What’s next for the Golf Academy facility at Barefoot Resort now that it has been sold
Project Golf has a home.
Golf Tourism Solutions, a technology and marketing agency that promotes the Myrtle Beach market, has purchased the Champions Golf Academy building and 1.73 acres that it sits on at Barefoot Resort’s driving range.
The purchase price is $950,000, according to Golf Tourism Solutions president Bill Golden and Horry County Register of Deeds records.
It will be the headquarters of Project Golf, a GTS nonprofit initiative that aims to promote and grow the game and make it more accessible.
“We feel strongly in all the conversations we’ve had … there is a lot of excitement and interest for what we’re trying to accomplish here for the game of golf, and our model is unique in the sense that we’re agnostic,” Golden said. “We’re not going to be brand-specific, we’re not going to be only under one umbrella.
“We want to be an overall beacon of light for golf, you know. Here’s what golf can do for people, whether it be juniors, adults, veterans, special needs children.”
GTS is funded by its member courses and golf package providers, and the corporate sponsors that will provide revenue for the Project Golf initiative will be announced in the near future, Golden said.
“We’ve had conversations with a half dozen or more entities about sponsoring, participating, helping us fund-raise, in-kind donations to help us create the facility we want to create up there,” he said.
GTS’ plans
The 12,640-square-foot golf academy building includes three hitting bays, a spacious gym, two classrooms, two conference rooms, several offices and storage, and it will be renovated to accommodate what GTS has planned, including a digital media studio.
A driving range and practice area, which GTS plans to enhance, is in front of the building. Outdoor lights are being considered to accommodate night programs.
GTS’ lease on its office building on Oak Street in Myrtle Beach is up next summer, so GTS could also move its offices to that building.
Project Golf has partnered or intends to partner with The First Tee of Coastal Carolinas, PGA HOPE and the Salute Military Golf Association for programs at the academy building.
The First Tee is a youth golf and development organization, and PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) and the Salute Military Golf Association are rehabilitative golf programs for veterans — PGA HOPE is a PGA of America initiative for all veterans and the SMGA is for post 9/11 veterans.
An application has been filed with the PGA to start a PGA HOPE Myrtle Beach chapter. A day to train golf instructors and some Coastal Carolina University PGA Management majors to work with wounded or disabled veterans is scheduled in March, the month Project Golf director Gene Augustine first expects the building to be in use.
“Project Golf is not going to be exclusive to that facility,” Golden said. “We’re not developing a golf academy, but that facility does give us a unique opportunity for disabled veterans, for juniors, for special needs children, clinics and that type of thing given the three bays and unique setup there at the back of the range.”
Project Golf’s first program is “Introduction to Golf,” which was created in the spring and introduces the game to area residents who have never played.
A total of 152 people have completed or are enrolled in the six-session program and their activities are being tracked by Project Golf officials, including how much golf they are playing and what golf-related purchases they’re making. Augustine said 91 percent are still playing golf 2-4 months after going through the program and 53 percent have played five or more rounds.
A subsequent Player Development Program is forthcoming. “We want to eventually get these folks on the golf course and engaged with other instructors in the area and so forth,” Golden said.
Golden said Project Golf plans to start a Myrtle Beach youth golf association in the hopes of increasing junior participation and supporting and bolstering existing programs in the area including The First Tee, PGA Junior League and the South Carolina Junior Golf Association’s Hootie & the Blowfish Summer Chapter Series. Creating more local competitive tournaments is part of the plan.
“We want to have a better on-ramp for junior golf here and have junior golf be able to compete alongside other sports, which are pretty much 12 months,” Golden said. “Every other sport appears to be 12 months or a significant time period, not just a few weeks or a few months a year. We’re building those components now to introduce next year.
“… We’re seeing a decline in junior golf at the high school level. Many of these high schools have challenges fielding boys and girls varsity teams and JV teams, and that can’t happen in Myrtle Beach. It just can’t happen. We want to use the overall institutional knowledge and all the talent we have up and down the beach in terms of instructors and facilities and the access we have.”
In May, GTS expressed an interest in partnering with Horry County to establish Project Golf at the closed former Midway Par 3 facility on U.S. 17 Business near Market Common and Myrtle Beach International Airport.
The airport, which is owned by Horry County, is looking to buy the property from Burroughs & Chapin Co. at the recommendation of the Federal Aviation Administration, which promotes airports purchasing land both in front of and behind runways for “runway protection zones.”
Golden said future use of that facility as an ancillary Project Golf location is still a possibility.
“It’s certainly an opportunity. It’s an ideal location,” Golden said. “The open space, the par-3 golf course areas to hit balls and play 18 or 27 holes, that’s very valuable for an extension of what we’re doing.
“The county is still working out the purchase of that property so we’ve been just kind of waiting for when that wrapped up to see if that was viable for any of our programs. So this doesn’t really replace it at all. We’re in a wait-and-see on that.”
The academy’s future
Jose Fernandez, the managing partner of Champions Golf Academy, said the academy is continuing with two international students this fall semester with lessons from director of instruction Eddie Overstreet at some area courses.
Students are housed at The Farm and attend classes at Risen Christ Christian Academy, and Fernandez said Founders Group International, which operates 22 Grand Strand courses, “has been really helpful and kind to us.”
Fernandez said the academy is down from 11 boarding students this past spring and expects to have four or five this upcoming spring semester, and he is seeking a new base location. “We would love to stay in Myrtle Beach, but if we can’t find anything, we will move to another place in the spring semester,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez was arrested in March and is facing an embezzlement charge related to another project at Barefoot that was partially tied to the academy.
He is accused of embezzling more than $2 million from a Wyndham Gardens resort/hotel project to a personal checking account over three years from 2015-18. The project was to include a classroom building that could house academy students, but it has experienced financial setbacks and delays and construction has not started.
Fernandez said the academy and resort project have common investors from Mexico. He admitted to The Sun News last month that he did move $2 million from the construction account to keep the golf academy afloat.
Fernandez also said last month he planned to pay the academy’s accrued debt and his partners in the academy and hotel project with funds from the sale.
The academy was founded at Long Bay Club around 2007 and moved to Barefoot in 2012 with the name of golf legend Greg Norman, who pulled his name from it in March in the aftermath of Fernandez’s arrest.
This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 8:00 AM.
