Perfect your golf swing with the new owners of the Golf Learning Center
Courtesy / Golf Learning Center
The driving range at the Golf Learning Center & Paddy's Pro Shop in Cumberland.
CUMBERLAND — It took five years, but golf pro Patrick “Paddy” Badcock and his wife Susan were finally able to buy the Golf Learning Center, a driving range established in 1997.
The driving range, which was started by John and Elaine Godsoe and is at 147 Bruce Hill Road, comprises 26,000-square-feet of grass tees, a teaching tee, a short game area and a clubhouse with a full pro shop. The business offers memberships, lessons, schools, clinics, equipment, accessories, grip installation, custom fitting and club repair. A clubhouse serves snacks, beer and wine.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The sale closed March 11 and the center, now known as the Golf Learning Center & Paddy’s Pro Shop, reopened for the season on March 26.
The Godsoes ran the Golf Learning Center from 1997 to the end of 2008. During the recession, it was closed for a couple years. They tried to sell it before reopening in 2011, when the Badcocks took over day-to-day management, leasing the property.
“Even though we weren’t in the position in 2011 to buy it, I knew Elaine because I used to buy their golf balls for my driving range at the Brunswick Golf Club, where I was the pro for eight years,” Paddy Badcock told Mainebiz. “Susan and I had moved to Cumberland and we noticed there was a ‘for sale’ sign here. I called Elaine and asked her if she was interested in leasing it to us, with the possibility of buying it down the road. And we got to that point this year. So it was a long road, but well worth it.”
The center isn’t a golf course, but it’s far better than a standard driving range, said Badcock.
It has a fully automated golf ball dispenser. It has natural grass, as opposed to synthetic turf. And the center uses Srixon brand range balls, which Badcock said are the high-quality type for this application. There’s a custom club-fitting service. Clients can fine-tune their swings either outdoors or in the indoor hitting bay in front of a video analysis system.
Membership has grown by 10% per year since the Badcocks began managing the center in 2011, to nearly 100 members now, he said.
Badcock, a Class ‘A’ PGA Professional, grew up in Devon, England, and started playing golf at age 7. Inspired by the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline, Mass., he moved to the United States a year later.
For two years, he was the head teaching professional in Casco at the Point Sebago Resort, which has an 18-hole championship golf course. He went on to work for a couple of years at the Sable Oaks Golf Club in South Portland, then served eight years as general manager of the Brunswick Golf Club.
He always wanted to own his own business. So he and his wife scrapped together enough money for a 25% down payment.
Most of the rest of the financing came from Machias Savings Bank, supplemented by a bridge loan from the Community Concepts Finance Corp.
Zachary Maher, a Community Concepts loan officer, said he and the buyers connected their mutual relationship with Matt Vieth at Machias Savings Bank.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do it without both” institutions, Badcock said.
Although he doesn’t have a formal work plan in place, Badcock said improvements to the facility are on the horizon.
“We’re going to keep on improving the quality of the teeing areas, improve the target greens and add a putting green,” he said. “The building needs little bit of repair, so we hope to refurbish the clubhouse. And we have all kinds of ideas of what to do to supplement the range, maybe with activities in the winter.”
Badcock supplements his seasonal income from the center with a winter snowplowing business.
After some slow years during the recession, activity is pretty much nonstop now, both weekends and weekdays.
“There are a lot of golfers in southern Maine and a lot of beginner golfers looking for a place that’s not quite as intimidating as a course can be sometimes,” Badcock said. “A golf course can be bit intimidating for a first-timer. We don’t have that stigma.”
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