging $125 per student. The response was good for the first time out, but the O’Briens are still feeling their way through the process of adding a more complete program.
One area in which Deer Creek is ahead of the pack locally is the pro shop. The O’Briens stock a full line of equipment from Nike Golf, Ping, Callaway Golf Co., TaylorMade-adidas Golf, Cleveland Golf, Wilson and Titleist, including a full line of junior products. Customers can demo nearly all of the equipment, another example of the customer-friendly approach the couple prefers.
“The golf courses around here don’t really have a lot of equipment [for sale], and everything else is an hour away,” O’Brien says. “We don’t overprice and we’re competitive with what’s on the Internet, so we’re doing pretty well.”
Deer, But No Creek
Greenwood is a small community of approximately 22,000 people, but O’Brien estimates there are about 60,000 county residents total. Deer Creek is an hour away from Greenville, S.C., and an hour and 10 minutes from Augusta, Ga., “and there’s absolutely nothing in between,” O’Brien says. He thinks the business can really take off this spring because “there’s not much else to do” for many of the area residents.
Some area high school and college golf teams already travel as many as 35 miles one way to use the facility, but the real key to the range’s success is located a lot closer to home. Fuji Photo Film, the Japanese film manufacturer, established its North American headquarters in Greenwood in 1988, across the street from the O’Briens’ property, and employs well over a thousand workers.
Fuji employees come over at lunchtime and after work, and the O’Briens have been so closely involved with every phase of the business that they know their regular customers on sight, or used to anyway.
“We get a lot of return business and we’re getting to the point…I just realized this the other day, where I don’t know everybody who’s coming in,” O’Brien says. “For a long time I did know everyone. Now we’re getting more people and we’re getting them from all over.”
The O’Briens designed the facility to include as many customer touch points as possible. In the clubhouse, everything is channeled through the main counter. Customers purchase tokens there for the ball dispenser, which sits right outside the back door on the way to the tee line. The O’Briens also run a snack bar from that counter, selling hot dogs, chips, candy and drinks. No dispensing machines. That would take away from the personal contact with each customer, O’Brien says.
“We thought that was important and we’re trying to offer everything they might possibly need,” he adds. “We make a buck here, a buck there, and it makes us all-inclusive. If the guys want to come out from Fuji and hit some balls at lunchtime, they don’t have to go somewhere else first.”
Deer Creek is an ideal midday getaway with its natural, green setting. To get to the tee line, customers cross a dry creek bed over a small footbridge. Deer are often spotted on the landing area, and, at night, frogs and crickets are the only noise heard. The facility is located about 2,000 feet off the main road, adding to the seclusive feel. Inviting tables, chairs and benches dot the tee line, too, for folks who want to just sit back and enjoy the surroundings.
“I think as long as you treat people right, they’ll come back,” says O’Brien. “And so far everything’s been great, no complaints…well, wait, someone said our sand [in the practice bunker] was too good. They said they practice here and go play on courses where the sand isn’t as good, and that makes it tough.”
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