MEN of STEEL
Featured Cover Story from Southland Golf Magazine
By JOEL BEERS
February 2006

Interview with Greg Martin - PINFIRE GOLF

Explain your job in 100 words or less.
I wear many hats, but mainly I’m the VP of professional tours. My primary focus is to make sure all our players on the PGA Tour, Nationwide Tour and Canadian Tour get the equipment they need.

How long have you been with the company?
Since the beginning. My partners and I founded Pinfire Golf in January 2005.

How did you get involved in the golf club business?
My friend said he had an idea for a putter design and asked me to be his partner, and the rest is history.

What are the most popular clubs you sell?
The Eagle model putter.

What sets your clubs apart from the competition?
We feel we have the best putters because of the feel, alignment aids, look and quality that goes into every one of them.

What’s your biggest challenge in the business?
Breaking through in the industry. We know we make the best putter. Getting the public and wholesale buyers to realize that is quite an undertaking, but we’re proving it.

What’s the next big breakthrough in clubmaking?
Wherever the USGA takes it.

What’s the favorite club in your bag?
The putter, for obvious reasons.

What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?
Don’t grow too fast. We’ve had a huge demand for our equipment, and it’s been challenging to meet that demand.

How often do you get to play?
It depends. Sometimes I play twice a week, sometimes not at all.

What is your handicap?
7.

How old were you when you started playing golf?
I was about 15.

How did you become interested in the game?
My father used to take me out to the course.

What is your favorite part of the game?
Honesty. What other sport does an athlete call a penalty on himself?

What’s your best round and where?
71 at Eagle Glen in Corona.

What are your favorite courses in Southern California?
South Hills, Industry Hills, Pelican Hill, Bear Creek and Eagle Glen.

What was your most enjoyable moment on the golf course?
I was caddying for my friend, Brien Davis, on the Canadian Tour, and he had six or seven birdies in a row.

What was your most humbling moment on the golf course?
Watching my business partner reach a 650- yard par-5 in two. He came into the green with a 4-iron.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen on the course?
I saw a mountain lion run right across the green. He was close to 200 pounds.

Who are your golf heroes?
Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Fred Couples, Steve Pate and John Daly.

What’s your greatest golf achievement?
Winning a Pepsi Tour event.

What’s your personal motto on the golf course?
Play one shot at a time.

What’s the most influential book you’ve ever read?
“Golf Begins At 50” by Gary Player. I know that day will come sooner or later.

What is your most treasured golf possession?
My St. Andrews humidor.

Including yourself, who would make up your ultimate foursome?
Jack, Arnold and my late father.

What do you think is the one radical change that may happen in the game over the next decade?
Anything within USGA standards.