The golf equipment marketplace is so tough that almost no
one can say it fits them like a glove. Still, Rita and Chris Terris have a decent enough grip on their niche to report they are holding their own.
Rita, a hand therapist with a practice in Bellmore, and Chris, her husband, who has a business background, started making a specially padded golf glove by accident nearly 10 years ago. Rita noticed that many of her righthanded patients, who were golfers, were coming in with pain in the left hand. "It was obvious that it was caused or at least exacerbated by golf," she said.
So she took a regular glove, added padding here and there and, before you knew it, a product was born. "Being an avid golfer, I couldn't keep my nose out of it," said Chris, who used to be in sales with Kenwood and Mitsubishi, and urged his wife to market it.
They began inserting gel pads, made of viscoelastic polymers, in strategic spots in goat-leather gloves to absorb the shock and vibration from repeated impacts. They obtained a patent, received the blessing of the U.S. Golf Association and started selling the glove in 2002. And their business is growing, despite having spent time in the rough.
The Terrises took out full-page ads in major golf magazines and hired advisers and public-relations experts. "We listened to everybody under the sun," Chris said. "Basically, what they were doing was extracting money out of our pockets."
Nonetheless, they have done well enough to keep going. They have sold gloves in pro shops and many more through their Web site, www.terrisgolf.com. They have discovered a demand for their product that is made in China and distributed from a warehouse in Freeport.
What the couple promotes is a way to protect a hand or wrist that is hurting and preventing a healthy hand or wrist from getting injured. Golf publications have given the Terris glove a thumbs-up (yes, one of the four models now being sold is designed to protect only the thumb). A teaching pro has told them that the glove can even help avoid a slice because it encourages good hand position on the club. Mostly, though, it is meant to avoid pain.
"As we saw last year with Phil Mickelson, wrist injuries can kill you," Chris said.
Rita explained that if a golfer knows he or she is going to feel pain at contact, it is going to affect their swing. And people with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome can feel the pain coming. Her glove is designed to have the glove absorb the blow, allowing people to play better and play more. She and her husband are also trying to convince young golfers to wear it, so they don't develop hand problems.
They're just not going to drive themselves to bankruptcy to make the point. "We're not going to pay some golfer $1 million to wear it because, No. 1, we can't afford it, and second, we want loyalty to the product," Chris said, adding that they have a 90-percent rate of repeat customers.
"We don't have to be big," Rita said. "The glove was developed to help, which is what it does."
All in the family
Remember Vinny DeMaio, the college-bound golfer who had a double eagle and hole-in-one in the same round (LI Golfbeat, June 22)? Well, it must run in the family. His older brother Stephen had an ace recently at St. George's in Setauket with an 8-iron on the 147-yard ninth hole. "Hopefully, I'll be next," said their dad, Steve, who witnessed all of the landmark shots.
Tom Kilfeather made double eagle on Lido's signature 460-yard 16th hole July 16, hitting a 3-iron off the tee and draining a 4-iron from 210 yards.
