Fifteen years of 60-hour weeks and a heavy workload as both the Head Professional and Club Manager at Ohio’s Avon Oaks Country Club left PGA of America Golf Professional Judd Stephenson ready to tweak his work-life balance.
After stepping down from Avon Oaks in late 2019, he looked to open his own coaching and fitting studio, where he could stay busy – and warm – in Ohio’s championship flight winters.
And so, Judd’s Golf Sim was born. Fitted with three Trackman 4 simulator bays and an apartment-sized putting and chipping area, the converted warehouse space is even closer to Stephenson’s home than his old 10-minute commute across I-90, just west of Cleveland.
“My wife and I had all these cute names, but we figured everybody was just going to say they were going to practice at Judd’s,” he says. “So, we just kept the Judd name in it.”
Stephenson teaches and does fittings on a regular schedule in one of the bays, and his 105 full-year and winter-season members each have their own keycard phone app that lets them in for reserved practice time between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. seven days a week. Yearly members pay $20 per hour for sim time and get one free hour per month, while winter members pay $30 and give up the free hour. Regardless, it looked like a good deal to every client when the Cleveland area had 16 consecutive days below freezing – and wind chills at 25 below – in January.
“I onboard everyone personally and show them how to turn on the Trackman, how to turn on the music, and how to turn on the Browns game – not that anybody would want to watch the Browns,” jokes Stephenson, who was inducted into the Northern Ohio PGA Hall of Fame in 2020. “We spend an hour together in an orientation format where it’s like Trackman 101.”
Curating players’ golf experiences is at the heart of Stephenson’s business at Judd’s Golf Sim, whether he’s fitting or teaching. And it’s the first piece of advice he has for any other fitter.
“I think people want some guidance to navigate the waters because there’s so much information,” he says. “In this day and age, if someone’s practicing and buying clubs without feedback, they’re going to struggle. My job is to pare down that information and make it more straightforward.”
Stephenson has maintained his relationship with Avon Oaks, where he still teaches outdoors during the summer. It’s a benefit to both parties, too: When colleagues from the club need indoor space in the winter to do a fitting or member event, Stephenson hosts them as a professional courtesy.
At Avon Oaks, Stephenson was a heavy Ping fitter, and he worked out an agreement with his old club to open his Ping account back up at his new place. Now, he handles Ping fittings for his own clients and those from the club, and he sends customers looking for other lines back to his old location.
“And if the Head Professional at Avon Oaks wants to come over and do a Callaway fitting, he can bring his own tools over and do it in the sim,” Stephenson says.
You can call it Midwestern friendliness, and it extends beyond Avon Oaks. The Cleveland area has a strong roster of talented fitters across every major brand, and Stephenson routinely sends clients to peers like PGA of America Golf Professional Trent Maxwell at Windmill Golf Center in nearby Macedonia if they have an issue requiring a different set of eyes.
“If I don’t feel like I can give somebody what they’re looking for, I have no trouble passing them to somebody who can give them that clarity,” explains Stephenson. “The only goal is to help people get what they need.”
