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The Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals is owned and operated by Roy Nix, owner of McNix Golf in Columbus, Georgia. I am a former PGA Professional and now Professional Clubfitter and Club Builder. The AGCP started as a list of guys trading E-mails and turned into the Professional Clubmakers Association until we were asked to change our name by Henry Griffith because they had “Professional Clubmakers” Copyrighted. It was an idea of the founder, Roy Nix and it all stared like this:
A few years ago I joined the Professional Clubmakers Society to learn more about operating my newly formed Golf Shop and Clubmaking business. As a new PCS member with a retail shop I noticed that most of the posters on the PCS Forum were not retail shops and it was difficult to find members who had a retail shop to seek advice from. When I joined I thought Professional Clubmakers would be like the Printer’s Organizations I had belonged to, all of whom owned and operated Free standing businesses. I did not realize when I joined that the vast majority of clubmakers did not have a store fronts but operated from their homes.
I started this list to recruit retail shop owners to discuss retail shop operations. At some point I had a discussion with the PCS Director Diane about my little list and creating such a list for the membership was discussed. I told her I would need all the retail members E-mail addresses and I could subscribe them. Shortly thereafter I received a post from Diane with all the members E-mail addresses and I assumed this was for me to subscribe them to this list. So, I did. I caught hell from members for months to get them off the list. Finally I got all of them off except the few who thought my list was a good idea. So, now I went back to trying to recruit successful retail shops and some of the better at home shops, and I still look for retail shops and successful at home shop today although over time I have had a number of non retail shops ask if they could subscribe and I've put them in.
After a time I created a web site for our use with downloads of many helpful documents and some of the more interesting information that had been shared by members. I had a number of members write me after I created a web site to say that will all the work I had done and continued to do that I should charge something to be a member to help defray some of my costs for web site maintenance and hosting costs. Now the AGCP has grown from a couple of dozen to about 125 members in August of 2008, and membership is open to almost anyone. With over 100 members it has become almost a full time job and I have little time for my golf shop these days and haven’t played golf in almost a year now. We continue to grow and most of the members I get e-mail from or talk to tell me they get far more than their moneys worth of useful information and advice as well as other value from being a member of the AGCP.
So keep in mind that although the majority of the discussions involve clubfitting and clubmaking the focus of our list is often on retail and building a business. We discuss any situations and topics but the focus is for business, not hobby. Again, anyone is welcome but we focus on business. We have some of the best in the business working from home too, a sterling example is PCS COY Jerry Hoefling but there are many others too numerous to mention? The fact remains that the focus is on businesses, not hobbyist.
What does the crystal ball see? PGA Class "A" Golf Pros, as a group, are not going to learn what we know about golf equipment. A few will, most will not. Just as they lost the Pro Shops long ago as demands are made of Country Clubs, Golf Clubs, etc. to have truly custom fitted equipment the OEMs and Golf courses are going to come to us and the Golf Courses are going to have a Pro to run the golf operations and a Pro to run the fitting and building operations. We will be their other Pro. At first we will own our equipment and our shops and derive profit from our sales and maybe pay rent on the space. Over time because of the investment in equipment and inventory, just as the Golf Pro lost his Pro Shop we will loose our equipment shop too and we will have a salary and the club will own everything and we will manage it and do the work. But, we have about 40 or 50 years before that happens so we can make some hay while we can. If we get our teaching credentials we will be in a position to take over smaller operations that want (can afford) only one guy to do it all. As you start to see Golfsmith, etc. begin to hire us so will the golf courses hire us soon after. When it becomes necessary through the education of golfers to have a professional fitter the PCS and the AGCP will be discovered and become more prominent and begin to progress towards the level of the PGA.
Along these lines I will try and create opportunities for AGCP members to learn more about how to operate a small business, now to control inventory, how to market, how to advertise, how to sell, how to teach the golf swing, and eventually how to operate a golf course, if I'm still around when that happens. Logically this seems to be a progression that is evolving now. The OEMs are building fitting carts and offering them to off course operations and the PGA isn't beating their Pros to learn more about fitting and building clubs. At some point if we keep teaching and more books are written and the OEMs keep expanding their fitting options there is going to be a shortage of qualified people to do the fitting at a level the customer demands.
I will attempt to create and build on a Conference for our members in Columbus GA annually to bring educational opportunities to all AGCP members. Our first Conference was in Branson MO at Hoot Gibson’s Golfworks shop. In spite of a Winter Storm that cause about half of our attendees and all of our Corporate Sponsors to be stranded in Airport around the country we had enough who braved the storm and made it to Branson to have a great conference and exchange a lot of cutting edge information. Video tapes of our conference are still available and you can order them elsewhere on this site.
If you are interested in learning how to operate a successful business you can join below. All memberships are subject to acceptance by me and our membership. Any existing member can raise objections to any new membership at any time and that could be cause to reject any application either before or after your initial acceptance as a member. Prospective members will be accepted upon request until and unless objections are raised. Membership fees will be refunded except for a $10 application fee for any member that is refused membership for any reason.
Although I am the final authority for policy decisions, I do have an Advisory Board that I consult with on many ideas. I believe they are a group with Clubmaker interests and are able to give me an honest opinion and not what they think I want to hear. I do not need someone on the Advisory Board simply to agree with me, I can do that without advise. All three are familiar to most clubmakers and are have PCS Clubmakers of the Year and all are AGCP Level 10 Qualified.clubmakers.
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