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A new fix for divots
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Two major problems golf courses face daily are ball marks and divots. These problems are labor intensive, with maintenance crews bending over and using a bottle and colored sand to repair them. Frustrated with the menial and time-consuming task, I knew there had to be a better way to get material to the ball mark or divot without bending over.
While my mind reeled with ideas, my dilemma was how to get my thoughts on paper to design an effective tool. That’s when I conferred with my brother, Bill White, who has always been extremely talented with a pencil. We put our minds together, and he produced a sketch. That’s all I needed. The next day, I built a rough prototype with funnels, PVC, epoxy and the top of a baby food jar.
The next step was the test-run, which we did at the golf course I’ve worked at for the past 12 years, Campbell’s Scottish Highlands in Salem, N.H. It was a huge success, and the guys who used it said they loved the tool, and it sure beats bending over. Their enthusiasm fueled our ambition, and we decided the golf industry had to have this available in its arsenal to combat ball marks and divots.
After careful research, we contacted Precision Tool & Die to create a more usable prototype so we could show it in the White Metal Golf booth at the Golf Industry Show in Atlanta. This turned out to be another huge success, with more than 50 orders for our newly named “Greens-Mate” being placed from golf courses around the country. White Metal Golf owners Rob Porter and Scott Sterner have been extremely helpful with guiding us through every step of the process. They will assist us in getting our product out to golf courses. At the time this article was prepared, we had a total of about 80 orders and planned to begin shipping by the end of September.
This has been quite the learning process. One of the major issues we’ve had to deal with is waiting for manufacturing of some of the parts. Most of the parts we customize in-house, but some are custom-molded. This has taken far longer than we anticipated — not to mention some of the changes along the way and the debt we have acquired. But the passion that I have for a flawless putting surface, plus the interest, enthusiasm and support I have had from my peers, has been worth it.
The positive points of the process include how much fun my brother and I had building the Greens-Mate and what we have learned along the way. One problem we encountered was that we had originally included a strap with the repair tool. To keep the Greens-Mate affordable to our customers, we could not include the strap. However, in the near future, the strap will be available as an accessory on the Web site.
We are very excited to hear the feedback, and we are confident superintendents will want more Greens-Mates for their starters and rangers to effectively maintain their golf courses.
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