Home on the Range

Driving ranges continue to play a vital role in North Shore golf landscape year round

By Bob Albright

Just like the cows at the adjacent Richardson’s Dairy Farm who head for the feedbag every afternoon, so, too, do legions of golfers flock to Golf Country in Middleton come the first warm day in February or March. The spring is indeed a busy time for the sprawling, 50-bay facility and its sister facility in Saugus, just as it is for Paradise Driving Range just down the road, DiLisio Brothers Driving Range in Salem, and Sun ‘N Air Golf Center in Danvers.

While all five serve as the launching point for literally millions of striped projectiles throughout the year, it is in the early days of the golf season when they help revitalize and smooth out many a golf swing that has been resting on the couch since November.

“Everybody gets the bug that first warm day,” says Golf Country’s John Nekoroski whose Middleton and Saugus facilities are open year-round and offer covered, heated bays. “As long as there is not snow on the ground they will be out here. Why? Because if there is no snow, no matter the temperature, there is a chance that they can golf somewhere. When there’s snow on the ground there’s no chance and they stay home.”

A double scoop of golf and ice cream in Middleton

Salem’s George Nekoroski already had an oil and landscaping business to his name when he added a third enterprise to his portfolio in the late 70s – the modest Middleton Driving Range.

“My dad delivered oil there one day and the guy told him that the owner of the property (Paul Richardson) was about to throw him out. He told my dad that he knew he had five sons …,” John Nekoroski, the youngest of that clan, recalls of the 1978 meeting that saw Nekoroski purchase the range and lease the land adjacent to one of the country’s oldest working farms (the farm dates back to 1695) for a figure he believes to be not too far north of a thousand dollars. It was a pretty fair price, according to Nekoroski.

“It was just a little dumpy driving range,” he said of the old 15-bay range, which used to run along side the road. “It had a trash can full of balls and the mats were made out of old tires so when you hit a ball the bottom of your club turned black.”

Ball pickers? George Nekoroski used a hybrid of the five-gang variety that is used at most ranges today — his five sons.

“I got paid 25 cents for a large bucket,” John recalled of his early morning back-breaking task. “When we finished, the range opened.”

In 1990 and with a long term lease secured from the owners of Richardson’s, the family pushed forward with a major renovation adding lights, picnic tables and other amenities. George still serves as president of the company, while John is the general manager with his brother, Richard, taking care of the company’s finances. In 2000, the Nekoroski’s upped the ante once again building the mock barn structure with heated bays, two miniature golf courses and batting cages. The end result, Nekoroski feels, is a family-friendly product that can occupy an entire summer evening, not just the 20 minutes it takes to spray a bucket of balls.

“I talk to people who say all the time that they feel safe dropping their kids off here instead of dropping them off at the mall,” he says. “You can drop a 16-year-old off here with a bunch of friends, let them fool around for a couple of hours, and then pick them up. We’re a golf center and we get as many golfers as anyone, but the thing that makes us different is that half of our business is non-golfers. People who bought an ice cream and wandered over.”

And for those golfing neophytes, Nekoroski has a large set of industrial-strength drivers.
“I had a foreign guy come in with his wife who wanted to try golf,” Nekoroski recalled with a chuckle. “Well, I look out there and he’s hitting lefty with a righty club, so I wave his wife over and I give her a lefty club. What does she do? She starts hitting righty with the lefty club instead of giving him the club.”

A popular double-decker in Saugus

In 2006, the Nekoroski family purchased the former Family Golf Center in Saugus from Paul Fireman as well as another range in Easton. A two-tiered utilitarian steel structure, the Saugus range sits in stark contrast to the country setting in Middleton. Although the range includes mini golf, it caters predominantly to businessmen who pop the trunk on their way to and from work on Rt. 1 year round.

“Before we bought it, it had had a lot of problems with the town and the neighbors,” said Nekoroski. “It was basically a junk yard driving range. It had trucks and fire engines, which they used to fix the nets, just sitting out in the middle of the range. It was a mess and they were getting fined by the town on a daily basis.”

Today, there is no longer the clang of balls ricocheting off the rusty fire engine. Instead, you just hear the rhythmic sound of balls taking flight on a wide array of trajectories. Helping smooth out those ball flights in Saugus is Lou O’Keefe Jr. (see tip drill, page 18), while Joseph Rocha, a veteran instructor who worked most recently at Essex CC, takes over for the late Chuck Frithsen (see page 13), who passed away last year after a two-year bout with cancer, at Middleton.

A true golf center in Danvers

Like Golf Country in Middleton, on any given summer night you are bound to find as many hands clenching sugar cones as those wrapped around a golf club grip on the range at Sun ‘N Air Golf Center.

“I think half of the people who come here to play golf wind up having ice cream, and half of the people who come for ice cream end up hitting balls,” says Steven J. Jones, who serves as the center’s general manage.

In 1986 Jones’s dad, Steve Sr., bought the range which has been around since the 50s when it was know as Tom Mahan’s, and then later, Soc’s. Today you can’t swing a 5-iron at Sun’ N Air without hitting a Jones. The elder Jones serves as president of the operation which includes their adjacent ice cream stand, Cherry Farm Creamery, and Steve Jr. oversees the day-to-day operations with his wife Janet. Their three daughters, Kayla, Kristen, and Stephanie lend a hand when home from college for the summer and Jones says his son Conor, 11, will get a pass for a couple more years before he puts him to work.

“It’s fun,” he says. “We all have our certain responsibilities and it’s a group effort.”

Jones says the biggest change over the years is reflected in a simple two-word change to the sign out front on Conant Street.

“Three years ago we changed it from driving range to golf center, he explains. “I think that is the biggest change. Whereas back 15 or 20 years ago people would come just to bang balls, now you can practice every shot here.”

In reality, they probably could have changed the sign back in 2000. That’s when a major renovation added an expansive grass tee area, not to mention a three-hole par 3 course that features four different tees on each hole.

The golf center, which has always had top flight instructors with the likes of Rick DePamphilis, Dennis Nestle and current instructor Tom Gillis, who returns for his third season, also has become a major player in the merchandise and club fitting end of the business.  Sun’ N’ Air annually hosts one of the area’s major demo days in June and Jones figures that 40 percent of his business comes from the merchandise/club fitting end of things.

All in the family at DiLisio’s

You need no better example of the benefits that come from long hours of banging the balls on the range then to watch the syrupy-smooth swings of either Anthony or Steven DiLisio. The two have spent many an hour at their grandfather Vin’s and great uncle Al’s popular driving range in Salem and the results speak for themselves. Just last year, Anthony, who played for Skidmore this fall as a freshman, not only qualified for match play at the Mass. Am., but captured the Salem CC club championship as well. Not to be outdone, 11-year-old Stephen holed out a 20-footer to capture the boy’s division title at the Mass. Junior championship.

Al DiLisio and his younger brother, Vin, leased the range on Swampscott Rd. for some 30 years before purchasing the property in 2007. With deed in hand they quickly gave the property a major facelift by removing 90 percent of the rocky ledge that used to frame the range. Golfers now take aim at a tree-lined fairway that would serve as a solid par-4 at most courses.

“We didn’t just want to make it a good golf range, we wanted to make it the best,” says Al, 77, of the remodeled range which included the purchase of 37 brand new mats. “It has been fun. Everyone needs a hobby and this has been ours.”

The instruction continues to be a strength at DiLisio’s starting with veteran instructor Joe Murphy. Ty Andersen, a Top 50 Kids Instructor, is also on board as is Marblehead’s John Michael Saraceno, who recently penned his first book, “Tempo … Heartbeat of the Golf Swing.”

An island oasis

The most unique driving range on the North Shore? Well, that can be found just a couple of miles down Rt. 114 from Golf Country on the Danvers/Middleton line. It’s a place where golfers can take dead aim at the driving range version of the famed island green on the 17th at the TPC at Sawgrass.

Featuring a trio of floating greens and a seemingly unending supply of floating balls, Paradise Driving Range truly lets golfer practice target golf. The largest of the islands lurks 130 yards away and is an enticing target to golfers. There is a lot to do on dry land as well. Paradise offers a traditional range with covered heated bays, a short game area, a year-round practice area, one of the area’s more elaborate mini golf courses, and a snack shop with ice cream (sensing a trend here?).

With instructors like veteran PGA pro Bob Baldassari, Steve Ventre and Rick Lauzon, waterlogged golfers have three good options at Paradise if they want some help finding their way back on to dry land.