Noah Horstman at the future site of Golf Garage in Phoenix Tuesday.

A year to the day after groundbreaking ceremonies, Thursday’s grand opening of the Golf Garage in Phoenix elicited quite a bit of emotion for owner Noah Horstman for the nearly 20,000 square feet state-of-the-art facility.

“I’m just excited to share this with the community,” said Horstman of what he said has been a 15-year endeavor. “It’s been a whirlwind, I’m not going to lie. From building to continuing to teach and all of that, it’s just been a team effort.”

The entirety of the effort was on display for the first time to the public Thursday at the 3336 Grove Road site, positioned across from Home Depot.

Dedicated to providing golf enthusiasts with a cutting-edge facility to develop their skills and enjoy the ultimate golfing experience, the Golf Garage features 10 Falcon simulator bays, a short game complex, indoor putting greens and an outdoor short-game area.

Golf training and club-fitting will also be available, as well as a plan for simulator leagues for community members.

What also sets the facility apart is the inclusion of overall fitness opportunities — with the first eight-person FitSprings low-impact training equipment and a Pilates area — and the idea that the bays can also double as movie theaters for potential movie nights or Super Bowl parties.

“Not everybody in your family is going to be play golf and we understand that, too,” said Horstman, “so it’s about how do you bring everybody together and that’s the whole point of the culture here is to be able to allow everyone to come in and enjoy themselves here even if they’re not a golfer.

“That’s probably what I’m most excited about is just seeing what we can do with it and pushing the envelope with it and continuing to be entrepreneurial with it just because no one’s doing this exact concept.”

Horstman, who also operates the West Coast Golf Academy and serves as Southern Oregon University’s golf coach, said bringing a facility like the Golf Garage to this area has been a big passion for him.

“My goal to come back to Southern Oregon was to grow golf and grow it at the highest level possible and to do it because I love it,” said Horstman, who graduated from South Medford High in 2002 and went on to play collegiately at Pacific University. “Now that it’s a family affair and my wife (Kimberly) is teaching (Pilates) 20 feet away from me, it makes us just want to be here that much more.”

Horstman spent six years in Ohio as director of instruction and player development at Beechmont Country Club before returning to Medford in 2019 to tackle that same task of promoting the sport and developing the next generation of golfers.

An award-winning instructor with West Coast Golf Academy, Horstman said he’s leaned heavily on his staff since last year’s groundbreaking ceremony to help fulfill his dream project in Phoenix.

“Without them stepping up, too, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I’ve had to step back a little bit in the things I love to do in order to build this building and be able to have something way better than anybody’s had in the country. It’s the most comprehensive indoor training facility in the country, and it’s also entertainment and a Pilates studio and there are amenities galore that make it that comprehensive approach.”

Now that it has all come to fruition, Horstman found himself cycling through all that has come and will still come for the Golf Garage.

“It’s coming full circle and every step of the way there was a milestone and you had to kind of deal with the hurdles at times but, at the end of the day,” he said, “when you look around I’m thinking to myself now, ‘What’s it going to feel like in a year? How well-oiled of a machine is this thing going to be?’ Because technically, if we didn’t have the bar area, this thing could run itself.”

“That was the whole point of this facility is that members can fob in — it’s open 24/7 — and you can train whenever you want in the fitness area and all of that,” added Horstman. “Making that comprehensive approach and then to have the instructional side of it, the fitness side of it, the health and wellness side of it, to have a kids’ lounge, to allow families to come in … this is just a great community place.”

As the lead up to letting the public in on the Golf Garage experience, Horstman received a few surprises Wednesday with family and friends flying in to be part of Thursday’s debut.

“This is like a wedding,” he said. “This is like a big monumental part of your life all of a sudden because all of the people around you that you want to surround yourself with are here. Being able to have that, that’s super special to me.”

Thursday’s grand opening included competition games through the facility, with the winner earning a free one-month First Tee membership. There was also FitSprings demonstrations by creator and founder Jill Harris, as well as food trucks, raffle prizes, drink specials and wine tastings and other amenities while exploring and testing out the facility.

Horstman also said that the Golf Garage is far from his final project here in Southern Oregon.

“One of the things I’m probably most proud of is that I’m starting a nonprofit this year, primarily to feed more golf instruction,” he said. “I want junior golfers to be able to play golf, and there’s so many in this area that can’t afford it. They wouldn’t even get introduced to it because it’s not a thing in their family lives based on what it costs, so we’re trying to allow that to happen. We have the facility now and I can create access however I see fit as long as it doesn’t ruin the day-to-day from a standpoint of your membership base.”

Horstman initially said that plans for the site include a membership base of 200, with some public availability during non-peak times. The Golf Garage will be open 24 hours a day and seven days a week with key fob access.