Now, he’s helping Golf Pride create breakthrough grip technologies — and it’s far more complex than he ever could’ve imagined.
Read on to get to know Greg and learn more about how our grips are made.
Tell us a little about your background at True Temper.
Growing up in the UK, I had a real passion for mechanical engineering, and I always knew I wanted to go down one of two paths – either work in Formula 1 as an engineer or designer, or work in golf.
At the time, there were a number of golf equipment assemblers located in the UK, but only one golf manufacturer. I kept hounding them, and hounding them, after getting my degree, and the perseverance paid off. I started as a development engineer for Apollo Sports Technologies, which, at the time, was the second-largest steel shaft manufacturer in the world.
An opportunity arose at True Temper in 2003, where I was fortunate enough to work on different prototypes and new products and to work with wonderful colleagues & Tour players!
What brought you to Golf Pride, and how has your experience been shifting from steel golf shafts to grips?
For me, Golf Pride was a really easy switch. We have a very similar customer base as True Temper and the shaft companies: Either retail products for consumers or working with partners from the main club manufacturers, with whom I have many years of experience.
However, I underestimated the complexity of golf grips – the development of them is far more challenging than anything else I had worked on.
What makes developing golf grips more complex or difficult than steel shafts, in your experience?
At Golf Pride, we are manufacturing, developing, and designing our own rubber compounds. We’re also developing our own tooling (parts and molds used in the production of rubber grips). Believe it or not, that is very challenging!
Plus, on golf grips, you have to worry about durability on top of performance. You have environmental factors to deal with like UV rays & dirt and oil from the hands which wear down rubber, and that is not the case with steel.
What do you do for Golf Pride?
Since I’ve been here, we’ve been working hard to better identify consumer needs and building out a long-range technology and product roadmap.
On a daily basis, I’m working with our production teams at our overseas plants and our R&D team here in North Carolina to ensure prototypes are moving along; doing testing on new rubber compounds; as well as working on new grip features, textures, and profiles.
We’re very fortunate that such a large portion of the market trusts our products, and we take it seriously to provide a high-quality product for every customer with every grip we produce.