To our fellow Grey Dogs,
End of the year, and with it, a heartfelt thanks.
As we wind down our first year (actually first seven months, if you can believe it!) it’s time for some acknowledgments and appreciation.
To begin, let’s address the writing and video content you’ve come to expect from us. We really do listen, and take on board the tremendous input we receive from you. Thank you. We will continue on this path of helping you get the most of your golfing experience by fully addressing your questions and suggestions. Keep them coming, please! We have an overarching “mantra-in-a-word”: applicability. This thema was brought to us early on in our journey by one of our wonderful Advisory Board members. If it has no real meaningful bearing on your game, we don’t share it!
Our Social Media presence warrants a special mention. We were simply lousy at it to begin and through no fault of the original team, we set out to be something we just aren’t. We “can” be funny, and frankly, it’s often an accidental occurrence!! It most often happens when we’re poking fun at ourselves (or each other) and it’s an honest and self-deprecating display of the relationship we have with one another. We legitimately enjoy and care about getting the message to you and if it’s at our expense, even better! This is visually brought to you so terrifically by the extraordinary talent that our man, Nicky Cass possesses. We turned over filming AND editing to him which was a great decision. We’re sure you agree. It’s a simple exercise of talking to him about our idea and research, and letting him go! But, be sure to understand this: he listens to us.
A word on research. It was, and is, our differentiation. It’s what makes GreyDogGolf gel. Absent the energy we put into testing and re-testing we’re just another golf site, and that’s simply not good enough. As we are singularly focused on improving the golf experience for aging players, we must always be looking to reveal findings you’ll find interesting and–that word again–applicable. How are we doing? We value your feedback so let us know.
The folks we have helping us are the best we can find. Examples are many, but as we’ve mentioned Nicky, let’s also talk about a few more.
We are so damned lucky to avail ourselves of the best club fitter we know, that being Tyler Williams who’s based at New York Golf in Manhattan. A real student and continuously trained onthe latest available technology and equipment. A good communicator through both listening and sharing. He asks as many questions of us as we do of him. Rare. We also stress that if you’re professionally “fit” you might want to have the fit (prescription?) filled by a real professional shop, and what Mike Mattia and his son, Nick, do at Spring Lake (NJ) Custom Golf is just second to none. They work with all the major equipment manufacturers but remain uniquely unbiased. When you get your clubs you’ll be confident that you will bag exactly what you’ve spec’d. You’re spending quite some coin, so get it done right! We love Tyler and SLCG, and they help us a LOT!
About lessons and getting better: Chris Stoudt is our “teacher” and collaborator. If you’ve followed along the journey of “Wes Gets Fit” you’ll see the work Chris has done. Again, he’s attuned to what each individual player can do physically and works within those boundaries. He’ll never ask you to do something that’ll not be sustainable. Really a pleasure to see the results and feedback. Chris understands well the aging golfer. And it has to be mentioned that this extends to the psychological side as much as the physical. Chris bases himself at KonnectGolf, our home indoor studio-of-choice in Manhattan. This Trackman-based facility is an exquisite operation in the heart of NYC. Nice folks, and Ralph Kartzman is a fine proprietor, gentleman and a GreyDogGolf advisor. We’ve done a lot of filming at the wonderful Rockland Country Club, and we are richly appreciative of Head Professional Bobby Everett and Superintendent Chris Smith for their hospitality and support. (RCC is a hidden gem in the Metro NYC region.)
As always when writing these notes, we’re sure to inadvertantly leave out someone and someplace. Often, casual conversations on course, at an event, or even over a cigar or a sandwich result in some great content. They make us better, they help you, and we’re grateful for those inputs.
Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2024, there’s a few developments that we’re really excited about:
We’re close to entering into a cross-promotion arrangement with a significant entity in the cigar business! Our research reveals a strong correlation between GreyDog golfers and cigar smoking and we’ll be leveraging that. We expect to feature one another in our respective marketing communications and conduct joint events around the country, raising and spreading awareness of GreyDogGolf.
As mentioned in our last newsletter, GreyDogGolf will be at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando in late January and we’ll be conducting branding activities there in both formal and informal ways. If any of you are attending, be sure to seek us out and say hello!
We’ve also been asked to present the GreyDogGolf concept at several venues over the winter, including in New York, Florida, and Arizona. Watch the website for specific dates and locations as they are published!
So, with that, we’ll end as we started: thank you and Happy New Year.
Go find a fairway.
Tommy and Wes
