Arec Simeri has loved the game of golf since he learned it from his dad as a 6-year-old.
He hadn’t planned on being around the sport for a living — especially since the upper-crusty vibe offered at most country clubs felt particularly dull when contrasted with his job in Las Vegas. But the Elkhart native was looking for a way to return closer to his family, and when he interviewed with the new ownership group at Hickory Stick Golf Club, everything just sort of fell into place.
“I interviewed to come and do the restaurant,” Simeri recalled, “and after talking with me and the ideas I had for events and customer engagement and stuff, they said, ‘How about you run the whole thing?’”
Simeri took over as the director of golf at Hickory Stick last September, but his job title is somewhat misleading. He’s being tasked with helping the new group of five local owners, which took over in March of 2022, transform the course into a community hub that offers much more than just 18 holes of golf.
Last weekend, they put the first portion of that transformation on display during a grand opening celebration that showcased the more than $3 million in improvements made so far.
The formerly bland and often empty banquet hall that took up more than half of the 7,000-square foot clubhouse space has become The Haven at Hickory Stick, a fine-dining-but-casual restaurant open daily to the public, along with a bar and golfer’s lounge area capable of accommodating more than 100 families.
Todd Kuebel, a Center Grove graduate who is part of the ownership group, says that he and his partners are going for a very specific vibe with The Haven and the rest of their upgrades to the golf club — focused at least on part on what they wanted to avoid becoming.
“We don’t want it to be the classic country club feel,” Kuebel said. “We don’t want to be a stuffy environment. We want to try to be family friendly. We want to be forward thinking, inclusive, and so we’re trying to figure out, how do we create that kind of culture, where people can come and have fun?”
That’s where Simeri comes in. With a background in restaurants and event planning, including six years of experience working in Sin City, he knows how to draw people in — and do it in a way that fits ownership’s desire to be “elevated without being stuffy.”
Live music was being played on the outdoor patio behind the clubhouse during the grand opening, and both Simeri and Kuebel talked about the desire to expand upon that effort to bring in entertainment. In late July, Hickory Stick will bring a stand-up comedy concert to the driving range, allowing plenty of room for spectators to sit on the lawn and enjoy the show.
Of course, Hickory Stick is still a golf course first, and that part of the operation has not gone ignored during the renovations. The pro shop has been upgraded inside, the maintenance budget doubled outside. Holes 1 and 18 have had the sand traps overhauled through the Better Billy Bunker system; the plan is to gradually do the same around the rest of the course.
Additionally, the entire fleet of golf carts has been replaced by new E-Z-GO models equipped with GPS, and there’s talk about potentially adding more simulators to the barn that currently houses one.
“Most golf courses are on shoestring budgets, and a lot of courses get not taken care of,” Simeri said. “That’s not this group. It’s five guys that are highly motivated to make the course as great as it can be.”
Though golf is the amenity around which Hickory Stick is centered, Kuebel wants to make sure that non-golfers can feel welcome as well. He moved into the neighborhood earlier this week, joining three other owners that already live there — and they’re all invested in creating a space that the community can use and be proud of.
“I wouldn’t call this a passion project for us,” Kuebel said, “but it’s more than owning a business for us.”
Simeri says his late father “would be tickled” to know that his son is working in golf. It’s the vision he shares with ownership that lured him in.
“Right now, if it stayed as it is with minor improvements, it’d still be a great course,” Simeri said. “You’d still have a lot to sell people. But the idea that this is not where they want to end is cool.”
