By Dave Droschak
The Golf Academy at Salem Glen will launch the first week of March, offering a first-class golf instruction experience at the club located in Clemmons.
The new golf academy at the Triad’s only Nicklaus Design course will be headed by veteran pro Jimmy McMullen, who was named the 2003 Florida Heartlands Golf Professional of the Year and came to Salem Glen in 2015 as part of his 30 years in the golf industry.
McMullen will be stepping out of the pro shop as the club’s full-time director of instruction.
“Jimmy loves being outside on the range, just helping people get better at the game,” said Salem Glen general manager Darren Mangus. “So, when we started thinking about what we could do in 2017 to make Salem Glen stand out even more and make us different, Jimmy and the academy were a perfect fit because of his passion for teaching. It’s the next phase of Jimmy’s professional career and something he had been thinking about anyway.”
Each student at the academy will have lessons videoed with new state-of-the-art equipment and then emailed, while an additional area has been created where McMullen will review lessons with students on a big TV screen, talking through improvement opportunities and outlining a detailed practice strategy.
“We were trying to figure out what we could do that would make us different from the local competition,” Mangus said. “There are a couple of golf academies in Greensboro and we looked around Winston-Salem and there really wasn’t anywhere you could go and get academy-type of instruction. There are plenty of places you can go get a golf lessons from golf professionals but not an academy.”
The academy will launch with lesson packages and then eventually expand into 1-, 2- and 3-day schools,” Mangus said.
“We hope it will grow to where people come in for a true experience because we have the facilities to do that with our locker rooms, showers, food, etc.,” Mangus said. “And we’re going to create programs for juniors and ladies, too. We’re trying to target everybody out there who wants to get better at the game of golf.”
In addition to the new golf academy, Salem Glen will unveil a new fleet of carts in April.
“The golf academy will kind of set us apart and we’re super excited about growing our business model,” Mangus said.
