Shawnee-based Swing Time Golf was born out of the success of a golf entertainment concept at a driving range about a 1.5-hour drive west of Chicago.

The model is like a “scaled-down version of Top Golf” that is tailored toward smaller communities that can’t support a giant golf facility, CEO Jeff Zimmerman said.

“Since we were headquartered in Shawnee, we thought it would be a good idea to have a facility we owned that would be our flagship facility that we could use to roll the concept out on a nationwide basis,” he said.

The Prairiefire Golf & Grill in Byron, Illinois, built in 2020, was the first indoor/outdoor golf concept Zimmerman worked on and in its first year did more than $1 million in sales.

The facility’s restaurant and bar became a social hub for the city because of its limited entertainment options, he said.

It also grew into a substantial draw for surrounding cities to come visit — which is what Zimmerman wants to bring to the Valley of Champions corridor in Shawnee, where the facility will be at 19950 Johnson Drive.

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