TEMPE, Ariz. — What if golf...was fun?
Not the game itself, because while the game can be fun, it can also be incredibly frustrating.
No, what if the experience of going to the golf course was fun...even if you didn't play?
That's the idea behind the new Rolling Hills by Grass Clippings. And the first phase is almost finihsed.
Grass Clippings is a golf clothing brand that decided to take a leap and buy Rolling Hills Golf Course near Mill Avenue and Van Buren Street, right next to the Phoenix Zoo.
The course was public and had seen better days. So Jimmy Hoselton and the rest of Grass Clippings gutted it, changed it, and have a plan to make it one of a kind.
"You are standing on the bar right now," Hoselton said recently, while at the 8th tee. And he's not joking. The tee box will eventually be in the middle of a fully functional, open-to-the-public bar.
It's one of a number of major renovations that are coming. The restaurant in the clubhouse will be gutted, rebuilt and be a place you actually want to go to.
There will be a concert space, event venues for weddings and the like.
And the centerpriece of the project...are the lights.
"The poles are going up every day," Hoselton said. "I think we're getting about 10 up each day."
The poles prop up very big, very bright lights. There are more than 70 of them around the course, enough to completely light the course at night.
That's something Hoselton said has never been done in Arizona. But it's also something that makes a lot of sense in a place that gets so hot you can only really play at night during the summer.
Typically, night golf is played with glow-in-the-dark balls and lots of dark parts of the course. Hoselton said this course will be lit up like daylight.
But more than the amenities, Rolling Hills will represent a shift in the way people think about golf.
"All are welcome," Hoselton said, "you can wear a t-shirt, it's casual, it's fun."
The days of the stuffy country club with a strict dress code and a credit check before joining are drifting away.
Taking its place are places like TopGolf, where golf is a game of target practice played in between drinks and appetizers, and Tiger Woods's PopStroke, which is mini golf crossed with TopGolf.
And, with the popularity and irreverence of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Hoselton saw an opportunity to bring people what they want.
Rolling Hills will reopen with new grass and an updated course November 3rd. Hoselton says the plan is to open ngiht golf in December. the rest of the improvements will be done in phases throughout the next year.