New Day at the Dominion Club

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New Day at The Dominion Club Member Clubs

An influx of capital investment has sparked a turnaround at the Glen Allen club

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by CHRIS LANG

n a sun-splashed summer Friday afternoon, diners enjoyed lunch on the revamped outdoor patio at The Dominion Club in Glen Allen, saying hello to friends toting clubs as they moved past the clubhouse on their way to the 10th hole.

The patio is part of Craft @ TDC, the club’s new high-end restaurant experience that has been a hit among members old and new. In January 2020, Heritage Golf Group—led by President & CEO Mark Burnett, former COO at ClubCorp—purchased Heritage Golf, the previous owner of The Dominion Club. HGG originally purchased a group of six courses in South Carolina, Florida, and Virginia—including TDC. Since then, it’s more than doubled its portfolio, including adding a second Virginia club, 1757 Golf Club in Dulles.

Opened in 1992, TDC features a Curtis Strange and Bill Love designed championship golf course that has hosted multiple VSGA championships and was the former host of the Henrico Open, an event played on the PGA’s development Nationwide Tour (now known as the Korn Ferry Tour). But after nearly 30 years in business, the club had reached a stalling point.

When the new ownership group came aboard, the first thing it did was to hold multiple focus groups to discuss the most pressing improvements needed. The top three: improvements to the food and beverage experience; enhanced member programming and value; and golf course and driving range infrastructure improvements.

Heritage Golf Group immediately poured resources into those pressing projects, including $2 million into Craft @ TDC, a Southern-style craft kitchen with fresh and creative menu offerings

Seating on the outdoor patio at Craft @ TDC overlooks the golf course.

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that has become an everyday destination for club members.

“Sometimes, your mentality is that food and beverage are outlets within your club,” said Dan Riker, who joined TDC as General Manager last July and has 20 years of experience in the private-club business.

“What we’ve tried to change over the years in these reinventions is transforming them into restaurants inside of a club, a true culinary experience.”

“Everything from the décor, the furniture, the fixtures, to the craft cocktail menus. The visibility, everything down to the china, glass and silverware we’re using. What happens when we do these things right, and not just treat food and beverage as an outlet but as a true restaurant experience, we’ve seen it makes a world of difference.”

While the restaurant experience was important to members, so was the condition of the golf course, and specifically, the practice areas. The driving range had become problematic because of drainage issues. After even as little as an inch of rain, the range would become so saturated that the picker couldn’t go out to retrieve balls, which would get embedded in the soggy turf. That led to long closures of the range after storms.

In response, the new ownership team put $100,000 into golf-course improvements, mostly focused on the range and other challenging areas on the course.

The range grass received a Shockwave treatment, helping to de-compact the soil, improve aeration and remove surface water. The club also removed trees along the seventh hole, allowing more sunlight to come through for natural drying on a part of the course that often had drainage issues.

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A full bar awaits patrons at Craft. Those who sit in booths get a personalized TV experience.

Below: A $100,000 renovation addresses irrigation concerns at TDC’s driving range.

“You can’t put enough drainage out here,” said Bob Morgan, Director of Golf Course Maintenance. “This place was built on a swamp. … Since the new Heritage has come on board, upgrading the irrigation has been a high priority. … We get new equipment every year. What I can say about the ownership is that they don’t back down. Whatever we need, we’re getting.”

Bill Sullivan, a longtime member of TDC who is now Chair of the club’s Board of Governors, said the new ownership group has changed the club from one “just trying to get by,” to one with forward thinking that is not afraid to put resources into projects to help the club continue to evolve.

Sullivan noted that the club is seeking to diversify its membership while also focusing on retaining tenured members who have been at the club since the beginning. New offerings like pickleball leagues have added to the club’s programming. The addition of Ed Gill as Director of Instruction has led to a major surge in junior golf instruction and participation, he added.

“They’ve done a great job from the top down, and it’s been a lot of fun,” Sullivan said. “Two or three years ago, we were close to leaving. But since Heritage took over, it’s really become the place to be.”

Riker said the improvements have paid immediate dividends in the form of a significant uptick in member retention and the fact that 75 percent of new members are coming from current member referrals. An improved club makes for happy members, which in turn leads to word-ofmouth addition to the membership roster.

“The club will be celebrating its 30-year anniversary in 2022,” Riker said. “You can see, as nice as the club and as nice as the golf course was, it certainly could use a renovation, a refresh. I don’t think the capital, the operating dollars, were there before to be able to do some of the things we’ve done. It was just a perfect opportunity.”

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