One of the region’s independent golf shops is packing up its clubs for good.
Golfology owner Phil Upham said he plans to close his store on Route 123 in Hanover by the end of the month. Upham is holding a liquidation sale at the location to clear out excess inventory from the store and the Hyannis shop that he closed last month.
Upham started the business 26 years ago as an Edwin Watts Golf franchise. As recently as five years ago, Upham had owned five golf shops in Southeastern Massachusetts. By the time he broke from the Edwin Watts chain and changed his stores’ name to Golfology in January 2010, he had three stores left, including one in Attleboro.
Watts said that the arrival of Golf Town, a Canadian big box retailer, in Massachusetts last year was a major contributor to his store’s demise. Golf Town opened five stores in Greater Boston last year, including a store in Avon. The biggest Golf Town store of the five, the one in Watertown, is roughly 30,000 square feet. That’s nearly four times the size of Upham’s store.
“You cannot add (all that) new retail space in a 70-mile radius around Boston and expect the golf industry, which hasn’t grown in terms of retail sales in the past six years, to absorb it without hurting everyone else,” Upham said.
Golf Town, Upham said, sparked a price war with other big box chains such as Golfers’ Warehouse and Dick’s Sporting Goods. The resulting drop in prices, he said, caused his own profit margins to suffer.
Upham said his customers’ reactions to the news of his store’s pending closing have ranged from tears to asking, “Where do I shop now?”
As recently as three years ago, Upham said, his stores employed 44 people. His payroll has since dwindled to four full-time employees and one or two part-timers, he said.
Upham said his Hyannis shop will reopen at some point under different management. He’s not sure what he’s going to do next. He said he hasn’t had a day off in 28 days, so he plans to return to his permanent home in Arizona and relax for a bit.
“We had two tough years getting started and three tough years winding down,” Upham said. “In between we had spectacularly loyal customers … and tremendous cooperation from all the manufacturers.”
Jon Chesto may be reached at jchesto@ledger.com.