Job Spotlight with Larry Strickland, manager of Golf Gallery on Broadway

It’s been a quarter century since Larry Strickland made the career transition from a traveling salesman to a life connected to the golf links — selling clubs and offering up tips to those seeking a better swing in a challenging sport.

It was back in 1988 that local golf shop owner Jim Franklin helped Strickland get into the business, giving him the chance to blend his salesmanship with a passion for golf.

“I had a love for the game of golf, and I just always wanted to be involved in the sport, but those opportunities are limited,” said the Columbus native. “So I just sort of fell into it.”

Since 1999, Strickland has been managing the Golf Gallery store operated by the owners of Raymond Rowe Furniture in downtown Columbus. In June, he made a transition once again, moving the shop from its longtime 1200 Broadway location diagonally across the street to 1229 Broadway, offering more elbow room for golf clubs and accessories.

The Ledger-Enquirer visited recently with Strickland, 65, to get his thoughts on the job, how equipment has changed through the years, and the impact the Internet has had on the retail business. This interview is edited a bit for length and clarity.

This job has put your sales skills to good use, but that’s not all?

I’ve always enjoyed working in the game. It is something I know, so I’m never overwhelmed by any questions. Being a little older now, I don’t feel like the game has passed me by. I stay on top of everything. And I feel like I have a good background, especially in the technical end of it, repairing clubs, giving people advice on clubs.

How did you get good at repairing clubs?

It takes a certain type of person to be able to do this. You have to be extremely anal (retentive). You can’t halfway do this and do it well. You have to be very detail oriented. If you’re not, you’ll never be any good at it. It just happens that was kind of my personality anyhow. It was almost a natural fit. Even now, if we don’t do it to my standards (at first), I’ll just start over. If something just doesn’t look exactly right, I’ll say: I wouldn’t want this.

But I took a club repair course. It was only three days and just taught you the basics. But by the time I took the course I already knew 10 times more than what they were teaching, because I had already learned it from just working in the golf business a little bit.

There were two people I learned from who had exceptional backgrounds in Columbus. Their names were Jeff Darrah and Lanny Britton, and those two guys probably were the best at club repair that this city has ever known. They knew everything, so it was easy to learn from them.

Do you have plenty of folks asking you for advice?

Yes. I get people all the time wanting me to help them with their game. I do give people a lot of little tips. One thing that I can do is watch someone swing a club and I can tell what’s wrong. I’m not a pro, so I don’t charge people for it. But I can usually spot the obvious. Now a golf professional, he knows more than just the obvious. He knows the little things you’re doing wrong that don’t show up to the naked eye. There’s a reason those people have a lot more training than I do.

What does it take to be a pro?

You have to go to PGA schools, and really be certified to do these things. It’s a training process. It’s like a technical school to them. They have to go to seminars, and go to schools, and go through a lot of training to become a Class A golf professional.

What is the biggest or most common mistake people make with their swing?

People want to hit the ball farther than they’re capable of doing. That’s the biggest thing. People want to swing as hard as they can at the golf ball, and they think that’s going to hit it farther. But, really, rhythm and balance and technique hit it farther.

Do customers come in and say simply: Give me a club that lets me hit longer and harder?

Yes. I get that a lot. That’s very, very hard to do ... is take a person that you’ve never seen hit a golf ball, and you don’t know what his strengths and weaknesses are, and they ask you for a quick fix for their golf game. That’s just so hard to get involved with and do with any kind of accuracy.

What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in equipment since you’ve been doing this?

Huge changes in the golf ball. The golf ball is almost unrecognizable now compared to what we were hitting 26 years ago. The golf ball just goes farther, it goes straighter, it goes higher. It never bruises or has a cut in it. The durability is through the roof. Prices are higher. But when you compare prices back then to what they are now, proportionately it has not gone up at the same rate. They’re very affordable.

And then there are the drivers, the big club, the one you hit off the tee for distance. Technology has gone a long way with those. They’re adjustable. You can adjust the height that you hit the ball. You can adjust the amount of spin you put on the ball. The faces are thinner. The ball leaves the club face hotter than it did years ago. Heck, we were playing with small-headed wooden drivers 26 years ago, barely getting into metal ones. Now we’re so technical with drivers that you’re able to ask people questions, and you can recommend to a large degree what should work with them, even though you don’t know their game.

And I suppose golf club prices can range high and low?

Yes. But we’re kind of a brand name golf shop. We don’t worry about the low end because that’s not really our business. Columbus needs a true golf shop that caters to the avid golfer, and we’re that. We don’t try to go head to head with Walmart and the cheaper brands.

Dick’s (Sporting Goods) is basically our closest competition, but they can’t get a lot of premium clubs that we can get. They like to pretend on their commercials that they can, but they really can’t. They’re looking for the club that’s discontinued from TaylorMade and that they can order thousands of and get the greatest deal in the world, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But we’re going to be the place you come when you don’t want that. You’ve already had that. What’s the latest thing they’ve got out and why should I switch to this? That’s when you come to us.

What impact does the Internet have on you sales-wise?

The Internet is huge. The Internet is America’s marketplace. It’s the world’s marketplace. Anytime you are selling what (shoppers) can get on the Internet, basically the price doesn’t vary much, not unless you’re buying counterfeits on the Internet. In the golf business, there are a lot of those.

People really buy a lot of imitation product and they don’t know it. If they buy a Titleist iron, and a set of irons in here costs $899, and they buy it off eBay for $499, to them they think it’s real. But then when they don’t like the way it feels, and they finally realize it’s a cheaply made club, they think bad things about Titleist, and they shouldn’t.

So you have to be aware and know what you’re looking at. I just identified a set of Titleist irons for a young man this morning. He brought them in and said he bought them over the Internet and asked if they are real. I said absolutely not.

How can you tell?

I can look at it, and there’s the feel of it. The color on the shaft was off, the texture on the grip was off, the club head, the shape of the toe was off. They should realize that when they’re buying something for half price, it can’t possibly be real ... Unless it’s from a reputable golf business, you can really be taken to the cleaners.

You get people from A to Z wanting to play golf?

I get the dead beginners who have never played, wanting me to help them with everything, to the guy who has played for 40 years and is a really good player and knows exactly what he wants when he comes in the door. And we get everybody in between.

With schools now starting people in the 5th grade on golf teams, we’re getting a lot more boys and girls who want to be on a team at school, who maybe have tried other sports. They played soccer for six years and they don’t like softball, and are looking for something they can grow with.

Do they come in and say they’re dreaming of being the next major star eventually?

Nobody ever says that. That’s the kid I get back there (in the practice area) and show them how to hold the club, and I show them how they should think about swinging a golf club as opposed to a softball bat, because it’s a different mindset. That’s the people I like to get back there and just get them started. I try to get them hooked up with golf coaches and golf professionals, because this is not a game you learn easily.

With some good instruction early, it can really save you a year of misery of trying to learn the game, because golf is not a natural sport. You don’t just grab the club and swing it and hit the ball. The ball’s at the wrong angle for your body. You’re not standing straight up. You’re bent over.

How do you approach that? It’s an acquired talent. You have to really get the basics down before you ever play the game. And for the most part, people shouldn’t try to learn from their friends or relatives because they’re no good anyway. Ninety percent of golfers really aren’t good players. So to be teachers, it really isn’t fair to the person trying to learn.

What’s the toughest part of your job?

The fact that once I order something for someone, it’s out of my hands. If I order something for someone and we need it in 10 days, if it doesn’t come in in 10 days, I have no control over it. When you run any retail business, the hardest part is the disappointment you get from customers although there’s nothing you could have done differently.

I really like what I do, but sometimes people forget all you can do is get it in the system and get it coming, because you can’t have everything for everybody in the store. It’s just impossible.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

I suppose it’s just that you meet a lot of really great people. Golfers seem to be, for the most part, very good people. And I never have dreaded coming to work since I’ve been in the golf business. Of course, there’s stressful times when you have too much to do, or overbook something, or promise something that you haven’t been able to get to. There’s always that, but that’s in any business.

But I really enjoy just coming in because I know the first person in the door is a golfer, and he’s going to want to talk about the game, and he’s going to ask me a pointed question that I probably can answer for him. It’s just kind of satisfying.

Finally, is there a big season and an off season for you?

We definitely have an off season, and it starts with football season. That’s when we see a decrease in sales, even though the weather is absolutely perfect for playing golf. A lot of people are tied up with college football, and they’re tied up with hunting. So those people go for a couple of months and really don’t even touch a club. Then the cold weather affects you through January and part of February.

But about Feb. 15, everyone picks things back up. Football is over, hunting is over. Everybody knows that golf season is right around the corner. So no matter how bad the weather, about the middle of February everything just breaks loose, and we start getting busy then all the way through August.

Bio

Name: Larry Strickland

Age: 65

Hometown: Phenix City (moved to Columbus after high school)

Current residence: Columbus

Education: 1968 graduate of Central High School in Phenix City; attended Columbus College, taking business administration classes, for more than two years

Previous jobs: Various sales jobs, including a lengthy stint with a meat distribution company

Family: Vicki, his wife of 44 years, and daughter Brandi

Leisure time: Enjoys golfing, of course, and traveling as much as possible, particularly to Europe. There are pure sightseeing trips with his wife, as well as journeys with friends to play golf, such as in Scotland

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 9:51 PM with the headline "Job Spotlight with Larry Strickland, manager of Golf Gallery on Broadway."