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By Cole Trahan

A new golf driving range and beer garden is coming to Hogansville. Drive Bar, co-owned by James Bailey, Britney Bailey, Brett Chapman, and Jessica Chapman, will give people a place to practice their golf swings and relax with craft beer. While the co-owners don’t have an exact date for when the business will open, James Bailey said they were looking at late July to early August.

He said the new range will be equipped with Toptracer technology.

“It’s a video monitor that’s inside of the driving range bay. They’re connected to the camera on the roof of the bay, and they actually track the flight of your ball. And also, they give you some feedback on your shot as well. So basically, it will let you know a lot of different stats about your swing and help you kind of improve your golf swing. So, the avid golfer and somebody who’s never golfed in their life can all enjoy the same thing with our Toptracer range.”

Meanwhile, Bailey said the beer garden will have “local and out-of-state craft beers on tap.” Some of the beer will come from Atlanta and Columbus. Bailey also said food trucks will be present.

“What we’re going to be starting out with is, like, we were going to start out with food trucks that are going to be, you know, scheduled out. We’re still kind of trying to navigate around that aspect of it, but we will have food trucks there and maybe some different food options down the road.”

In addition to the driving range and beer garden, the business will also have outdoor games such as cornhole and bocce ball, as well as an outdoor fire pit.

“We’re all going to be something that everybody can find something to do at. And, you know, it’s going to be family friendly so people can bring their kids out and have a good time with them as well,” Bailey said.

He explained how he and the other co-owners came up with the idea for their business.

“Brett is actually my cousin. And we were talking one day. My wife and I wanted to do something different. We wanted to work for ourselves. We wanted to open a beer garden — that was actually my wife’s idea. And my cousin is an avid golfer and always wanted to open a driving range with Toptracer technology,” Bailey said.

“We kind of just came together and put our heads together and said, ‘Why don’t we make this a joint sort of business where we have the golf side, we have the outdoor entertainment side, and we also have the beer garden and the craft beer bar side.’”

James Bailey and Brett Chapman are Hogansville natives.

Dive Bar will be a veteran-owned business. Both James and his wife, Britney, were in the Navy. They met each other when they were both stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Brett was in the Marine Corps.