Six Trackman bays and a putting green: the indoor golf club coming to Rogers Branch Road

A 5,000 square foot building on Rogers Branch Road is being turned into six golf bays, a putting green and a small gym. The Swing Bays is due to open in Wake Forest in October, and it will be the company’s first location outside Colorado.

The venue sits at 3615 Rogers Branch Rd., near the Heritage Station shopping center. The Town of Wake Forest issued the permit in May, filed under recreation on the town’s new business list. The Triangle Business Journal covered the deal as the latest sign that “the popular concept spreads across the Triangle.”

What is going inside

Six bays, all running Trackman. Five of them are for members and walk-in bookings. The sixth is reserved for PGA instruction, which is a more deliberate split than most simulator lounges bother with, and it tells you the business is not built purely on hourly rental.

Around the bays there is a chipping area and a putting green, so the short game is not an afterthought. There is a bar serving beer and refreshments. There is an on-site gym with a fitness trainer, running TPI fitness programs with nutrition planning, according to the company’s Wake Forest page. Club fitting and repair are on the service list, and the space can be booked for private events.

That combination, simulators plus coaching plus a fitting bench plus a gym, is closer to a golf club without a course than it is to an entertainment venue. It is a different bet than the eat-drink-and-swing model that has been opening across the Triangle.

Who is behind it

The Wake Forest location is owned by Phil and Nancy Gugliotta along with their son Joey. Phil is a franchise consultant who has lived in Raleigh for 18 years. Joey is an assistant golf pro and will run the place as general manager.

The Gugliottas flew to Denver to meet the company’s leadership before signing. Phil’s explanation of why they went ahead, in the company’s own writeup of the deal, was short: “We just loved the customer service.”

He has also said he is looking at more locations after this one, with downtown Raleigh, Brier Creek, Durham and Pinehurst on the list. Whether that happens depends on how Wake Forest performs, which makes this opening worth watching for reasons beyond the golf.

What it costs

Founding member pricing runs in four tiers, and the rates lock for one year:

• $49 a month for two hours of bay time
• $99 a month for four hours
• $149 a month for eight hours
• $219 a month for twelve hours

All four tiers include a 20 percent discount on lessons, guest privileges and an apparel discount. Across the wider brand, memberships run anywhere from $35 to $595 a month, so the Wake Forest tiers sit in the middle of the range.

Run the math on the middle tier and you are paying about $18.60 an hour for bay time, which is competitive with hourly rates at most simulator venues and cheaper than a round at a lot of courses once you add a cart. The catch is the same catch as every gym membership: it only works if you actually go. Two hours a month is one long session, and the $49 tier is easy to forget about by February.

The location is doing a lot of work

Rogers Branch Road has turned into the most active commercial block in Wake Forest this year. barre3, Pilates Addiction, Pulp Juice & Smoothie Bar, Anstead’s Cigar Barn, Holistic Vitality Center, 4Ever Young and Modern Tasty Food have all been permitted within a few hundred feet of each other, a cluster we mapped in our look at the 44 new businesses that opened in Wake Forest this year.

The golf piece has its own geography. Heritage High School and Heritage Golf Course are both close by, which gives the venue a built-in audience of high school golfers in the winter and a possible partner in the course. Indoor bays and a nearby course is a familiar pairing: the simulator handles January, the course handles July, and the same golfer pays for both.

One thing to keep an eye on

The opening date has moved. When the deal was announced, the plan was to open in May 2026, and the town issued the permit that same month. The company’s current Wake Forest page now says October. That is a five month slip, which is not unusual for a build-out of this kind, but it does mean the October date is worth confirming before you sign up as a founding member. Founding rates lock for a year from when you start paying, not from when you first swing.

One more detail, since it shows up in the marketing: PGA Tour Champions player Cameron Percy is listed as taking part in special events at the venue. That is an appearance arrangement, not a residency, so do not join expecting to run into him on a Tuesday.

Not in the directory yet

We only list businesses that are open, so The Swing Bays is not in our Things to Do directory yet. Once the doors open we will add it alongside the rest of the Wake Forest listings. In the meantime, the phone number on file is 631.327.0259, and founding member registration is open.

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