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For those looking to improve their golf game, there soon will be a place opening up around the clock in a Memphis suburb.
Swing 365 golf is a membership-based 24/7/365 indoor golf facility featuring private, app-accessible suites with high-tech full-swing simulators. Franchisee owner Erik Bird is starting a Swing 365 golf Collierville location at 10210 Collierville Road, Suite 103.
Bird believes Swing 365 golf will be in a good retail location that includes being nearby Carriage Crossing Mall. Aaron Gadiel is the vice president of tenant relations for Edwards Realty Co. The company partnered with Chicago-based property management firm Core Acquisitions to purchase Carriage Crossing in March 2023. Gadiel is excited to see more retail activity in the area.
“It’s great to see a place like this that is an experimental concept bringing people in because it’s not like a restaurant,” Gadiel said. “We have plenty of those and it’s also not just like a normal store where people show up, do their thing and leave. The idea could be maybe do that and then they come to us and hopefully shop at our stores.”
Bird explained Swing 365 golf is similar to Topgolf with the virtual golf simulators. With it being membership based, people pay $150 a month that Bird said gives them full access to the business.
“The way the business works if a person signs up for a membership, you would go on our Swing 365 app and pick out a tee time when you wanted to go play golf,” Bird said….. “That same app will unlock the front door five minutes before your tee time.”
Bird stated at Swing 365 golf that members can play more than 200 golf courses on the virtual simulator.
“You can also set up the simulator, so that it’s like an open driving range,” Bird said. “You can also set the screen up like Topgolf where you’re hitting a bunch of targets and it’s sort of like an arcade games style type of thing.”
The retail space will have two 20-by-30 feet private rooms and each of those rooms will have a full-swing simulator in them along with a couch and tables. However, there are no employees or bar and food being served at the venue.
“The space allows people to bring friends if they want to as well as their own food,” Bird said. “There’s TVs in each room if you want to watch Monday Night Football or whatever you want to do, while you’re kind of just playing a round of golf. I know some of the members kind of treat it like a workout.”
What made Swing 365 golf want to come to Collierville
Bird said the Omaha, Nebraska-based indoor golf facility — which was founded by CEO Brad Garrett in 2022 — has about 20 franchise locations mostly in the Midwest including Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan and Missouri.
Bird — who still lives in Omaha — said Garrett is a friend of his who was looking for opportunities to expand Swing 365. Bird stated he had a lot of experience in business and specifically in healthy food industry. However, Bird always wanted to be in the golf industry.
“It’s a fast growing industry and it seemed like a great investment as kind of a passive income type of thing,” Bird said.
Bird said that while he will be running the Collierville location remotely, there will be a person managing the Collierville facility. While Bird didn’t have a definite timeline he anticipates the Swing 365 facility in Collierville opening in late December or early January.
He is confident that the concept can be successful in Collierville.
“There’s a lot of golf courses down there and the neighborhoods (in Collierville) all look like a golfer type of area,” Bird said. “I went to the FedEx St. Jude Championship at (TPC) Southwind and that was a great experience. We think this could be really good location.”
Bird also think there could be other opportunities down the road to open more locations in the Memphis area and in Tennessee.
“We hope in the Memphis area to maybe open three locations, including Germantown that sounds pretty good and maybe somewhere in Downtown Memphis,” Bird said. “We’ll hopefully go out to Nashville at some point, but it’s just really expensive right now. At some point, down the line maybe there’s 10 of them in Tennessee.”
Corey Davis is the Collierville and Germantown reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Corey.Davis@commercialappeal.com or 901-293-1610.
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