Jacksonville-Based Power Tee Still Innovating the Driving Range Experience After 28 Years
As Power Tee celebrates its 28th anniversary, the world’s best performing automatic teeing system based in Jacksonville, Florida, continues to make serious impact with revenue-driving technology for driving ranges, country clubs and indoor golf environments.
In nearly three decades in business, the numbers continue to stagger.
Power Tee has clients based in 22 different states, including at 14 different facilities in Florida. It’s now in its 20th year with St. Andrews. Power Tee has been at the famed Belfry in England for 19 years. Celtic Manor, host of the 2010 Ryder Cup in Wales, remains a strong advocate for the brand’s technology at its state-of-the-art golf academy. There is a Power Tee presence at 80 percent of the more serious practice facilities in the United Kingdom. Power Tee can now be found at several driving ranges in Japan and the entertainment focused Rippit Golf Facility in New South Wales recently became the first property in Australia to install Power Tee.
Power Tee is offered to golf facilities on a monthly rental, removing the requirement for up front capital investment. The renewal rate for facilities keeping the technology at the end of a rental period remains over 90 percent, with a number of ranges who removed Power Tee at the end of their lease during the recession quickly realizing they miss the additional revenue and subsequently reinstalling.
“If you feel like you’ve made a bad decision, you’re not going to repeat it,” said Power Tee founder and CEO, Martin Wyeth. “Once operators experience having a tee line that isn’t chewed to bits by noon and looks beautiful all day while providing golfers perfect lie conditions on every shot, they know they have a keeper. Add to that the Power Tee users hit more balls, practice more regularly and get into their hitting groove more easily. More balls in the air per hour allows the facility to earn more revenue from each range station.”
The golf practice experience has been redefined over the past decade and Power Tee has been a vital solution to that evolution. “Driving ranges have changed conceptually in recent years with gamified technology that displays the golfers’ shot data (from launch monitor technology) on a video screen and Power Tee is a vital component of that fun-paced hitting experience because it makes everything seamless,” Wyeth adds. “With Power Tee you can have your range open and available to customers from sun-up and into the night if you want because the conditions don’t degrade over the course of the day like they do at natural grass ranges.”
Indeed, the benefits are plentiful.
Having Power Tee solves most agronomic and aesthetic issues related to golfers hitting off butchered grass and uneven playing surfaces, something the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan were steadfastly against, very frequently choosing to practice off of tees. Power Tee elevates the hitting and game improvement experience. Data shows that golfers purchase more food and beverage when using the mats; hitting off a Power Tee reduces the risk of injuries and lessens the jarring of joints; the golfer is able to hit more balls during a session because of the automatic teeing option, which in return means that the facility can earn more money.
Research has shown that golfers are happy to pay a minimum of 1 penny extra per ball hit using Power Tee, with many operators yielding up to 5 cents per ball more. To have Power Tee on your driving range means more activity, a more polished look throughout the day and more revenue during parts of the day when most ranges see a dip in usage.
“The mats we use on every Power Tee are phenomenal,” Wyeth said. “You can hit thousands of balls off them without any attrition. Under our lease model, those mats get replaced regularly so you never have an awful surface to hit off.”
While there are many success stories throughout the United States, some of the biggest remain closest to home. Renowned instructor Rick Smith – who has worked with Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, David Duval and Greg Norman, among others – is a big proponent of the brand and uses it at his Golf Performance Center at Trump Doral in Miami. Tee It Up Driving Range outside Orlando has 26 machines at its facility, starting initially with just 10 Power Tees and adding more each year as they saw their business grow, and has seen its business flourish post-COVID.
Power Tee has completed its first municipal installation in Maryland where the city is bringing all of the practice and ADA benefits to Easton.
“The driving range today is more about fun and people coming out in groups to enjoy hitting balls socially in a gamified, response-oriented fashion. You still see serious grinders coming out to get better, but the social aspect has been a game changer with the clientele getting younger, more diverse, more women and they really enjoy what Power Tee brings to the range experience,” says Tee It Up Owner Nick Franze. “People hit balls 30 to 60 percent faster with Power Tee and they enjoy the process of having the balls teed up automatically. Paired with Toptracer, Power Tee gives our customers immediate feedback on every shot, which they love. They get hooked on the process of instant gratification and we enjoy having better, happier customers.”
In their own hometown, Blue Sky Golf Club and Fleming Island Golf Club, two of the premier public golf courses in the Greater Jacksonville area, have had great success with Power Tee. Blue Sky is managed by Hampton Golf, which is run by former PGA of America president M.G. Orender and Fleming Island is run by former tour player, Charles Raulerson.
“We’ve had about a 20 percent increase in participation since we put in the Power Tee system. We now have more families and parties really enjoying the ease of having the Toptracer and Power Tee working together. It’s been a great success for Fleming Island,” said Fleming Island Golf Club Owner Charles Raulerson. “We have so many repeat customers as a result of putting in Power Tee that we changed our pricing, and this has been highly successful. I think any range owner that has an opportunity to discuss putting in Power Tee, it would be well worth their while to put it in because it brings repeat customers.”
One of Wyeth’s biggest advocates lives underneath his own roof at his Ponte Vedra Beach home. Son Max, a 14-year-old standout who is in middle school, rarely hits off grass while practicing and has found that using the Power Tee has really allowed him to practice more efficiently. At 14 years old, Max shot his first even par 9 in competition and regularly drives the ball 300 yards.
“He’s winning a vast majority of the competitions he’s involved in,” Wyeth said. “Everything is perfect every time you swing the club, your confidence grows really quickly as you practice and that leads to you practicing at your maximum tempo.”
Wyeth has built a custom indoor practice area for Max and the family at their home with a simulator and screen. If Max wants to hit shots outside, he’ll often head to the aforementioned Blue Sky or Fleming Island, both of which are within a 20-minute drive.
There is still much work left to be done for the innovative brand. Flush with 35 full-time employees, they continue to search for top talent and are aggressively looking to hire sales and marketing associates willing to roll up their respective sleeves and help continue to grow the company. While Power Tee is currently available for home use, they are developing a better machine for indoors that will work for anybody who has the available space. And getting Power Tee into higher end country clubs continues to be a major area of focus.
“I absolutely guarantee you if install Power Tee into more top clubs, the ranges would be packed until sundown,” Wyeth said. “The reality is that grass will improve with rest and there is so much more member value with Power Tee because it is a better looking and much more useful practice area experience.”
Instead of having to choose between chewed up grass that forces the golfer to chop down on the ball and rock-hard mats that damage wrists and elbows and deter the golfer from hitting down on the ball, members will get a great and productive practice experience while preserving the grass for the next day’s play.
The cost of Power Tee at a typical club is less than $5 per month per member, which includes all service and regular mat replacements. “If members saw how much more useful their ranges are with Power Tee, they’d wonder why they didn’t have it sooner,” Wyeth said.
