Choo Choo Golf Academy and Range price list:
Small bucket $6Medium bucket $8Large bucket $10Jumbo bucket $16INSTRUCTION50-minute lesson $100(includes Trackman, Swing Catalyst and Sam Putt Lab)90-minute “Gears Golf” lesson $3005-lesson series package $425(regular price $500)FITTING (all used with Trackman)Driver fitting $100Fairway wood/hybrid fitting $100Iron fitting $100Wedge fitting $75Putter fitting $75Full bag fitting $300 (3 hours)
Todd Moreland knows he'll likely lose money by buying the property and buildings on the golf driving range just off East Brainerd Road on Mackey Avenue.
So what.
His plans for The Choo Choo Golf Academy and Range at 1073 Mackey - a property with a variety of names over the years - aren't built around a traditional business model. The purpose of his purchases is to benefit the thousands of golfers within the greater Chattanooga area, including PGA and LPGA professionals as well as high-handicappers and those getting started in the game.
"A businessman would call me a huge, monster moron," Moreland said. "Because we're going to have more than $1 million invested in the property and technology, it would take forever to get a return by selling golf balls by the bucket.
"I want to give back to the game of golf. I want to see people get better in this crazy game."
Moreland has set out to create the finest public golf teaching and club-fitting center in the Southeast.
The Choo Choo Academy has the newest technology and new outdoor hitting bays with shelter from winter elements, and Moreland has plans for a short-game facility.
The short-game spot with target mounds in one direction and a huge green in the other direction is being designed by Bill Bergin, who renovated the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club course and recently improved practice facilities at The Honors Course.
"If you build a nice facility, it's going to be used more by golfers," said Bergin, who also designed the Chattanooga First Tee and UTC Development Complex and is working on an improvement at Council Fire Golf Club. "We will set up a six-station course around a large green to give golfers almost every short-game shot possible to practice."
The Choo Choo Academy could become a home base for the dozen or so area-based professional golfers, including LPGA Tour player Brooke Pancake. But it is not just for the elite golfers. The high-handicappers are welcome as well to experience either the basics of a driving range to hit a bucket of balls during a lunch break or a lesson inside from Thomas Smith, the director of instruction who most recently held a similar title at the Honors.
All comers also are welcome to experience the newest technology in golf-swing analysis and club-fitting analysis: Gears Golf. It makes TrackMan, which Choo Choo also has in another inside hitting bay, seem juvenile.
The Gears Golf system analyzes a swing from every possible angle to within a millimeter by using the same technology used in Hollywood to create digital animatronics - and what video game companies have used to make Tiger Woods' swing look like his and Cam Newton's moves as strong as his throwing arm.
Moreland opened his pocketbook to acquire the Gears Golf system. It incorporates top-of-the-line software with a system of video cameras mounted along the inside of a hitting bay. Then a golfer gears up in a velcro suit with more than a dozen little gray balls to measure angles and speeds of a swing.
It already has benefited Pancake. She donned the suit in December and found the reason her drives didn't always hit the fairway.
"My experience was incredible," she said. "I'm very familiar with TrackMan, but these numbers go deeper. I found that I could get more distance if I flattened my driver a few degrees.
"It's going to be the basis of teaching within the next decade," she added.
"It's awesome," said Scott Hamilton, a swing instructor from the Atlanta area who teaches PGA Tour players including Chris Kirk, Boo Weekley, Russell Henley, Brendon Todd and former Baylor School golfer Harris English.
Hamilton drove up just to experience the Gear Golf system because so few are available to the public across the country.
"It puts two or three pieces of technology into one," Hamilton said. "Gibby (Gilbert III) was down here for lessons before (Champions Tour) Q-school, and he was talking about it. I drove up. That same day I bought one. I'm like, 'Holy smokes, that thing is 50 grand!'
"For a city like Chattanooga to have the range and that technology is as good as it gets anywhere in the USA."
There are not many Gears Golf rooms across the nation. Moreland put the number at about 20, with most secured by club manufacturing companies.
"This is going to put Chattanooga on the national golf map," Smith said. "TrackMan and other systems just can't compare."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/UchiyamCTFP.