Clubs to Hire enables travelling golfers the luxury of booking their favourite sets of golf clubs online prior to travel and collecting them on arrival.
After working for five years as a marketing executive for the Smurfit Group at Smurfit Paribas Bank, Tony became director of golf at Mount Juliet in 1995 and oversaw the successful hosting of the Irish Open, growing turnover by 100 per cent.
He then left to run St Margaret’s Golf and Country Club in 1998, before moving to South Africa in 2000 where he ran an IT company with 180 staff and 7,000 clients. He returned to Dublin in 2003 and set up an investment property business.
After the market crash, he decided to set up Clubs to Hire with Gerry McKernan. With five million golfers in Europe and 30 million in the US, it plans to grow extensively and will add additional locations in Europe during 2014. The company, which employs 32 people, hopes to enter the Middle East and US market during 2014/15.
What vision/lightbulb moment prompted you to start-up in business?
The lightbulb moment came during a conversation with my business partner Gerry McKernan. We knew that nobody was catering for the market properly and no alternative was available to putting the clubs on a plane. We decided to give an alternative to travelling golfers who wanted to avoid paying excessive airline charges and remove all the hassle associated with putting golf clubs on a plane.
What was your "back-to-the-wall" moment and how did you overcome it?
When we first opened, we were getting bookings on the website but the suppliers did not send the sets when promised. We had to hire sets from local golf clubs to look after our early clients. Eventually the sets arrived and we were up and running.
What were the best and the worst pieces of advice you received when starting out?
Worst: People will not rent as they want their own clubs.
We have supplied 125,000 sets of clubs since inception. We continue to grow our markets and have done this with no bank financing or debt. At present, we have 30,000 loyal clients on our database and are on track to rent 50,000 sets of clubs in 2014.
Best: Keep it simple and always under promise and over deliver.
We always look at ourselves and ask if we can do things better. Clients will often assist you with this feedback. We have lots of new ideas to tag onto the business going forward.
What do you believe is your company's competitive advantage?
It's easy to book our product and we offer great value at great locations. We offer our service at 21 locations in Europe and Africa, and operate two retail stores at the arrivals hall of Faro and Malaga Airports.
We remove all the hassle and a lot of the cost associated with golf travel. We also allow golfers to experience the latest sets in the market for a fraction of the cost.
Have you started to feel the effects of the economic upturn within your sector/industry?
Yes, business has picked up every year since we opened. We opened in mid-2010 during the worst downturn in Europe. As Europe improves, clients will take advantage of our service. Our German business is showing signs of significant growth, increasing from 3 per cent to 15 per cent in 2013 alone.
