Golf Pride unveils plans for new purpose-built facility at Pinehurst Resort

Eaton have announced that its Golf Pride Grips Division plans to develop a new purpose-built facility in Pinehurst, North Carolina – America’s Home of Golf. The new facility will create a unique space to accelerate new product development and manage the global fulfilment of product around the world. In addition to its global management and professional teams, the site will include an R&D lab with rapid prototyping capabilities, as well as a new consumer grip fitting studio. Golf Pride plans to move to this new facility in early 2019.

As a proud business partner of North Carolina since 1969, Golf Pride’s new home will be located within the Pinehurst Resort, next to the Tom Fazio-designed, and highly-acclaimed, Pinehurst No. 8 course. Golf Pride looked at several sites, but chose Pinehurst Resort because it was a great location and a great brand partnership as well. The new facility, which will be located within the gates of No. 8, will give Golf Pride a great platform to test new product ideas with a steady stream of golfers visiting Pinehurst Resort from around the world.

Golf Pride has a 70-year history and has been the grip choice for generations of golfers. With this new facility, the brand believes it will enable it to be the grip of choice for decades of golfers to come. The new facility will put the grip fitting experience front and centre to reinforce Golf Pride’s connection with golfers in product development. This exclusive grip fitting studio will replicate the services available to professional golfers on Tour. It will be an appointment-only experience that offers an ‘inside the ropes’ personalised concierge-quality service that all avid golfers will want to enjoy. Golf Pride also plans to use the fitting studio to test new product concepts and expedite the process of translating consumer insight into new products.

In designing the new building, Golf Pride felt strongly that it needed to respect the heritage and tradition of the Pinehurst area, while also creating a space that features Golf Pride’s innovation efforts that have been instrumental in it becoming one of the top brands in golf.

“Golf Pride is committed to delivering a steady stream of exciting new grip technologies to the market,” said James Ledford, President of Golf Pride. “Externally, the market reaction to our new products has been great. Internally, our employees are incredibly excited about the new products as well. That said, we have also seen the need for a new purpose-built facility that helps us streamline and accelerate our innovation efforts even more. We want to make innovation easier and faster. We are thrilled about this opportunity to create an ideal site right next to Pinehurst No. 8. As golfers, we genuinely appreciate the Pinehurst Resort experience and we respect the work they have done recently to innovate their own world-class facilities.”