TGL, which is heading into its second season, provided an entertainment factor to see the likes of founders Tiger Woods (Bridgestone TOUR B X) and Rory McIlroy (TaylorMade TP5) and other PGA stars playing SIM Golf, which is evolving as an experience. 

SIM Golf has long provided recreational golfers and, to a certain extent, pros a chance to work on their games and their equipment. 

Stores that retail golf equipment often feature SIM Golf bays. But there are also companies that feature year-round self-serve SIM Golf facilities. 

This is the time of year when SIM Golf has become a practical option for golfers who can’t play outdoors because courses are shut down for the season. 

I had the chance to speak to social media star Zac Bell, a former junior hockey player whose dreams of playing professionally ended because of head injuries, about his SIM Golf business called The Clubhouse. It’s a 5,500 square-foot bar and Golf SIM facility that he and two longtime friends, Jordan Burnett and Matthew Sarchuk, opened earlier this year in Orillia. It is about a 90-minute drive north of Toronto and has a limited golf season. Zac and his partners had financial backing from their family members and goodwill from local community to help build the bar in a vacant building. 

He said they considered various names for the business and thought The Clubhouse would resonate with golfers and also appeal in a social way to people who aren’t golfers but are looking for a place to have a drink and watch televised sports. 

“It just kind of felt right when we were all brainstorming together and we ran with the name and have never looked back,” Zac told me. “We have a lot of people who love our vibe and the atmosphere and have never golfed and are regulars now. It’s been really good.” 

Bell is nicknamed The Hockey Jedi because of trick shots he performs under the social media name Always Hockey. I have known Zac for a long time and have written about him, but we hadn’t talked in some time. I decided to reach out to him to talk to him about SIM Golf and his business. 

“As far as experience, we just kind of leaned on sort of what we built in the business space with Always Hockey,” Zac said. 

Essentially it is a marriage of Zac’s brand and SIM Golf that is expanding through Woods and McIlroy’s TGL, which is headed into its second season. Zac said SIM Golf has grown as a sport, in particular in countries which do not have year-round outdoor golf. 

“A lot of people really got excited when the PGL came out and they promoted it well and everyone was watching,” he said. “It really opened a lot of people’s ideas to what SIM Golf really is and what it could be. That helped us as well, obviously, since golf has really exploded in Canada post COVID. That’s kind of where we were coming in with this. We think it’s really good time for us to start this up, too.” 

Zac told me he and Burnett visited SIM Golf facilities, especially in the U.S., and that provided them with ideas to create a multi-verse event and social space. So in addition to providing customers with a means to golf indoors in the off-season, they have created trivia nights, karaoke nights, bingo, live music and other ways to drive customer traffic. There are also plans for SIM Golf leagues and instruction from a PGA Tour professional. 

There are four bays in each corner and a practice simulator. The latest Trackman iO technology is being used, simulating 350-plus PGA courses. 

“It’s the best tech on the market,” Zac said. “When we’re on the road it’s everywhere we go and so busy and it’s something we never really had here. We want to grow and build in the community. There’s a lot of crossover between hockey and golf.”     

Hockey and golf have always had a tie-in because the seasons work well together, along with similar motions used in hitting the ball or a puck. 

“I know a lot of hockey players who are quitting to play golf,” he said. 

He said he and his partners haven’t done too much mainstream marketing aside from reels and skits done at The Clubhouse and posted to the site and Facebook. He said a lot of people who follow him on Always Hockey want to come to The Clubhouse. 

“They are very curious what the experience looks like essentially,” he said. “It’s been really good that we’ve had a lot of really good feedback. The one thing we see is people coming back. It’s been a lot of recurring bookings.”