The Oaks Golf Range Refurbishment

In the early 80’s, the late Geoff Horley was the club professional, but a man more astute than most in the ways of the business of golf and far ahead of his time. He could see that adding a 16 bay covered floodlit golf range would add considerably to the centre and produce a good income. So, with the financial help of a local businessman, they built the range. In those days, range building technology was fairly basic, and the statement that the range was no more than a cow shed in a field was possibly being a little derogatory to farm outbuildings. But these were the days when we were just starting to win Ryder Cups, the only web browser was an inquisitive spider, and business boomed. At that time also, Jon Woodroffe was leading a team of 7 PGA professionals operating dozens of beginners’ group classes and getting hordes of new people into the game of golf, so all was well in the world.
Over the years, many new and more modern competitors came onto the scene: Horton Park in Epsom, Pachesham in Leatherhead and then the behemoth that is World of Golf New Malden, all eating into the trade of The Oaks.  During this period there was a singular lack of investment in the facilities, all leading to the range at The Oaks falling off the radar for many years.
But this year a major refurbishment has taken place, with the financial results having been remarkable in what is a difficult climate. In April, The Oaks fitted 13 of the bays with the latest PowerTee technology, and European Golf Machinery fitted a new ball dispensing machine and ball collecting equipment, finally meaning that the completely by hand method that has been in place for 34 years ended, and a Kawasaki mule was introduced. 
The bay dividers had always been made of wood, allowing every other customer in the range to know when an errant, novice golfer was in the building, so these were replaced with netting from Range Solutions. A channel was dug at the front of the bays and filled with gravel to discourage encroachment onto the range by customers either seeking to continue their practice beyond their paid for quota of balls or to retrieve a shot they had rather not done.
The back wall of the range was in a poor state, the wood slats not only looked unsightly, but the gaps in between allowed the elements to whip through the range interior. All in all the range had been left in a time warp, but now with the back wall fitted with OSB board and painted white, advertising frames put up to break up the wall, and a new lick of paint all over, this old timer was getting a new lease of life and for a very small cost. And the results have been quite dramatic.
Director of Golf Jon Woodroffe told Golf Features: “The new look range has been a huge success with the customers and with the bank manager. This long overdue investment has excited the clientele, who are so pleased to see the range being returned to a modern facility, making them think twice about travelling further to get to another range. Over the years there have been some big hitting golf ranges built in this area - in particular the World of Golf in New Malden, which is Europe’s busiest and arguably best range. The gap between the two sites is around 25 minutes in normal traffic and what was happening was people living 5 minutes from The Oaks would travel 20 minutes to get to New Malden as the product was so much better. 
“My aim with the refurbishment at The Oaks was if we could get those people that live within 5 to 10 minutes of The Oaks to now have a good enough facility to warrant coming to, rather than tracking the extra miles in London traffic to get to another range, then that band of customers would be plenty enough for us to have a major increase in business. We are never going to attract business from Horton Park or World of Golf if the distance between us and them for the customer is similar: those ranges are bigger and more sophisticated, but we just need to keep our own catchment area, and that is so far what seems to have happened.
“With the improvements in the facilities, and particularly the flexibility that the European Golf Machinery ball dispensers gave us, we could have a long overdue price increase, but by offering a range card with discounts, the really regular customers would see a very small increase relative to the upgrading of the product. The Oaks is still, by some way, the cheapest golf range in the area, but it was important for us not to make too large a jump and frighten the customers away, and in the end we may have been a tad too cautious.
“The bottom line is that consistently week on week, for the 5 months we have had the new range, we have been 65% up year on year. That figure sometimes is so consistent that I think we have made some accounting error - it hardly ever varies. My concern with the PowerTee was as an eminent range operator described to me, the “Wow, followed by whatever” effect. In other words, the initial increase in business by upgrading is fairly quickly followed by an apathy that causes the business to drop - so far we have not experienced that, although I am not resting on our laurels. I have started a programme of offering 4 week long free beginners’ group lessons which have been very popular. 
“The range has benefited to the tune of an extra 75,000 balls on the lessons alone in the first 5 months, not counting those people coming to practise in between lessons. And with a 9 hole par 3 course, I then arrange follow on ‘Improvers’ classes that are, weather permitting, conducted on the course to help those bashful beginners take their first faltering steps into the game with my arm securely round their shoulder for comfort. 
“I would like to say a huge thank you to the companies that have helped us with the refurbishment - they were very professional and helpful. I also particularly want to thank the greenkeeping staff at The Oaks and the ball collecting team, as these guys got so much of the grunt work done in the early days to get us off the ground and are always on hand and happy to help with anything that needs to be done.” 
 
It is good to hear a success story in a year where we were battered by a poor June weather wise - meaning the season got going so late - then the football championships and then the Olympics giving customers a reason not to pick their golf clubs up. Now as we head towards the close of the season, there is a former leading light of the golf boom in the South of London that is making a comeback. I am sure the late Geoff Horley would be proud looking down on what he created being brought back to life.