UNION — The owners at Legends Golf Center, LLC were busy this fall upgrading the facility and adding new equipment to give golfers plenty of chances to work on their swing during the long, cold winter months. Work has finished on the renovation of four of Legends’ nine covered outdoor tees to fully enclose and […]
UNION — The owners at Legends Golf Center, LLC were busy this fall upgrading the facility and adding new equipment to give golfers plenty of chances to work on their swing during the long, cold winter months.
Work has finished on the renovation of four of Legends’ nine covered outdoor tees to fully enclose and heat them, co-owner Jeffrey L’Amoreaux says. Legends has a total of 25 outdoor hitting areas, he says, but just the four will be totally enclosed and heated via 60,000 BTU heaters.
“Four seemed like kind of a good number, based on what we saw last year,” he says. L’Amoreaux and his partners — Martin Klein, Randy White, and A.J. Majewski — bought Legends (www.thelegendsgolfcenter.com) in April 2010, so last winter was their first winter operating the golf center. While the outdoor tee areas are popular, L’Amoreaux says, there are only so many people willing to swing a club outside in 10-degree weather in February. The new enclosed tees should be more than adequate to accommodate those golfers, he says.
Legends has also partnered with the Youth Golf Association in Binghamton to offer a 12-week junior training program from January through March. The package includes weekly training of about 45 to 50 minutes, followed by playing nine holes on one of Legends’ golf simulators for youth between the age of 6 and 12.
“It just seemed like a good partnership,” L’Amoreaux says. It gives young golfers the opportunity to improve their game and gets them ready to join one of Legends’ leagues when they get older.
Legends currently has 45 teams that play in its league — up from 21 teams last year — including 11 members ages 13 through 16, L’Amoreaux notes.
“That’s going pretty well,” he says of the leagues. The league is a popular choice, he says, because members of each team can golf their round on the simulators whenever it is convenient for them, which means they don’t all have to be there at the same time and Legends enjoys a steady stream of golfers throughout the week, he says.
And those golfers stopping by can enjoy playing on Legends’ newest simulator. The Full Swing model uses the same software company as the TruGolf simulator already available at the facility. And, both simulators offer 29 of the same courses to play, L’Amoreaux explains. The new simulator has already been so popular, he says, that he and his partners are thinking about replacing the TruGolf with a Full Swing at some point in the near future. The fee for using either simulator is $30 for an hour of play.
When golfers aren’t using one of the simulators, they can relax in the new lounge area at Legends and stay warm thanks to a new natural-gas furnace, L’Amoreaux says. The result is a facility that is more comfortable and feels a little homier, he adds.
Legends hired Elliott Construction from the town of Maine to do all the heating and carpentry work at the facility and spent about $50,000 on the upgrades, L’Amoreaux says.
The result, he hopes, is a more enjoyable experience for golfers at Legends, who hopefully spread the word to their friends. He declined to disclose revenue figures.
Legends Golf Center, located at 130 Dimmock Hill Road, is located on 20 acres and also features an open-air driving range, professional golf lessons, golf-equipment sales and repairs, golf camps and clinics, and a mini-golf course.