Need to repair your golf game? Boylston's Don Sharron has thriving custom-making golf club business

Don Sharron learned to regrip golf clubs when he was a 10-year-old caddie at Pleasant Valley Country Club, and more than 60 years later, he’s still at it.

Sharron, 71, runs his regripping, reshafting, repairing, fitting and custom-making golf club business, “Grip & Rip It Golf,” out of his walk-in basement at his home in Boylston that he shares with his wife, Joan.

You might say that the game of golf gripped him long ago and never let go.

“The most enjoyment I get is when I do a repair,” he said, “or help with the golfer’s equipment, and they call me in a few days to thank me for the work done and that their game has improved.”

When he caddied at PV, he also washed the members’ clubs and put them away. One day, he saw an assistant pro regripping clubs and asked if he could show him how to do it. Soon afterward, he was regripping clubs for PV members, himself and his friends.

Sharron started his golf business 25 years ago as a hobby, and he began doing it full time five years ago after he retired as a salesman for Lew Horton Distributing Company, a wholesale distributor of firearms. In 1998, he attended a Golfsmith school in Austin, Texas, to learn how to repair and build clubs and how to fit people for clubs.

Sharron liked the sound of the title of John Daly’s 1993 golf book, “Grip It and Rip It,” so he named his business, “Grip & Rip It Golf Works.” Daly never contacted him about copyright infringement, but GolfWorks, a golf equipment company, did. So Sharron changed the name of his business to “Grip & Rip It Golf.”

Plays a fine game, enjoys memorabilia

Sharron’s love of golf stretches beyond his business. He golfs at Cyprian Keyes GC in Boylston at least four times a week and carries a handicap of 9.7. He also worked as a marshal on the 18th hole for every PGA Tour event at TPC Boston in Norton. In 2014 at TPC Boston, he had Rory McIlroy autograph a pin flag from the PGA Championship that he won that year.

Several pin flags from the Masters, U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, PGA Championship, Ryder Cup and the Players Championship cover his shop’s ceiling. Another one that is signed, the 2021 Masters flag by champion Hideki Matsuyama, hangs on the refrigerator in Sharron’s shop that he stocks with water, soda and beer for his customers.

The freezer is filled with venison and wild turkey. Earlier in the day of the interview for this column, Sharron shot a 24-pound turkey with a bow and arrow in Millbury where he grew up. The head of a 10-point deer that he shot in his backyard hangs on the wall of his shop near the refrigerator.

His shop also has a large screen TV to watch sports.

His son, Jonathan, works for Topgolf, a driving range game with electronically tracked golf balls, and formerly worked for the Golf Channel, NBC and other sports networks. So he attended many PGA Tour and LPGA Tour events and collected the flags for his father.

His youngest son, Patrick, is an assistant pro at The Haven CC in Boylston. His oldest son, Jason, works in the film industry in Hollywood.

In addition to individuals, Sharron regrips and repairs clubs for Green Hill Municipal Golf Course, Cyprian Keyes, Juniper Hill, Worcester Country Club, Holden Hills and New England Indoor Golf in Auburn. Golf instructor Jim Fenner also sends his students to Sharron.

COVID provided business a boost

Sharron doesn’t advertise, but he had a steady business until the pandemic hit in 2020. Then his business income multiplied by four or five times.

“New people wanted to play golf,” he said. “Families came walking through the door, ‘I want golf clubs made for me, my wife, my kids,’ that kind of stuff. It exploded. It’s still that way right now.”

Sharron used to custom build 30 to 40 sets of clubs each year, but during the pandemic, he has built more than 100 sets per year, all at a cost of well below what you would pay for the top brand names. He can build a set of irons for about $500 and a driver for $200 to $250.

“It all depends on the shaft,” he said. “A driver shaft can run from $10 to $450.”

Every three years, Sharron fits himself for a new set of clubs and builds them.

He doesn’t build knockoffs, which mimic the top brand names. GolfWorks, the equipment company that had him change the name of his business, is his main supplier of club heads.

“A lot of golfers want Titleist, TaylorMade or Mizuno,” he said, “but they don’t know about these.”

Hybrids and wedges are the most requested clubs.

Sharron said he can’t believe that some major golf companies charge $349 for a high-end iron and $1,300 for a set of irons.

“They’re way out of line,” he said. “I know how much a club head costs.”

Unlike the major club manufacturers, Sharron doesn’t pay PGA Tour golfers to play with his clubs, so he can charge much less. He makes most of his clubs for beginners.

Jay Doyle, 75, of Worcester plays in a league that Sharron runs at Cyprian Keyes.

Doyle (no relation to this columnist) has had Sharron regrip his clubs for more than 15 years.

“He does a great job, and he’s got a good selection of grips,” Doyle said.

Bruce Chansky, 74, of Worcester umpired slow-pitch softball with Sharron and has had him build, adjust and regrip clubs for him.

“Just a very down to earth dude who won’t take you to the cleaners for repairs or purchases,” Chansky said. “Backs everything up.”

Plenty of grips to be had

Sharron said there was only one grip when he caddied at PV. Now there are more than 400 kinds, and he has more than 150 in his shop.

Customers have had Sharron repair shafts that snapped and left graphite splinters in their hands.

“I guess a lot of people don’t realize,” Sharron said, “how easy it is to break a golf club by hitting a twig or hitting a rock or by hitting a mat. The head breaks off or the head will loosen and come off, but most of it is a broken shaft.”

Sharron fits clubs and checks their loft and lie angles at an outdoor hitting area to the side of his house. He records customers hitting golf balls off a mat and into the trees in his backyard with a demo iron and a machine spits out the calculations he needs to custom fit clubs for them.

Sharron erected a short net between the hitting area and his house, but he admitted that wayward shots have broken a window more than once. But he doesn’t mind.

Saws, screw drivers, pliers, wrenches adorn the wall above his work bench in his shop.

Sharron uses a shaft puller and a heat gun to remove heads from shafts. He also has machines to change the lofts and lies of clubs, cut shafts, polish clubs and refinish ferrules, the black piece located just above the club head’s hosel.

“In order for someone to do the work like I do, this is what you need,” he said, “and if you don’t have it, you really can’t do a professional job.”

He can shorten or lengthen shafts or install new ones.

“There are a lot of golfers out there who haven’t a clue about what goes into making a golf club,” he said. “The stiffness of the shaft, the bend point of shafts, the swing weights, the lie angles, the loft angles, they don’t know that. They don’t know that there are five different size grips out there.”

The most unusual club Sharron ever made was for a 2-iron, but not the kind you’d expect.

About 15 years ago, a customer asked him if he could make a 2-iron, Sharron said he could, but the customer said he wanted a club with two 2-iron heads to give to a friend as a joke.

“So I took a couple of golf clubs and drilled holes all the way through the hosels, and I put two golf clubs on one shaft,” Sharron said. “They loved it when they saw it.”

Free for suggestions

If you have any ideas for a golf column, please contact me at the email address listed below.

Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net. Follow him on Twitter@BillDoyle15

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Boylston's Don Sharron has thriving custom-making golf club business