The Creation of L.O.F.T. GOLF (Part 1) October 07 2014

How it all began…

Some of this was covered on the “About Us” page of our website, so I apologize if it’s redundant. Anyway, a very close friend of mine, Bob, and I were out golfing on a very warm day in April 2001. I was in my second year of golf and not really good at it, to say the least! Being a relatively new comer to golf, I wasn’t familiar with the joke that became our brand. I was golfing terribly and would look to Bob for some pointers, if not encouragement, and he’d simply mutter L-O-F-T. Somewhere along the round I asked him what he was talking about and that’s when he recited the entire joke. Those of you that know the joke can skip this part. For those of you that haven’t, here it is:

There was a salesman that thought if he learned to golf it would be great for business. He didn’t want to go out on the course and embarrass himself in front of potential clients so he signed up for some lessons from a very well known pro. The first lesson the pro suggested they play an actual round and the pro would offer advice as they played. The salesman was not doing well and was duffing every shot. He’d turn to the pro who would simply say “loft”. When the salesman got to his ball, he’d retrieve his next loftier club and attempt another shot…that went no where. He’d look to the pro for another pointer in which the pro would once again say “loft”. This went on through the entire round and at the end; the pro was looking to be paid for the lesson. The salesman said “what would make you think I’d pay you for your terrible advice? Every time I hit a poor shot, you’d simply say “loft” and I’d go to my next loftier club and see no improvement, so I really don’t think I owe you anything”. With that, the pro stated “Oh, I think you misunderstood me, when I said ‘loft’, I wasn’t speaking about your club choice, I was saying your problem was L.O.F.T., a Lack Of F%@#ing Talent!

I thought the joke was great, and being a lifelong entrepreneur, it started my mind thinking that that would make a really cool golf brand, so someone had to of done it. That night, while lying in bed, attempting to sleep, my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about this and if I didn’t do some research, I’d be up all night. (To any of you entrepreneurs out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about). That being said, I got out of bed and headed to my home office to settle my mind. Seeing that I already owned a business, a large retail boat dealership, I was relieved to see that there was a L.O.F.T. Golf in business, so I headed off to bed. Over the next several days, I was unable to stop thinking about L.O.F.T. Golf. From my office at my boat dealership, I started more research on the L.O.F.T. Golf brand. I noticed that the existing company was offering some products, very limited, a bit expensive but was blown away when I noticed the disclaimer ‘Please allow 4-6 weeks for shipping’. Now, I’ve learned that there is a L.O.F.T. Golf out there, yet, no commitment to the brand, no inventory, no one would wait 6 weeks for products, a very amateurish website and I knew I could do better! So, there we were, we had a great idea, but at that point, L.O.F.T. GOLF was nothing more than a punch-line.

We had just finished up a grueling 4TH day of the Hartford Boat Show and, as customary; I took my sales staff out for a cocktail to celebrate a very good show. Sitting next to me, at the bar, was one of our salesmen, Sean. Sean held a degree in Graphic Arts and really put our dealership on the map with some of his advertising creations. I was explaining to Sean that I had this concept, L.O.F.T. GOLF, and would love to hear his thoughts on a cool logo. Sean thought for a moment, pulled a pen out of his pocket and proceeded to sketch the L.O.F.T. GOLF logo on a cocktail napkin. It took Sean all of 30 seconds to create the logo! He asked for a few days to “clean it up”, I said no. I loved the raw, edginess of the logo and didn’t want anything changed. I’m sure people would love to hear that we labored for months to create the logo, but that wasn’t how it happened.

Next Installment: OK, we have an idea, a cool logo and a boat dealership that takes up 70 hours of my week!