I've been approached by a local private golf/country club to consider stocking and managing their proshop. They recently lost their club pro who also "owned" the proshop and driving range. So, when he left, all their stock, inventory, and even range balls left with him. They are thinking of making some major course renovations and personnel structuring changes so they may delay hiring a pro for 2 years while this all takes place. In the mean time, they'd at least like to keep their proshop adequately stocked as a convienience to members. Right now their proshop is stark naked.
I'm pretty well known in town (at least as far as I know :-) as a clubbuilder, fitter, and compentent club repairman so their board of trustees have approached me about the idea of keeping things going for them. Most and probably all of the accounting and personnel details would be handled by their club who is looking to take back much of the proshop/range business anyway. To this point, I've been basically a hyper hobbyist that gets quite a bit of word of mouth business through friends and acquaintances. I go through the basic channels for components and supplies so I have absolutely no connections in retail. My biggest questions involve how to get retail accounts to stock the shop. For about the last 10 years, this proshop has been owned by the pro and all the account are in his name so I assume we'd be starting from scratch in establishing accounts with each company. We'd at least be needing to get balls, gloves, bags and basic supplies. Then ideally would like to continue to offer some OEM lines. Previously, the proshop was stocked with most of the bigger names including Titlist, Callaway, Nike, Cobra, Taylor Made, Mizzuno and maybe a few others I'm forgetting. I know tha! t some of these companies require huge initial buy in to get involved and offer their lines and I doubt that is in the cards right now for myself of the club. The trustees are also interested in having my usual array of custom built clubs available as there are a lot of members who already play "my" clubs. I also figured I'd contact KZG about an account. Basically, other than offering clubfitting, clubfitting, and club repair services, and buying stuff retail and offering it in the shop at basically no markup simply as a convenience, I don't have a clue to where to start with this. If anyone has the time and patience to offer ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it. This idea is only being explored right now by both myself and the club's board of trustees but it has peaked my interest. At the least it may be a way for me to find out if the golf business is something I'd like to be involved with on more than a hobbyist level with very little or no financial risk to me. Thanks in advance for any thoughts. If it seems more appropriate to reply offline to this topic, my email address is: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks, Jeff
