The weather is always perfect to play golf at Swing Loose in Bell Works

Posted by Admin October 16, 2024 Golf

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Seven-minute read

Susan Bloom
| Special to the Asbury Park Press

HOLMDEL – Growing up in Bridgewater and Ocean Township, respectively, college friends Pete Myers and James Fiore were both athletes who played multiple sports.

And while they each enjoyed successful decades-long careers in the financial sector after graduating, the entrepreneurial duo reunited over their shared love of golf by launching Swing Loose Indoor Golf, a Holmdel-based indoor golf experience and outdoor practice range that opened in February 2020.

“As a kid, I played football from sixth through 12th grade and also played tennis,” said Myers, 53, an East Brunswick resident.

Similarly, “I played football, baseball and hockey all through high school,” said Fiore, 52, a Colts Neck resident.

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The two first met when they joined the same fraternity at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania, where Myers graduated with a degree in accountancy and Fiore graduated with a degree in business administration and finance.

After starting his career at Ernst & Young in New York City, Myers secured his CPA and worked for various hedge fund firms over the next quarter-century; Fiore started out working for Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch on the retail brokerage side, then traded and supervised operations on the New York Stock Exchange floor for two other companies over the next 25 years.

“We had the same group of friends in college, and since our jobs were both based in New York City after graduation, we shared an apartment in the city for a while too,” Fiore recalled of he and Myers, who continued to stay in touch as they each got married and raised families.

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Looking to change their lives

Eventually, however, both found themselves ready for a career change.

“Working long hours under constant time pressure, I’d become miserable in my accounting job,” Myers said. “But in 2009, a gym with two golf simulators opened around the corner from my company. The technology was fantastic, you could film yourself swinging, and they offered lessons. I’d go hit golf balls in the morning before work and loved the whole experience and vibe of the place.”

With the wheels in his head turning, “I created an LLC in 2015, got a golf simulator in my garage, and started playing around with the idea of starting my own indoor golf facility,” Myers said. “I loved that I could play 18 holes in 40 minutes and that I felt like I was outside.”

“Knowing that the harder you grip the golf club, the worse you play, I came up with our company name and tagline, ‘Swing Loose, Swing Often,’ in 2015,” said Myers, whose wife Michele witnessed his growing frustration at his accounting job.

“With Michele’s full support, I reached out to James in 2018/2019 about becoming partners in a business,” Myers said. “We’d stayed in touch over the years, both of us played golf, and our families got together from time to time. I wanted to do business with someone I knew well and trusted and who was on the same page.”

“Pete reached out to me at a perfect time in my career because I was looking for an alternative to what I was doing,” Fiore confirmed. “This was an exciting opportunity and Pete sold me on it.”

The duo secured an ideal 4,300-square-foot space at Bell Works in Holmdel, where they launched Swing Loose Indoor Golf in February 2020 and added a 32-mat outdoor golf range in August 2022.

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Hyper-realistic technology

Today, “our indoor facility has nine bays equipped with popular TrackMan technology, which is very feature-rich, user-friendly, gives instant feedback and offers everything we were looking for in a golf simulator,” Fiore said. “It helps you improve your golf swing by breaking it down into a ton of data points with video and identifying deficiencies. Thanks to TrackMan’s outstanding graphics with hyper-realistic accuracy, anyone who walks in here — from a beginner to an advanced golfer — can enjoy playing any of the 300 courses in our database, practicing their putting or any of their strokes, or playing games for kids,” he said.

“Guests can also experience some of the world’s most iconic golf courses which they may otherwise never get to play in person, such as Pebble Beach in California, Pinehurst in North Carolina, PGA National in Florida, Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, St. Andrews in Scotland, and even more local courses like Liberty National in Bayonne,” said Fiore, who noted that TrackMan continues to add three to five new courses to its database every month.

According to Myers, Swing Loose offers private and communal bays as well as pricing plans for both members and nonmembers.

“For nonmembers, the fee is a total of $69 per hour to rent a bay for up to four people,” said Myers, who noted that it typically takes three to four hours for a foursome to play 18 holes, depending on their skill level. “Members pay $119 a month, which includes three hours of play time, and every hour beyond that is charged at the reduced rate; members can also bank their time and roll over up to 24 hours on their account.”

“In addition to our golf simulators, we also have a multisport simulator, which is great for parties, corporate outings and more,” Myers continued. “You can hit a baseball into the screen, a hockey puck into the net, or play games like bowling or zombie dodgeball.”

In terms of refreshments, he added, “we’re a BYOB facility and offer light snacks, but there are several eateries conveniently located right down the hall here at Bell Works.”

Among industry trends, Myers said that indoor golf continues to gain more followers every year — especially younger players, who are especially tech- and video game-savvy. And locally, “we’ve noticed that during the winter months, our guests opt to play more courses in warm-weather places like Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, and southern states like Georgia — perhaps due to wishful thinking!” he said.

As for challenges, Myers said a handful of other indoor golf providers have opened in Monmouth County in the last few years, increasing competition in the area, and that the seasonality of the business, which ramps up in the winter and slows down in the summer, requires the partners to engage in cash planning.

While starting an indoor golf business at the beginning of the pandemic definitely added a new layer of stress to their startup, “we stayed positive in our belief that golf would always be popular, and we’ve been able to flourish thanks to people who love golf and the continued expansion and draw of the Bell Works property,” Fiore said.

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‘High-energy environment’

Looking ahead, Myers and Fiore hope to add a food and/or alcohol component to their service offering and expand to other locations. But they’ll always remain dedicated to the customer-first nature of their venture.

“We’re a concierge business where customer service is paramount,” explained Fiore, who oversees day-to-day operations such as memberships, event planning, promotions and more.

Supported by a team of three golf instructors and 25 employees, “we offer a fun, family-friendly, high-energy environment where there’s always music playing, there’s a great vibe, and we’re here to help and answer any questions.”

“We’re especially busy on the weekends and people get excited when someone hits a great shot,” said Myers, who handles the company’s financial and strategic planning functions and whose wife Michele provides tremendous support to the team by serving as Swing Loose’s “chief people officer.”

“It’s fun to sit at the front desk and hear people cheering!” Myers said. “It’s a lively and social atmosphere here and the feeling is contagious throughout the whole facility.”

As for his favorite part of his job, “I love the action of our business and all of the great relationships we’ve built with customers, many of whom have become friends,” Fiore said. “You never know who you’re going to meet here, and I enjoy hanging out, having great conversations, and sharing stories,” he said.

For Myers, the opportunity to create a memorable experience for others — much like the one that first drew him in 15 years ago — is endlessly rewarding.

“Ultimately,” Myers said, “it’s wonderful to see people having a great time.”

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