Rain, sleet, snow can’t prevent diehard golfers from appointed rounds

ERIE – When it snows, it pours golf balls at Leonard’s.

Snow-covered golf courses and freezing temperatures are good for business at Leonard’s Golf Inc., a 4,800-square-foot indoor golf practice and teaching facility in Erie where the temperature is a constant 68 degrees, and the wind is still.

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With more than usual snowfall in January, and temperatures seldom rising above 40 degrees along the Front Range, golfers are turning to Leonard Hermosillo’s indoor range to tune their games this winter.

“We can handle about 50 people a day, and we’ve had to turn some away in January,´ said Barbara Hermosillo, Leonard’s wife.

Inside the center, golfers can work on all aspects of the game: driving, chipping and putting. They can use video equipment to analyze their swing themselves, or sign up for lessons and receive professional instruction from owner Hermosillo and his staff of teaching pros.

Hermosillo, 66, opened the indoor range in May 2004 at the urging of Rich Berman, who owns the building and runs a tennis school next door.

Golf became Hermosillo’s second career when he accepted an early retirement package from IBM in 1990 where he was a security manager.

As a youth he played competitive football, basketball and baseball, and he boxed. He also had a pretty good golf game. Hermosillo learned early on that he had a knack for helping friends improve their golf games.

“When playing with friends, they’d ask, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ “I could fix them,” Hermosillo said. Barbara recalls, “Leonard often said he wanted to work at a golf course when he retired.”

Soon after retiring from IBM when he was 50, he began attending golf schools and teaching clinics. He went to work and gave golf lessons for five years at The Course at Hyland Hills in Westminster before moving on to Indian Peaks Golf Course in Lafayette where he taught for 10 years.

Brian Lindstrom, an instructor at The Golf Academy of Northern Colorado at Collindale in Fort Collins, joins Leonard’s Golf teaching staff during the winter. “Leonard is very personable, and he’s a good communicator. He spreads his love of the game to others.” His students range from kids no taller than a golf club to seniors. He’s helped several win club tournaments and state championships including Shirley Shaller, women’s club champion at Fox Hill Country Club in Longmont; and Pat Ryan, club champion at Lake Valley Golf Course north of Boulder; and wife, Barbara, who with Barbara Miller won the 1999 women’s team state champion at Walking Stick Golf Course in Pueblo.

The University of Colorado’s men’s and women’s golf teams and area high school golf teams use the facility.

He also opens his facility to area high school golf teams, and McKinsie Barnes, a junior at Niwot High School, drops in on a regular basis to work on her game and appreciates Hermosillo’s easy going teaching style. “Sometimes he works with me on a particular part of my game, and sometimes he let’s me work by myself using the video. He explains things in a way that’s easy to understand,” she said.

The facility has three hitting stations equipped with video equipment and swing analyzing software. The video equipment records your swing from different angles and analyzes it frame by frame. It also provides side-by-side comparison of your swing with one of a touring pro. The stations can be used during an individual lesson for $40 or used without an instructor for $25 per hour. The hitting stations have areas to work on uphill, downhill and sidehill lies. Plus, a sand trap is available to work on that aspect of the game.

There is a 900-square-foot putting green equipped with a putting analyzer. It provides computerized feedback on club face angle, club path, arc speed acceleration and rhythm. The rental rate is $7 per hour.

And when you’re ready to tee it up, you can rent the aboutGolf simulator for $35 per hour. The simulator has programs for some of the greatest golf courses in the world. They include, Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Harbor Town, Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic and a fictional course, The Infamous 18. The simulator provides computerized feedback on swing path, club head angle at impact, ball spin and swing speeds.

Seniors and juniors 15 and younger receive 10 percent and 20 percent discounts, respectively.

Leonard’s also fits and sells Dimension Z golf clubs plus club repair services.