The golf simulator features famous layouts and offers student golfers a chance to develop their swings any time.
Submitted Photos | Clinton-Massie Athletic Dept.
A large putting green gives student golfers the opportunity to practice year round.
Submitted Photos | Clinton-Massie Athletic Dept.
ADAMS TOWNSHIP — Clayton Morgan brought home what Phil Larrick and the late Brian Mudd talked about years ago.
And then some.
Morgan was the driving force behind the Clinton-Massie Golf Performance Center, which opened earlier this week in the Annex Building on the Clinton-Massie campus.
“This was Clayton’s vision,” said Larrick. “Me and Brian talked about it for years but we never envisioned anything like this. Clayton took it to this level.”
The Clinton-Massie Golf Performance Center is housed in a former storage room at the old middle school. At one time, a food pantry was in that room, school officials said.
Now, with a big screen golf simulator and 400-plus square football putting green, Clinton-Massie golfers can perfect their swings and putting strokes year round.
“We want to develop a program that can compete at the state level,” Morgan said. “Once they (the students) get in her and see the improvements in their swings, it will be exciting.”
The carpeted room also has a couch, several small screen televisions and room for another simulator. One of the small screens displays boys and girls golf records at CMHS as well as individuals who have gone on to play collegiately. The room was completed with money only from private donations.
Donors were the Scott Sneed family, the Jimmy Brady family, Tammy Mudd, Flip Zone, the Brian Carey family, the Phil Larrick family, the Clayton Morgan family, Generations Pizzeria, the Kerry Steed family, Superior Carpet, Brian P. Mudd Foundation, Dr. Gabrielle Wedding and the Clinton-Massie Athletic Boosters.
The Annex Building now houses Greater Tomorrow Health, a baseball/softball hitting and pitching facility, the wrestling room, the Countryside YMCA Daycare, the Falcon gym, the Falcon food pantry, a business and several other storage rooms, athletic director Brian Carey said.
Morgan said when the middle school golf program at Clinton-Massie started in 2009 and interest was so high — 15 to 18 players out on a consistent basis — he always wondered what a room like this could do for the boys and girls programs.
“When they started the middle school program here at Massie and where that’s taken us, that opened my eyes,” Morgan said.
Morgan began visiting colleges in the area to get ideas on how to put together a golf room. Gabby Woods, a Clinton-Massie graduate now at the University of Findlay, showed Morgan the Oilers golf room. Morgan was able to visit the University of Louisville’s golf room as well.
Morgan took ideas from many of college visits, fit them in to the budget from the private donations and came up with what is now the Clinton-Massie Golf Performance Center.
“There’s been some decent golfers come out of here but they’ve never had the ability to work at golf (year round) and get better,” Morgan said. “How great could they have been had they had the ability to come here and hit balls in the winter?”
