How Two PGA of Canada Professionals Turned Indoor Golf Into Community

By: Nkele Martin

Winter has long been one of golf's greatest enemies in Canada. When the annual deep freeze sweeps across the country, players are forced from their beloved courses for months at a time.

Many turn to indoor golf, and Canadians have been keeping their swings going from sheds, garages, and basements for decades. 

Technological advancements have brought a realistic experience just a few clicks away, and indoor golfing facilities, known as simulators, have spread like wildfire across the country.

For some, it’s just a way to keep their game sharp. But for others, like Sean Casey and Eric Locke, golf simulators are a way to build community.

Casey and Locke have never met. One is in Oakville, Ontario and the other is in Cochrane, Alberta. But both are East Coasters who moved West and created something more than a place to swing a club. They built a home for seasoned golfers, families looking for a fun activity, and everyone in between.

Casey began his golf journey as a seven-year-old playing in Southern New Brunswick’s Westfield Golf Country and Club and by fourteen, he was working in the back shop.

He joined the PGA of Canada apprenticeship program ahead of starting university in 1996 and was a Class “A” professional by the time he graduated in 2000.

He moved West that year to teach at Oakville’s Glen Abbey Golf Club and spent his first winter coaching from inside a dome. When the dome blew down in 2001, Glen Abbey moved its indoor operations into a converted cart barn.

“It was 15 nets, a putting green, and that was about it,” said Casey. “But we ‘niced’ it up as best we could, put some TVs in there and just tried to do what we could to make it as homey and not feel like the garage that it was.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to indoor coaching in 2020, Casey, now the Director of Instruction at the course, was tasked with finding a new home. 

“The instructors at Glen Abbey were like, ‘Sean, we don't have Glen Abbey. You're our leader, you're our director. Go find us an indoor golf home. Find a way to create a place for us to all stay together. We have this culture. We have this group. We like working together. We don't want to lose what we have as an academy,’” Casey said.

He searched but struggled to find a suitable space for indoor golf, so he got on a Zoom call with his fellow coaches to break the news. 

Most logged off when the meeting ended, but a handful stayed on the call.

"Those few were like, ‘no, this is not over,’" Casey recalled. "They pushed me. They encouraged me to keep trying, and something like a light switch just [went] off."

That push led Casey to find a vacant clothing store inside the RioCan Centre Burloak, a large mall in Oakville. 

The space was 5,000 square feet, had 18-foot ceilings, and was just wide enough to run two rows of hitting spaces along the walls with a walkway in the middle.

Casey leveraged his house to secure a loan, borrowed netting and hitting mats from Glen Abbey and spent months planning the layout of his facility and in October 2020, Burloak Indoor Golf opened its doors.

With many unable to travel to their favourite regular golfing destinations that winter, the facility, equipped with just two simulators, was an immediate hit.

In its second year, Burloak Indoor Golf - also known as B.I.G - grew another 5,000 square feet, added five TrackMan simulators, a short game area, a fitness room and a club repair shop.

“All of a sudden, it felt that we could really do anything and everything that people might want to do with indoor golf,” said Casey.

But he didn’t stop there. Year three saw B.I.G get even bigger, growing by another 3,000 square feet and adding a bar and restaurant.

Then, in late 2024, the landlord told Casey the space was needed. He had to start over.

Casey secured a loan and lease agreement for a brand new 14,400 square foot space nearby and spent months working on what he calls “B.I.G 2.0”. 

And in May 2025, Burloak Indoor Golf opened its doors once again.

The new facility lives up to Burloak Indoor Golf’s three letter nickname. It has 28-feet ceilings, 12 bays, a spacious short game area, more than a dozen instructors, and a pub-style restaurant called Casey’s Clubhouse.

"When people first came in, it just was validation," Casey said. "I wish I had some video cameras, because it was just really neat to see everybody's expressions when they walked in."

And what struck him most was who was coming through those doors.

"We have so many people here now that bring their wives here," he said. "They're like, 'You serve nice wine. Your food is good. I'm going to bring my wife back tonight. We're going to rent a sim and have a bite to eat and have a glass of wine together.'"

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to break apart his golf community, Sean Casey is proud of what he has built. 

“There've been a lot of, sort of, full circle moments, and there've been a lot of people that have been with me the whole way, people that I taught with from Glen Abbey, members of ours that still come here today that were hitting balls into the nets at Glen Abbey 25 years ago. So it's just been a real community of people, from our instructors to our members,” he said.

"The best thing, the absolute best thing, is when our members come up and say, 'You make my winters better.'"

More than three thousand kilometres west, Eric Locke is building a similar community.

When the golf-loving Nova Scotia native settled in Cochrane, AB, one of Canada’s fastest growing towns, located just west of Calgary, he noticed there was nowhere to play in the winter.

“I like to play golf throughout the winter. Love to swing the golf clubs, but I was driving into the city for 30 minutes, playing, coming home, and the drive was just eating up a lot of my time,” said Locke, who is also the Head Teaching Professional at Priddis Greens Golf & Country Club. 

“About four or five years ago, I started looking around Cochrane and I was like ‘well, there's nothing here. I have to go into the city.’”

When his daughter was born in 2024, Locke often found himself losing sleep. And one night, he had an idea.

“Instead of going back to sleep around 4am one morning, I was just like, ‘alright, let's draw some plans. Let's see what we could do here.’ And I just kind of came up with the rough idea of opening up an indoor golf simulator here in Cochrane.”

He brought his rough draft to wife, Kelsey, but with a new child and a new house, they decided to table the idea. 

Then, a few months later, he came home from a golf tournament to a surprise.

“She [Kelsey] was like, ‘yeah, I just did a more detailed plan. I think we should do this. Let's set up some interviews with banks and see what we can do for loans and everything like that.’ But she was like, ‘I think this will work.’”

It was all hands on deck after that.

Every night after their daughter went to sleep, the couple sat in their home office into the late hours of the night. 

They secured a lease on a new building in town and spent nearly two years planning everything from layout to interior design to simulator technology. 

They named it Big Dog, combining the golf term with an homage to their ten-year-old Great Dane.

Big Dog Indoor Golf opened on December 23rd, and Cochrane took to it immediately. Within its first few months, regulars were pouring in, leagues formed, and local Facebook pages started recommending it for date nights.

"It's been overwhelming," Locke said. “The support and the trust that we've had in Cochrane. We couldn't ask for anything more. It's been great. I might get emotional here just thinking about it.”

For Locke, it became more than just a business. Working forty minutes away from the town, he had never felt deeply connected to Cochrane. Nw, Big Dog is part of Cochrane.

Take just one look at their menu, and you’ll see that local love. Locke says Big Dog sources all their food and drink locally – except their chips and chocolate bars, they come from Costco.

"Opening this business has made me feel like Cochrane is more home," he said. 

"Now I feel like I’m a part of the community, I have skin in the game. I'm a business owner here, and I'm trying to create a community aspect and a life for myself here."

With raving reviews and growing demand, both Locke and Casey are already considering expansion. But their main priority is keeping their doors open and providing the best service possible to all who walk through. 

“It's just part of my nature as an instructor, trying to get better. And we just are trying to, every day, come in here and create a great experience and find little ways to make tomorrow better than today,” said Casey.

“I love the golf industry, but in Canada there’s only half the year where you're hitting off the grass… And for me, this is an opportunity to extend the golf experience year round, and it's just been a real honour and a neat thing to be able to give people that experience.”