Teaching professional Timothy Hendry, left, helps Andrea Memo with her swing during a golf lesson at GolfTEC, 8480 W. Desert Inn Road, Suite F-2. The golf instruction facility is set up to analyze a golfer?s swing with motion sensors and a computer, and then compares it to that of a PGA Tour player to improve play.
PHOTOS BY Louie Traub/ViewTimothy Hendry sinks a putt in the lobby of GolfTEC. The chain has 100 stores across the country and in June opened the first of several locations planned in the Las Vegas Valley.
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Getting a golf lesson will never be the same again.
GolfTEC is now in Las Vegas. The Denver-based chain of advanced technology instruction facilities opened its first of several planned Las Vegas locations at 8480 W. Desert Inn Road, Suite F-2, in June.
GolfTEC was founded in 1995 and has more than 100 stores across the country. The company has been franchising actively in the past four years, leading to strong growth and exposure. GolfTEC has given approximately 1 million lessons.
Since Las Vegas is considered one of the country's golf meccas, it might seem like the company would have been established here already. But chief operating officer and co-founder Michael Clinton said GolfTEC looks for the right team before the right market when it comes to franchising opportunities.
"We needed to find the right way to introduce ourselves here," Clinton said. "Las Vegas is definitely a great place for us to be, we just needed to find the right people."
The company puts a premium on experienced instructors, and longtime instructor Jeff Jones, who spent time managing the course at Wynn Las Vegas, is the store manager and director of instruction at the first Las Vegas store.
"This is the best instruction I've ever been a part of," Jones said. "Now that I have worked using this technology, I wouldn't do it any other way."
"Ultimately our goal is to help people play better," Clinton said. "We can use the technology to speed that process up, but we need the best instructors to help our clients apply that improvement."
Technology is the wow factor at GolfTEC.
During a typical lesson, a student wears a small, comfortable harness that measures key movements throughout the golf swing. These statistics are processed by the GolfTEC computer software and additionally analyzed by the instructor in an effort to correct flaws in the swing and create proper form. In fact, each movement is compared to similar numbers from a database of 150 professional tour golfers, giving a top-flight frame of reference.
The motion sensors aren't the only fun part of the lesson. The student's golf swing is filmed so the instructor can point out strengths and weaknesses during the instruction process, and one can even see a video comparison between his swing and Tiger Woods, for example.
"People tell us all the time that they learned more from their first GolfTEC lesson than all the other lessons they've ever received," said Ron Memo, owner of the Las Vegas store.
Students also can follow up their lessons online, picking up additional notes and drills to practice through their personal log-in at the GolfTEC Web site, www.golftec.com.
The biggest difference in the technology-enhanced instruction is simply that the computers can pick up on things that even the most observant golf teacher might miss.
"Our instructors are great. We'll do over 1,500 lessons in a year, where your average country club pro might do 100," Memo said. "But that's because we can accomplish more in a half-hour lesson than you can in an ordinary hour because of the technology."
In addition to the lessons, which come in a variety of packages, GolfTEC also offers custom club fitting and can provide various corporate event services.
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