Flying Horse Resort and Club is celebrating our 20th Anniversary this year, and since our Grand Opening in 2005, we have experienced significant growth as a club. We have transitioned from a private country club – formally The Club at Flying Horse – into a Four Diamond Resort now called Flying Horse Resort and Club. With this expansion, the two main attributes were the addition of our 100-room resort lodge and the opening of our Phil Smith North Course in 2020. The new North Course is located about 10 miles away from the resort and operates in different facilities from our original clubhouse, giving us two different golf shops and two different logos.
With this expansion, we are fortunate to now oversee three different outlets: our Athletic Club, Flying Horse Golf Shop and North Golf Shop. All three of these shops are located in different areas but all of our buying flows through our Flying Horse Golf Shop and our core team – starting with our Buyer Jessika Doornbos, our Flying Horse PGA Head Professional Justin Vaughn and our North PGA Head Professional Mack Borowicz. I have been very fortunate to have this team through the expansion, and I lean heavily on all of them to make sound decisions when it comes to our buying strategy, sales performance and inventory control. I believe that allowing them to have ownership and incentives through our retail operation has played a significant role in their desire to work for Flying Horse and, in turn, has been one of if not the key factor in our success as a retail operation.
I have found that allowing our team to experiment without pause on different outlets, such as lifestyle pieces, off-brand logoing and out-of-the-box promotions, brings the energy into our retail operation. In turn, our members and guests are captivated by the product we have in each shop and the level of service we bring to every customer. Of course, we have some ideas that don’t pan out, but taking those few losses is well worth the overall success of our operation and the ability to have such a terrific team each season. The success of our retail operation starts with our team, which has become my number one focus when it comes to retail.