One Bay, No Staff, Paid Off in Three Months: Michelle Edgar on Building The Golf Suite
Quick summary· AI-generated
Edgar shares how she built a single-bay simulator facility that paid off in three months using an unmanned 24/7 business model while keeping her day job at a golf club. The piece walks through her background, planning decisions, simulator hardware and software choices, market analysis (Dallas went from one competitor to many in a short timeframe), and practical advice for others considering a similar venture. Key insight: starting lean with one bay and careful expense management made the model sustainable and quickly profitable. The article includes her perspective on what surprised her and what she'd recommend to aspiring simulator facility owners.
Excerpt from Yardstick Golf
Michelle Edgar is a Class A PGA Professional and Director of Instruction at a Dallas club. She also owns The Golf Suite, an unmanned, 24/7 single-bay simulator facility inside a gym and physical therapy space, and she founded Indoor Golf Consulting. Her market went from one competitor to what she describes as one on every block. We asked how she built it, what changed, and what she would tell the next person starting out.
3 mo To pay off the simulator
16′x30′ Single private bay
24/7 Unmanned access
In this Q&A
01Background
02The Decision
03Planning the Business
04Using the Yardstick Golf Materials
05What She Opened
06How It’s Going
07Surprises and Lessons
08Advice for Others
09A Few More
Background
What’s your background before The Golf Suite, as a professional and as a golfer?
I’ve played golf my whole life. I played in college at UT Dallas and became a Class A PGA Professional in 2021. Now I’m a Director of Instruction at a club here in Dallas.
Michelle Edgar, Class A PGA Professional and owner of The Golf Suite.
What first put the idea of opening a golf center in your head?
I grew up practicing at Topgolf because it was the closest driving range to me, and I could practice there when it was cold. Even so, on the coldest days I wished there was somewhere indoors to go.
I started researching around 2021, and at the time there was maybe one other spot in Dallas.
Was the 24-hour club model always the plan?
Yes. I always wanted the 24-hour unmanned model so I could keep my day job at the golf course and not have to be at The Golf Suite all the time.
Had you run a business before?
This was my second LLC and about my third business operating.
The Decision
What moved you from thinking about it to actually doing it?
I got lucky. I had a commercial real estate connection, a friend who owned and operated a physical therapy gym that had some extra space.
What did the Dallas market look like when you started planning?
There was one other membership-only option, about 20 minutes away. The market has since become extremely saturated. There’s about one on every block now.
Planning the Business
Walk us through your planning process. Where did you start?
The Golf Suite is a one-bay facility because I didn’t have any investors and didn’t want a lot of overhead. So I started by calculating how much I would need to charge to cover my expenses and the initial investment in the simulator itself. I paid off the simulator in three months.
How…
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