From left to right: Donald J Hoenig II, Donald R Hoenig, Jonathan D Hoenig.
After breaking ground on their new clubhouse renovation last April, Raceway Golf Club opened the newly renovated space to its members earlier this month.
The renovations tie into the club’s unique structure – and namesake – of being an 18-hole golf course, but also being home to the first paved, oval racetrack in the country.
The additions included four golf simulators designed to show off the club’s racing and drifting course, 600 square feet of putting green, a wraparound patio overlooking the race track, and a racing simulator.
The main feature that Donald Hoenig, a fourth-generation Vice President of Operations of Raceway Golf Club, was most excited about was the modified race car that sits in the center of the bar.
Dropping down from both sides of the bar and floating from the ceiling are 16-tap beer systems on each side of the car, between the wheel wells. The tables and bar tops were made mostly from the trees that were cut from the golf course.
These renovations and additions have been a long time coming, says Hoenig, and highlights the club’s unique history and amenity offerings.
Snapshot of the project
The new renovation cost around $850,000 with Hoenig and his team doing most of the work inhouse, being the general contractor of the job.
“Prokect management was the most important of the renovation in order to get it done as quickly as possible,” says Hoenig. “We lined up all of the contractors to time everything ahead of schedule, so there was never any time the project was sitting idle or contractors waiting on each other.”
Hoenig also mentions the importance of designing and planning. In his words, “you can never do too much” of both.
Since Hoenig and his team designed the renovations themselves it was hard for them to think of everything that needed to be done.
“The more planning and design you can do, the better the final product will be and the less last minute additions and changes will have to be made,” he says.
He also notes that if a space looks too small for an idea, it most likely is.
“Always lean towards a little bit bigger than you think you need when it comes to projects like this,” he says.
Building on history
After coming home to Connecticut after attending a race in Pennsylvania, Hoenig’s great grandfather (John Hoenig) saw potential in creating a race track where he lived.
After the hurricane of 1938 that decimated and flattened the area around him, he decided to rebuild with a race track in the plans.
Shortly after, in 1947 the golf course was opened, which is now an 18-hole course with a large practice facility, ice cream stand, banquet hall and more.
“My great-grandfather and grandfather built the course after the race track was constructed,” says Hoenig. “My grandfather was a professional golfer who won numerous titles in New England during his senior tour career and many other titles before that.”
When Hoenig and his brother took over, they saw “the writing on the wall” to branch out and added Melody Hill Golf Club in Harmony, Rhode Island.
About 25 minutes away from Raceway Golf Club, Melody Hill is an 18-hole course and clubhouse that Hoenig and his brother renovated. Before long, that course was profitable and the brothers decided to branch out again.
Harrisville Golf Course, a nine-hole course and clubhouse in Connecticut, was then added to the mix about 15 minutes away from Raceway Golf Club. This positions the company into different markets being able to pull membership from different locations.
With three courses, Hoenig and his brother named their management company the Tri State Golf Company and decided to make a reciprocal membership package for members to take advantage of all three courses.
Membership covers play at all three courses, for basically the price of one course, he says.
Hoenig and his brother also centralize management for the courses and share costs and resources to take advantage of each course’s strengths.
“Having Raceway as our main course gives us a real advantage,” says Hoenig. “We can pool our maintenance resources there and redistribute them among all three courses as needed, ensuring none of them fall short.”
“There’s a lot of benefits of sharing resources and management duties. It works well because we have the same clientele on pretty much all three courses, so we can cross promote or if we have a tournament going on at one location we can push our players onto a different course for continued play.”
Hoenig says when looking to expand, companies need to find a property that has an upside to it.
“We didn’t want to purchase a property that was doing everything they were supposed to do, but the numbers were still not working, that didn’t make sense to us,” he says. “We had to see an upside in the business. Something that we knew could change that would make a difference in the business.”
For example, at Melody Hill, the course didn’t take tee times or credit cards before Hoenig and his brother purchased it. They knew that this would be an easy fix that would translate into more business.
The upside Hoenig and his brother saw at Harrisville was the rates. They realized that the golf rates were way under market and knew that could be something to turn the business around.
And it worked. Hoenig and his brother were able to make all three courses profitable in order to afford projects like the latest clubhouse renovation.
