GRIP Golf (Golf Research In Play)

Damn Yankees

2008-03-04T13:26:00.004-05:00

On the way to the Boston Golf show Saturday morning, the song "Higher" by the late '80's early '90s rock super group "Damn Yankees" came on the radio. The band was formed in 1989, consisting of Tommy Shaw of Styx, Jack Blades of Night Ranger, Ted Nugent of Amboy Dukes and his own solo career, and Michael Cartellone. Presumably inspired by the musical of the same name, Nugent once also explained that he coined the name because whenever someone asked him how he and Tommy Shaw would sound playing together, he would always reply by saying they would sound like “a bunch of damn Yankees.”

I thought the song was well timed because that was the same day that my super group was coming to help. Andy M, Wendy W, and Gina. What a collection of salespeople and golfers in my booth. I have included a pic of Damn Yankees. I also have a pic of my group can you guess which is which?

I would like to thank them, my staff, my wife and father in law for making a brutal weekend tolerable.

New Jersey was Great!

2008-03-04T08:13:00.005-05:00

I would like to thank North Coast Golf Shows and the good people of NJ for a fantastic golf show. We had a great time and we sold a lot of clubs. We also had a lot of fun. As usual our trip was not without a lot of adventure. I borrowed my parents GPS system unfortunately, it does not have "Truck" settings on it (I drove in an 18 foot truck). I was probably 12 miles from my hotel and the GPS tried to put me on the Garden State Parkway- NO TRUCKS ALLOWED. I got lost in a somewhat scary part of NJ while trying to follow the Garden State parkway from the side roads. I was not in an Ask Directions kind of place either. I finally reset the GPS to get me to the hotel avoiding toll roads and I was on my way.

As usual the weather was horrible when we went to set up. It was snowing when we left our hotel on Friday morning to get to the Garden State Expo Center. The friendly desk clerk at the Crown Plaza in Clark NJ
directed us to the wrong convention center. We went to the NJ Boat Show. While trying to figure out the name of our expo center we also ran over a giant muffler with our truck and got it lodged under the truck and I tried to get our paperwork for the show out of the back of the truck during the snow storm. Once I retrieved it I could not close the truck again. I was frustrated, frostbitten and furious by the time we got to the Garden State Expo Center. Fortunately, our friends at Linksman golf were just about finished unloading when we arrived so we got their loading bay.

Once we were set up we raced back to the hotel for showers and a quick lunch. I would have settled for fast food but Maureen, our star employee made us order a massive take-out order from TGI Fridays. We arrived at the show 20 minutes after the general public. Nobody stole anything because NJ people are good people.

On Saturday we had a thief. Our booth was right by the loading bays for trucks. The good news was easy move-in and easy move-out and plenty of storage for us. The bad news was one of the bays was broken and it was cold - the broken door could not be closed. There was a semi-backed up to the broken bay to secure it. Some scumbag decided to sneak back there and lower golf clubs out of the broken bay into the parking lot(he was squeezing them between the semi and the wall). We caught him before he could get too much out and I think we retrieved everything. However, we did not catch him. I am a big fan of North Coast Golf Shows but I was a bit upset with them on this one. They had a very nonchalant attitude about what happened. It was a bit like, "wow, that is rally bad.... a thief huh?" "You are right, we should have put a security guard there." However, for the rest of the show they basically avoided me, made no effort to repair the door or secure the area. They did not want to touch the subject or converse with me about what happened. They did point out all of the other unsecured areas that surrounded my booth!

The final challenge of the show was on Sunday morning when somebody hit 8 perfect toe shots with our driver demo. By perfect, I mean off the toe, around the nets and directly into the PVC pipe that holds up our driving range. On the 8th shot the PVC pipe cracked and the range came tumbling down!

All that aside- getting lost, crime, broken driving ranges etc. we had a great time in NJ. We had fun at the show, we enjoyed the people and our truck was pretty empty on the ride home. Apparently NJ loves GRIP and we love NJ!

End of the Boston Show

2008-02-23T07:32:00.002-05:00

I always like to put a positive spin on things but the Boston golf Expo was positively awful. My biggest mistake was not leaving at 4:00 PM on fiiday night and letting my more than qualified GRIP staff handle the 18 people that showed up to the Seaport Expo Center in Boston. Saturday was bad, and Sunday was brutal as well. Not only was it a holiday weekend in Boston but it was alos school vacation week. I still think that there were plaenty of people in the greater Boston area for the weekend but the show was poorly advertised if advertised at all. So, Boo Hoo for all of us that paid for expensive booths (Boston is the most expensive show to attend East of the Mississippi).

GRIP had some additional issues that may cause us to skip the Boston show next year even though it is close to home and technically our "Local" show. Our booth was sold to us as "Near the manufacturers Demo Range and close to the Lady's Golf Experience." When we arrived, we quickly noticed that our booth was burried behind the Manufacturer's demo range and right in the middle of the Lady's Golf Experience. As potential customers came down the aisly they saw a huge sign that said, "Lady's Golf Experience." If the sign did not deter them, the Ping Lady's reps and the Callaway Lady reps would clearly inform them that men's clubs were the next aisle over.

Jim from Paragon Expos reminded me that this was the booth I wanted. I don't actually remember wanting a booth in the lady's section and burried behind a driving range. Jim was convinced that when he spoke to us on the phone we were elated that this booth was avaialble. The truth is that Jim would not commit space to us for almost 2 months. During that time he cut out a nice piece of space for Wildcard Golf that would have worked for us nicely. Wildcard registerd for the show well after us. We know because they told us. I am pretty sure that I am one of many who will require a good incentive to go back to Boston next year.

I would like to thank, my wife, the GRIP staff, Andy, Wendy, Gina, and Paul for helping me at the show, keeping me sane and making me laugh as we watched half the attendees get withing 7 feet of our booth and announce that "this is the lady's section! lets get out of here!"

What Next?

2008-02-15T22:00:00.002-05:00

A UPS Trailer exploded. Guess what was on it? You got it a much larger than average GRIP Golf Iron, Wood, and Driver order.

Fire Erupts In UPS Trailer; Packages Destroyed
Posted by roboblogger 1 hr ago
A United Parcel Service trailer carrying packages caught on fire early Friday in southwest suburban Hodgkins read the rest from MSNBC

Tracking Detail

Your package has experienced an exception.

Tracking Number:
1Z 6E8 xxxx xxxx xxxxx

Type:
Package

Status:
Exception See description below

Shipped To:
RACELAND, LA, US

Shipped/Billed On:
02/12/2008

Service:
GROUND

Weight:
9.00 Lbs

Location
Date
Local Time
Description
HODGKINS,IL, US
02/15/2008
7:00 A.M.
NATURAL DISASTER
HODGKINS,IL, US
02/14/2008
12:21 P.M.
ARRIVAL SCAN
SHREWSBURY,MA, US
02/13/2008
12:49 A.M.
DEPARTURE SCAN
SHREWSBURY,MA, US
02/12/2008
9:03 P.M.
ORIGIN SCAN

02/12/2008
4:02 P.M.
PICKUP SCAN
US
02/12/2008
3:09 P.M.
BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Boston Golf Show

2008-02-15T21:53:00.002-05:00

Wow, what can I say...last year it poured on the opening Friday night of the Boston Show and I left feeling optimistic because I had a few late visitors that bought from my timy 10x10 booth that only offered Hybrids, Wedges, and Putters.

Welcome to 2008, new venue, biggger booth, and two employees with me. The show was about as crowded Fenway Park in November. I remember last year you had to make a "Te Time" to get a Ping fitting. Today I saw the Pink reps loafing aroung eating pretzels like the good people at GRIP. Lets hope for a better tomorrow.

Potato man

2008-02-14T15:12:00.001-05:00

I am not sure where he came from but we had him in washington and he is in boston with us too.

Boston Golf Show

2008-02-14T07:18:00.004-05:00

Last year was my first Boston Golf Show. I secured a booth at the last minute and had a few signs made. I worked the entire 3 days of the show by myself selling Hybrids, Putters and Wedges in a crowded 10x10 space. I rented a minivan and jammed everything I need into the van. Moving in was awful. It was pouring and cold all day and small companies with little booths and tiny vans were not welcome in the garage. I survived and had a pretty good show.

Fast forward to one year later. I now have plenty of help for the show but I loaded most of the truck myself yesterday. My local paper, The Worcester Telegram and Gazette summarized it best in their Headline "Cold, Wet, Wild." Here is a small excerpt summarizing the area by our Northborough Office and Warehouse:

"As much as 6 inches of water flooded some sections of Route 9, including the area near Bertucci’s restaurant in Westboro. Sections of East Main Street at Lyman Street and near McDonald’s also flooded. Crews from the state highway department and the Westboro Department of Public Works worked throughout the day to free clogged catch basins around town. Around 11 a.m., a water main break near Route 140 and Woodland Road in Shrewsbury didn’t help things. Police spent the day redirecting traffic through the residential area, just south of the center of town. "

With out a doubt, the worst weather to load an 18 foot truck in. Man, was I chilly and wet.

Today is a balmy 14 degrees for move-in. I have been here since 6:00 AM paying bills and getting orders ready so we can leave for move-in this morning. Anything is better than pouring rain. I have included a couple of nice pictures of 7:30 AM at our offices. It is nice to have your office over a driving range. Especially when you are in the golf business! By the way, the range is open. You can hit right out into the snow and ice from the heated bays. The grass tees are obviously closed. The Little Suzuki Samuri that you seein the snow is permanently parked in that spot. It is used as a 125 marker. It should be noted that the grass tees move around all summer so sometimes it is as close as 75 yards. When the tees are that close we hear a lot of "Look Dad, I just hit that over 125 yards!"

The End of the Washington Golf Expo

2008-02-13T10:26:00.003-05:00

The Washington Golf Show ended pretty well. We had a lot of fun, sold a bunch of clubs, ate too much, and our backs hurt.

Packing up to leave was not very smooth. On Sunday we got to the show early in order to secure a loading bay for our truck. Of course I picked the loading bay that had a broken door. Some of the staff at the Dulles Expo center would argue that I broke the door. It is no ordinary garage door it is used for loading and unloading trucks. The door is huge and very heavy. It is not electric either. It is operated using a chain. It was a bit jammed so I pulled on the chain as hard as I could and a giant spring fell off. To make a long story short, we had to load most of the truck with a 3 foot clearance. That was as far as the door would open.

Additionally, we lost a Utility Knife that we borrowed from a Union Employee at the Dulles Expo Center. The gentleman's name was "Moose". The name was actually stitched into his shirt. A male adult who has the name "Moose" gets the name for 3 reasons:

He is Big

He is nice

If you upset him (e.g. lose his knife) he will turn on you and scare you.

We offered to pay Moose for his knife. We were approached by his extremely unfriendly boss (he was unfriendly before both the garage and the knife incidents) and we offered to pay for it. We were then approached by Moose and we offered him money as well but he gave me a death stare and walked off. I am very afraid that we have not seen the last of Moose. I would have paid him double the value of the Knife.

Following the show, Me, Maureen, Mike, and Mike's staff picked up very fatty BBQ take-out and watched the Patriots lose at the Holiday Inn. I was pretty depressed about that. Apparently the rest of the country was not.

Monday, Maureen and I drove our 18 foot truck home for 7.5 hours. In typical Generation Y fashion Maureen retreated to the comfort of her IPOD Touch. I listened to talk radio (no sports) the entire way home because I am 30 something years old and possibly getting duller by the second.

2008 GRIP Wedges & Hybrids

2008-02-05T21:19:00.000-05:00

Here they are folks...some early pictures of our 2008 GRIP Hybrids & Wedges

Road Show

2008-02-01T06:55:00.000-05:00

It is that time of year - Road Show! We arrived late last night in Fairifax, VA for the Greater Washington Golf Show. It was about 7.5 hours from our offices in Northborough, MA but we had to stop in Hartford to pick up more clubs from our warehouse and to ship out several orders from our surprisingly successful dead of winter/post holiday driver sale.

A lot of people came up very big for us with this show including:

Irene (GRIP Marketing and PR) for organizing, planning, and getting us ready for the shows. Irene planned this show with amazing detail right down to the amount of extension cord we need by inches.

Ken from Pin Hi golf Crafters in West Boylston, MA for building 12 sets of irons and a ton of drivers in 40 hours.

Steve, our club builder in Hartford for doing the same as Ken (he actually beat Ken by 26 drivers but we are not counting)

Maureen from GRIP for bringing a GPS and keeping me company for 9 hours of travel and packing boxes in the freezing cold outside the Hartford Warehouse.

John W from Ryder in Auburn, MA for a great deal on a truck for all the shows. It wasn't the most comortable truck but we got here.

My wife for taking care of the kids, house, and cats while I sel golf clubs every weekend until late March. Additionally she provides a ton of support for me!

Paul from East Coast Golf (where our office are) for always helping out when we need it.

The Hyatt Fair Lakes in Fairfax for providing a great place to stay at an amazing rate thanks to Hotwire.com

Mike Blair for hooking us up with an amazing Driving range 10'x10'x10' for our booth and Dancin' Dogg for setting us up with a top notch indoor golf simulator for the range.

I thing that covers it. If you are in the Washington DC are we hope to see you at the golf expo.

We have to unload the truck around 9:00 AM in the rain - I hope we get into the garage. I will be posting more pictures and notes from the show...stay tuned.

Driving range

2008-01-30T19:30:00.000-05:00

Paul From East Coast Golf cut the PVC pipe that we need to build our driving range. He used the spare pieces , an extra scrap of net and the corners that we will need to build the driving range at the Greater Washington Golf Show to build a small model of what it should look like. The little action figure represents me standing around selling Wide Sole iron sets.

Charlie Mandel

2008-01-19T11:01:00.001-05:00

I had a great lunch with Charlie Mandel from Rankmark. We are looking forward to participationg in the 2008 Rankmark Club Testing

Escalade golf cart

2008-01-17T11:52:00.001-05:00

Now I am being seen in one. I wonder how many people actually drive around in an Escalade golf cart. I am sure it is cool if you are famous to be seen in something like this. What about the average person living in a gated community in Palm Beach or Miami?

On the subject of Cadillacs, I parked next to a brand new Cadillac CTS today. I am know that Cadillac is targeting the "30 Something" market with these new vehicles. If by any chance some marketing genuis from General Motors is reading this, you should probably consider having me drive around in one for free. I am the young him thirty-something entrepreneurial type that you are targeting. When the world sees the President of GRIP golf in this car it will positively affect your sales. I have an IPOD and look how many other people got them too.

I absolutely love the CTS. Much cooler than a Lexus, BMW or any other comparable mid-sized Yuppie sled in the same class. The car is pure cool.

Fancy carts

2008-01-17T11:46:00.001-05:00

These carts at the pga show seem like something i should be seen in

2008 PGA Expo Orlando

2008-01-17T09:23:00.000-05:00

2008 PGA Show

I arrived at the 2008 PGA Expo yesterday at 4:00 PM via Jet Blue from Boston. Thank you Jet Blue for your fine television services. I did spend most of the time listening to the CNBC and watching what is left of my money disappear in the markets and sending panicky emails to my staff about the 1000 little things that I am worried about (how many wood ferrules do we have left?).

My new friend Dave Frem, the owner of one of my favorite golf courses, Cyprian Keyes in Boylston, MA was on the plane with me. I have traveled extensively for business. Standard & Poor's had me living in NY 2-3 nights a week at one point and my prior job had me on the road 4 days a week. I learned many things including when to let a person relax and spend some time alone with their Ipod and maybe a movie. Dave is a very nice guy with a young family like me - he is probably looking forward to a little R&R during his trip. R&R does not include a guy like me swapping seats to sit next to him and rambling about the golf business for 2.5 hours. He got on the plane wearing the Ipod - when someone does that it means you should say hello and then treat them as if they are invisible until they take off the Ipod and approach you. It is the proper protocol. Dave and I caught up in the airport it was good to see him. We are hosting a tournament at his course this spring.

I felt good arriving in Orlando. I got my bossy emails to my staff over with and I feel ready to stomp around the PGA Expo for a few days. We do not have a booth at the show. We are still sticking to our guns and selling our fine golf clubs directly to our customers. The show is very important for The Savvy Golfer, because we find our new vendors at the show and set up new relationships.

I have several meetings for GRIP including a few media conversations, and a meeting with our new shaft supplier, Swing Science . Mike Blair arrives tonight and leaves tomorrow evening. He schedules a bunch of meetings over a short period of time and jets right back to Hartford. Hopefully he has the final 2008 Hybrid and Wedge samples on him. We are a little behind schedule as always.
We both have full schedules for the show.
Thrifty rent a car upgraded me from a compact to a Chrysler 300C. As cool of a car as it is, I bet it will go through a bit more gas than the little Hyundai I was supposed to get. I have Check out the snap of the "Fly" car.
The Wyndham Hotel in Orlando is fine for $75 per night. Originally they also upgraded me for free to a "Lagoon View Room" but they forgot to mention that it was a smoking room. I was moved to a room with a view of the parking lot, the highway and a liquor store. The room is adequate and it has 2 double beds so Mike can crash here. I have no idea how Expedia gave it 3 stars but it is close to the convention center and fairly comfortable.
Once I settled in, called home and checked email. I ventured out to Subway for a 6" ham and turkey. I finished the night by finally figuring out how to sync my new Verizon Wireless SMT 5800 "Smart Phone" so I can check email at the show today. I am also using the 2 Mexapixel camera on the phone to take my pictures this week.

After a 30 minute workout and a coffee I am headed out the door to the show now. More later...

Returns and Refunds

2007-10-29T12:21:00.000-05:00

Fortunately we are in a nice position where we do not get too many returns/refunds. Maybe it is that the clubs are as good as advertised, maybe people give them to friends if they don't like them. I like to think it is the former rather than the latter. Anyhow, with our online business, we do not retain any customer credit card information. This assures that if anyone ever hacked into our database they would get some information that is slightly less useful than what you would find in the white pages except you might get someones preferred lie angle details.

I bring up this point because when we do receive a return or exchange we contact our customer immediately to let them know that we need their credit card information to process the refund.

I received a voice mail this morning from a customer that we tried to reach several times so that we could arrange a refund. Rather than calling us back, he waited 60 days and called his credit card company instead of calling us back. After he called his credit card company he finally got in touch with us. Rather than following up on the refund he told me that we were "reported" to the credit card company. I asked why he did not just call us first to get the refund. I did not get a response. I promptly refunded the order - no questions asked per our policy. Now I have a packet on my desk from the credit card company that will require a ton of paperwork and phone calls to resolve. I have to say, it is a frustrating start to the week.

I would be elated if I found out that the online merchants I deal with discard my credit card information. I always shake my head when someone unloads on us because we don't keep their private financial information in a database.

If you need a good reason to get upset with us here are the top 5 (not that any of these EVER happen):

club missing from order
UPS Tracking Number not showing any detail
you forgot my free ______
forgot to ship a head cover
Bought something that went on sale shortly after

New Product Development 2008 - Test Process

2007-10-27T14:51:00.000-05:00

Mike Blair (Director of Club Development) and I are finalizing the GRIP new products for 2008. We have had a lot of debate about our new "rusty" wedge. We settled on a nice oil can finish and Mike was very vocal that we allow the finish to rust thereby creating natural spin while maintaining a conforming club.

A lunch meeting to discuss the wedge design

I am always concerned about durability and customer perception. I read about a lot of golf companies that use robots to hit golf balls and can simulate all sorts of scenarios. I don't have robots. What I do have is an office that overlooks an 80 bay driving range at the East Coast Golf Academy in Northborough, MA and I have New England Weather. Believe me, all you need is amateur golfers and changing weather conditions to really test a golf club.

Our process starts by making up a dozen or so wedges and letting customers try them out and getting their feedback. We were fairly confident about the design, aesthetics, and playability of the wedges and the feedback from the testers was great. It reminded me of the Fairway Wood trials which went really well last year. People wanted to buy the prototype fairway woods on the spot. Since we could not sell them, we had a few stolen.

The second part of the process is putting the wedges in the "free rental" bin at the driving range. They are mixed in with old wooden woods, damaged knock-offs and other junk clubs. Most of the people that use them come to the driving range with no clubs of their own and really beat the free rentals up. If our clubs survive a month "in the bin" we know they are durable. This assures that in the absolute worse usage circumstances that the finis is strong and they will not chip, dent or damage easily. It is our golf version of a vehicle head-on collision test for safety.

The oil can finish passed the test as did the quality of the carbon steel - which we knew because our CNC Milled Wedges use the same steel.

The final test is to put one club head on my deck for one month to endure the rain, sun and whatever else comes out of the sky. I was actually concerned after the test that the club had too much rust and that the finish was not rusting on the surface but it was decomposing. Mike proved me wrong by lightly wiping the wedge down with steel wool for 10 seconds. The finish and integrity of the club were in great shape. We placed a factory order shortly after the meeting.

My only open concern is whether our customers will like the rust. I certainly do. I carried a rusty Vokey for many years.

Rankmark's 2007 Best of the Best - GRIP OWT Wide Sole Irons!

2007-09-20T09:01:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I promised myself that I would catch up on Quickbooks (Accounting) and some other administrative chores that I am behind on in the office. When I finally sat down to do it at about 3:00 PM I received an email from Larry Janis from weekend-golfer.com forwarded me Charlie "The Bogeyman" Mandel's Rankmark newsletter with a note that said, "Just in case you haven't seen this...."

Well, Larry I had not seen it. GRIP OWT Wide Sole Irons made Rankmark's 2007 "Best of The Best"

Rankmark is known as the "Consumer Reports" of the golf industry. However, they are better than Consumer Reports (CR). CR uses guys in white robes to test vacuum cleaners and crash test dummies to test SUVs. Rankmark uses real golfers with high and low handicaps, slices and duck hooks, to test clubs. They also do not accept any money for the test so you can't buy your way in. This is a great model for GRIP because we did not budget to buy much of anything besides golf clubs.

I encourage you to check out the test results at Rankmark. The official test was released in their newsletter but it is not on the list of tests on the site yet. You can follow this link: http://www.rankmark.com/thebogeyman/thebogeyman-september07.html

We finished #4 overall behind Cleveland, Callaway, and Ping. We'll get the next time. Nike, Nicklaus, Cobra, Adams, Mizuno and others - I bet you had not heard of us! Who is your daddy now? It's time to Go Grip.

You can be sure that I will exploit this success as much as possible. There is no such thing as a bad winner...right? I still have not done my accounting work.

Las Vegas PGA Fall Expo 2007

2007-09-12T08:49:00.000-06:00

I was at the PGA Fall Expo yesterday. I actually had a pretty tough schedule. Flew in on Monday - left my house at 3:30 AM EST and arrived in Vegas about 12:00 PM western time. a 3 hour difference. Northwest airlines actually charged me to upgrade to the aisle. Yes, that is correct an UPGRADE TO THE AISLE! You probably think it was an exit row or something. Well, it wasn't. To move from my middle seat to the aisle was $30. Believe me, the leg space was horrible and I was on the wing.

When I arrived I was pretty tired but it was the middle of the day. I checked into Planet Hollywood Hotel (formerly Aladdin). The PGA show was at Mandalay Bay but El Presidente is a few Hot Steel fairway wood sales short of staying at the Mandalay. Expedia gave me a nice deal on a flight including a middle seat and a room at Planet Hollywood.

Planet Hollywood (PH) is undergoing a huge makeover while it converts from Aladdin to PH. Because of that I have to give them a break. The room was comfortable, the location is great. It is attached to a giant mall and across the street from Belagio, next to Paris, and close to a lot of other good attractions. PH is very far from Mandalay Bay.

After settling in, and grabbing a light lunch I went for a walk but it was about 100 degrees outside so I went back in and walked around the "Miracle Mile" mall for a while.

When I got back to the room I did my GRIP work for a while. The Planet Hollywood room is another work in progress. It is actually really nice but the days of the bedspread and the blanket are gone. They need to go to the Duvet/Down Comforter with all possible speed. Like I said, they get a break because they are a work in progress. My room featured a picture of Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves" and an alien prop weapon from the short lived television series Space Above and Beyond. I actually think it is a pretty cool idea for a hotel room. Unless you are staying at a 5 star resort, most hotel room art is crap and it never gets my attention. I definitely looked at the prop weapon for a bit.

I put a call into Charles Mandel from Rankmark, an independent, very respected golf club rating company. They put together huge test groups of golfers from 0 - infinite handicaps to test clubs and use a mathematical model to generate test results from the data they gather. They do not take any money for the service. However, your company may fall flat on a test and you can't buy your way to the top. It is a good company to work with for us. Charlie has had calls from Eli Callaway himself years back. Charlie started doing this as a hobby when he retired and now it is a big business.

When I showed up to meet Charlie I thought it was a meeting for a casual drink so I did not change into nicer clothes. I walked to meet him at the Mandalay Bay in 90+ degree heat.
After a very pleasant conversation with Charlie I learned that I was going to dinner with Sonartec Chairman Peter Pocklington and Andrew Birnbaum a very big wheel on the marketing side of the golf business. I should have known better than to show up looking like I just played 18 holes in the heat.

Andrew, Charlie, Andrew's wife, Peter and his wife as well as one of Peter's staff were a pleasure to dine with. Sonartec actually picked up the dinner bill which was very classy. We ate at Joe's Stone Crab and I enjoyed the food and the company. I learned a lot from everyone.

The show was great the next day. My concentration was on The Savvy Golfer, trying to identify new products for the site focusing on women's golf. I found at least a dozen new products that I am very excited about. My wife, Stacey is the new Savvy Golfer tech person who will add the new products and maintain the site. She has agreed to a generous salary of roughly what a fast food worker earns. It is nice to have a wife who believes in what you do.

During my lunch break the wheels came off like usual. DHL missed a pick up on Monday so orders were late, and our club builder in Hartford did not receive his thick envelope of custom orders to build and shipping labels. Somehow we rallied, recovered the orders emailed them to the warehouse and they will all go out today. Never a dull moment.

Last night was tame. I ate at the Sports Book in the hotel and watched the Red Sox game. I walked the Miracle mile and bought some little gifts for the family.

A final observation about Planet Hollywood Hotel. I know they are in transition and they did not draw too many events for the VMA awards the weekend before I arrived. Nothing made it more painfully obvious than the video of Sylvester Stallone's 60th Birthday that kept playing in the elevator. I hope things get better for them. Stallone's Birthday was attended by a lot of the original PH investors including Bruce Willis and the Governator. I am sure the video at Luxor and the Palms featured P Diddy, Britney Spears, 50 Cent and all the other VMA celebs who hit their popular night clubs during the weekend of the awards.

Can't get enough of that Geico Caveman

2007-09-04T11:53:00.001-06:00

I love Geico commercials. The Gecko has been around since the 2000 Superbowl and his act is still great. The Caveman is a great follow up to the Gecko. Someone sent me a link to the Caveman playing golf with Phil Simms. Funny stuff. We looked into the Pets.com Sock Puppet as a GRIP Spokesman but he was too expensive and he has no arms. An armless spokesperson for a Golf company is a difficult sell. Still, the puppet is one of the best living pitch men.

Golf Research In Play Announces Golf Club Trade-In Program - Portion of Proceeds to Benefit Give2TheTroops 'Tee Off For The Troops' Campaign

2007-08-28T13:12:00.000-06:00

Golf Research In Play Announces Golf Club Trade-In Program - Portion of Proceeds to Benefit Give2TheTroops 'Tee Off For The Troops' Campaign

The Worst Golf Villain of All Time?

2007-08-23T11:28:00.000-06:00

With all of the sniping going on in professional golf these days including Rory Sabbatini calling Tiger "beatable", Michelle Wie dropping out of tournaments and everyone screaming foul, Daly smoking 4 cigarettes from tee to green on a par 3, Sergio whining, etc, the golf world is abuzz with stories "vilifying" players. This got me thinking about "Golf villains."

Kaiser Soze (Usual Suspects), Hannibal Lechter (Silence of The Lambs), Darth Vader (If you don't know this you should be deported from the planet), and a few others are always debated as the most "Evil" movie characters of all time. What about in the world of Golf movies? Who is the most evil movie golf villain of all? Here are the nominees:

Judge Smails (Caddyshack): Smails may not just be the most evil man in the history of golf movies but he may also be a nominee for most evil movie character of all time. He certainly ranks ahead of Johnny Lawrence from “The Karate Kid” and Norman Bates from “Psycho”. I can't remember one scene where he was likable or a moment where I felt sad or happy for him. Even Denzel in "Training Day" managed to deceive us for a minute or two that he was a good guy. Smails is a Country Club snob who believes he is above everyone and makes no secret of his feelings. He is rude to his friends and his family. He also has a temper on the course and you can tell a lot about a person by the way he acts on the golf course. Smails throws clubs, yells and cheats. He treats people like crap - look how horribly he treated his grandson Spalding, "You'll get nothing and like it!" when Spalding wanted lunch during a round of golf. He would not let Dr. Beeper return a page on the golf course thus demonstrating that the well being of others is of little or no concern to him. He has a volatile temper demonstrated when he threw putter from the 18th green over the clubhouse hitting a woman while she ate her lunch. He actually let his caddy take the blame for the flying putter and proceeded to tip him $.50 for caddying 18 holes. I think when Danny Noonan approached him about the caddy scholarship and Smails responded with, "The World Needs Ditch Diggers Too" it pretty much summarizes his character. He is so cold that he is almost inhuman.

Auric Goldfinger(Goldfinger): For those not familiar with Goldfinger, it was a 1964 James Bond flick and possibly the best Bond flick of them all. I would highly suggest renting it if you have not seen it. Aside from being a gold smuggler and a murderer Mr. Goldfinger is also a cheater. He cheats at cards and he cheats at golf. To his credit he did pay his golf bet when he lost a game to James Bond. Even if we put aside our feelings about Goldfinger as a murderer and a smuggler, he is still a serial cheater. We all know plenty of cheaters,Judge Smails cheated as well but Goldfinger plans for cheating in advance and it is part of the sport for him. What also makes Goldfinger truly stand out as an "Evil "golfer is that he uses his bodyguard/driver/assassin "Oddjob" as a caddy. Oddjob is a pretty intimidating guy considering that he kills people by throwing his bladed hat at them resulting in the target being beheaded. I think if you cheat and bring an assassin as a caddy that's pretty bad if he helps you cheat that’s even worse. When Bond won the round and exposed Goldfinger as a cheater Oddjob crushed a golf ball with his bare hand and beheaded a statue with his hat to show Bond just what could happen to him for exposing Goldfinger. When I play with someone and they improve a lie or magically find a ball in the woods in plain sight propped up on a good lie with an easy exit after 10 minutes of looking for it I usually say, “wow you play like Auric Goldfinger” they think I am referring to some European tour player or something. It is my way of saying, “You are a cheater.”

Shooter Mcgavin (Happy Gilmore): Shooter is a showoff and gets his name from the fact he likes to make a childish shooting expression with his fingers when he knocks the golf ball in the hole. I know that if I played with anyone who did the shooting move after sinking a putt I probably would not play with them again. For the most part I don't think rest of Shooter's selfish, deceitful, and childish behavior seems too different from many of the Primadonnas on the tour these days. His character is a more dramatic, comedic, and entertaining version of what we hear at most post PGA event press conferences. In addition to his trademark shooting gesture when he celebrates, what makes Shooter special is that he would take an old lady's house away to assure he wins a "Gold Jacket" (move version of a Green Jacket) as he demonstrated by buying Happy's Grandmother's house from the bank. Kicking an old lady out of her house is really bad. However, from a golf perspective the shooting gesture is worse than what he did to Granny. The shooting move is golf's equivalent to nails on a chalkboard while being poked with a sharp stick. I get chills just thinking about Shooter's celebratory move.

David Simms (Tin Cup): Tin Cup itself is a great movie. Every time it is on I stop what I am doing and I am just drawn in by the drama right away. I think I once toggled between Tin Cup and The Masters for two hours and I watched a few minutes of it during game 6 of the Sox/Yankees ALCS Series in 2004 (I am a big Sox fan). For Don Johnson and Cheech Marin the movie totally makes up for "Nash Bridges" and for Kevin Costner it is at least a down payment on "Waterworld" and "The Postman." David Simms is not that bad of a guy but because Tin Cup (Costner) is so likeable and such an underdog and Simms is his nemesis it makes Simms look like more of a pretentious jerk than most touring pros. Later in the movie we learn that he also hates puppies and old people. However, it should be noted that to the best of our knowledge Simms did not kick any old people out of their homes like Shooter Mcgavin and as far as athletes who hate animals he can't hold a candle to Michael Vick. I am not sure he is evil as much as he is the perfect arch-rival for Tin Cup. The stark contrast between Simms and Tin Cup paints Simms in a very evil light.

We can't all be staples

2007-08-03T13:44:00.000-06:00

I saw this article a couple of months ago in Fast Company Magazine about how Staples operates their Warehouse with robots. What caught my attention was how clean the warehouse was. Wow! It looks like you can eat off those floors. ...and the Robots! y warehouse is 11,000 square feet and we share space with Wildcard Golf and Swing 'em Again Golf (used clubs).

Anyhow, we moved from 5,000sf to 11,000sf and we clearly ran out of space. Swing 'em again basically closed the showroom because used clubs take up a lot of space. We had a customer try to find us a couple of weeks back and I felt badly because they expected to see a big sign and a store. I must confess it is just a big warehouse. We are also way in the back behind Pilkington (you will see their trucks from the street) and next to the very smelly medical waste treatment warehouse. It keeps the rent down.

See if you can figure out which pics are from Staples Warehouse and which ones are ours. By the way, in our defense, we do keep the assembly area very clean and organized. As long as assembly and shipping area a well oiled machine we will continue to keep our customers happy. We like our space. Hopefully nobody gets hurt climbing the mountains of boxes!

Bad week...better weekend

2007-07-30T11:04:00.000-06:00

Last week was a tough week. We were doing a little test with our Google Adwords account where we increased our spend by quite a bit. Our expectation was that our increase in spending would increase sales based on higher click through rates and better ad placement. For thise of you that are not familiar with adwords, you are probably very bored. I would like to direct you to more interesting content on my blog before you click to some other site. Anyhow, we spent lot's of $$ and we had an exceptionally slow week from google. I bought a couple of books on PPC from Amazon at the end of last week to see if we could be doing things a little better. I bought:
Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site and Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords

My summer reading list is not exactly "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "1984."

Anyhow, by Sunday morning our customers were back and all was well in the world again. I am still trying to figure out is there is a software solution to managing my bids more efficiently. Another project for this week.

Don't Blame Michelle Wie

2007-07-27T07:40:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I think most of us forget how poor our judgment was at 17 years old. I can remember meeting up with friends in my high school parking lot on a Saturday night, driving into the worst part of Hartford Connecticut to buy beer and drinking it in my school parking lot before we figured out to go. As an adult, I would consider that poor judgment and basically stupid. I realize now that I was very lucky that I did not get caught. However, I was not a stupid teen but I was a normal kid doing stupid teen things. My parents also dictated a lot to me and influenced my judgment and corrected me on a lot of things. Most kids enjoy a similar experience growing up. There are some exceptions - kids from the great depression, kids from broken homes who have to fend for themselves, etc. However, for the sake of this rant let's assume that Michelle Wie has it pretty good. I am fairly sure she did not buy golf lessons and greens fees with a paper route, food stamps, and 5 cent soda can redemptions. She had a pretty comfortable home life like me.

Michelle is dealing with a lot right now, injuries, missed cuts, negative media attention and criticism from other golfers. I blame her parents for a lot of these issues. A professional sports career or a great career of any sort is a marathon not a sprint. Tiger played a couple of years of the U.S. Amateur and a year at Stamford before going pro. Michael Jordan played college hoops, and Kobe Bryant was not the MVP in his first year. It appears that Michelle Wie's management team made a lot of poor decisions on her behalf and may have done a lot of damage. Let's not forget she is a 17 year old girl and she has the emotions and feelings of a 17 year old girl - she is not a robot and all of this must be hard for her. She did not make the decision to go pro at 15 by herself, she did not pick up the phone and demand sponsors exemptions into men's events only to miss cuts. She did not make the decision to pursue PGA greatness before establishing herself as an LPGA great. Somebody made these decisions with her. However, only Michelle Wie feels the embarrassment and emotions that comes with these events, missed cuts, losses, and media scrutiny coupled with the insecurity and emotions that a teenage girl already feels. I feel really badly for her right now. She is a kid who has been badly mismanaged.

Because Ms. Wie is a celebrity we forget her age and we also forget that behind her there is a family, sponsors, and management that dictate where she goes, what she does, and where she plays. The next time Michelle Wie says something to the media that makes you roll your eyes, or she misses a cut, or has a questionable injury think about what you were doing at 17 years old and then give her a break. She is a victim of those around her.

I hope that Michelle Wie has the opportunity to meet Jennifer Capriatti one day. Jennifer was a teen sensation in tennis and in her formative years she took a break and did some of the things that the rest of us did as teens. She got caught. I got caught too. However, my picture was not in People Magazine when I got caught. Jennifer resurrected her career on her own terms and played some great tennis and she seemed really happy doing it. I noticed when Jennifer Capriatti had her comeback I did not see her dad parked behind her at the press conferences anymore.

Good luck Michelle. I hope that you are happy. If you are not, I hope that you find it because you are 17 and you deserve nothing but happiness.