Game On

Game On

A onetime cell phone company

executive is trying to exorcise golf's 'hollow

promises,' one lesson at a time.

Mark Nixon learned to play golf three years ago in Colorado by taking a series of lessons from GolfTEC, a chain of golf schools that combines video technology with top-flight instruction.

At the time, Nixon thought of golf as a great way to enhance his career with Nextel, where he was a marketing executive. But in the end, he picked up more than some game-changing techniques.

Nixon actually picked up a new career, as he thought so highly of GolfTEC that in 2006 he retired from the cell phone business, moved to the Gulf Coast and bought the Tampa-Sarasota regional franchise rights from suburban Denver-based GolfTEC.

Now growing the business seems to be Nixon's best swing so far: He has opened four stores since 2006, and the combined revenues have grown more than 50% this year, from $1 million in 2007 to $1.6 million this year.

The Tampa stores, which include one in Carrollwood, Clearwater, and Westshore, are running 50% ahead of the national chain's projections, while the lone Sarasota market store, in Lakewood Ranch, is 40% ahead of projections. Nixon's stores also recently cleaned up at GolfTEC's annual franchise meeting, where it won 12 awards, including four for outstanding instructors.

It's a strong play in a sport that has been losing some of the gains in popularity it picked up earlier this decade. Golf courses up and down the Gulf Coast, both public and private, are struggling to find their place in the suffering leisure marketplace.

Nixon, 54, credits GolfTEC's combination of mixing one-on-one lessons with proprietary video technology software, on which it holds 14 patents, as the source of his growth. The process is key in a sport like golf, which is "an industry full of hollow promises," Nixon says, citing the so-called techniques that can supposedly add 20 yards to a drive or take two strokes of a total score.

"If you come in here it's not a question of if you're going to get better," says Nixon, delivering one of his own promises. "It's a question of how good you want to be."

Joe Assell and Mike Clinton, two PGA teaching pros, founded GolfTEC in 1995 in Denver and the franchise has since grown to 136 stores nationwide. It opened 35 stores this year and is planning to open another 15 in 2009.

While using video of swings to go over finer points later has been around for decades, GolfTEC is one of the first businesses to make a national franchise out of the concept.

And Nixon sees first-hand how valuable the video part can be, from a game improvement standpoint and from a marketing tool. Clients can even see slow-motion videos of their swings matched up against videos of golf stars, a humbling experience for even the best executive-turned-golfer out there.

"For people that haven't seen their swing on video, it's a real 'a-ha' moment," Nixon says. "It's pretty powerful.

- Mark Gordon