GFAA Best Practice: Upgrade Your Fitness Facilities

Ray Bikulcius is a Golf Fitness Specialist at Blackstone Country Club in Aurora, Colorado and Black Bear Golf Club in Parker, Colorado.

Ray Bikulcius on the importance of upgrading your fitness facilities:

After more than five great years at Blackstone Country Club, we have proactively grown our general and golf fitness programming. After all, when I started working at our club, there was no golf fitness programming to speak of, and the antiquated facilities caused our overall fitness offerings to fall behind. But, as a local high school golf coach and fitness professional, I believe in the importance of golf fitness and am diligent about promoting it to my students, clients and members. To bridge the gap between golf and fitness, I have collaborated with our PGA Director of Instruction Dustin Miller to educate members and golfers about fitness, and why it should be a part of their game improvement regimen. This affiliation between professionals at our club is done with members’ best interest in mind to increase fitness engagement. In addition, I have offered free seminars and educational opportunities that bring attention to the basics of fitness and how it affects one’s golf performance. This enlightening of our membership is a huge component of our growth in programming and participation. With a fitness center that needed modernization, we assumed an upgrade and renovation would be the catalyst to boost golf fitness participation, engagement and awareness. However, it happened the other way around. Our years of increasing consciousness, education and promotion of the benefits of golf fitness on one’s swing and overall health, helped solidify the upgrade, and we recently celebrated the opening of our refurbished and updated fitness center.

Ray Bikulcius on the business impact of upgrading your fitness facilities:

The new facility was in discussion for almost two years, giving us time to securing buy-in from all pertinent parties. We also wanted to ensure that staff was on board and our members were excited about the opportunities that a refurbished fitness center would bring to our fitness programming. The new space is much larger than before with beautiful new flooring and innovative new equipment. With the best in the business, state-of-the-art Technogym equipment, weights and strength training tools and training aids that help golfers specifically, we have everything we need to grow our golf fitness presence even more. Through the collaboration between our golf and fitness teams, we’re actively sharing our knowledge and passion for fitness and instilling the importance of fitness in every member’s life.

If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email Raymond.bikulcius@clubcorp.com.