World-wide golf aid
"SwingRite" made in Boxford
Valley
Patriots Puppy Girl
markets multi-national company to help
your golf SwingRite!
Tom Duggan
While Boxford resident Kate Whitey may be
best known as the author of our Puppy
Love column, what most people may not
know is that the 24 year old UNH graduate
runs the SwingRite Corporation,
marketing, manufacturing and shipping
golf training aids all over the world.
Her product, the SwingRite,
was invented by a fighter pilot in Great
Britain in 1960 and was purchased by
Whitneys father Charles, who owns
and operates Whitney Development.
When my dad bought the SwingRite
company, we bought the rights, the
corporation and all the former
owners inventory, Kate says.
So for about 11 years my dad sold
them, filling on line orders until we
finally sent out his entire inventory.
Last year I started running the company
and when we ran out of inventory we were
at a crossroads with the company. We had
to decide whether to manufacture
SwingRite ourselves or get out of the
business so, I told my dad to go for it
and we started manufacturing the product
in Salisbury.
Whitney says that SwingRite is an
invaluable tool for golfers to improve
their swing and achieve a better golf
game. It tells you when your hands
release and instructs you with a clicking
sound that should happen at the
impact zone, or bottom of the
swing, where the imaginary ball would
be. Lots of golfers release too
soon or too late, SwingRite helps you
determine your swing and lets you adjust
your release for a better golf game. The
SwingRite club has settings for Easy or
difficult and you can use it all year
long. You can use it indoors, when you
travel, in hotel rooms, and you can
continue to work on your golf swing in
the wintertime because there is no club
on the end. It really is the perfect warm
up tool and training aid.
Whitney says that when she and her father
began to manufacture SwingRite they
decided to make a few improvements to the
original design. The new and improved
SwingRite is custom made with different
grips choices available. Customers
can choose the standard grip, training
grip, junior version, or WINN grips.
Before then, we werent in any
retail stores, Kate continued. Now
weve landed the national golf
chain, Edwin Watts Golf. We are now one
of the official training aids for the
USGTF (United States Golf Teachers
Federation), a golf teachers
certification course. Since the
instructors use this, after their
students graduate many of them want one
of their own so they buy one as well.
I get emails all the time from
students and former students saying how
much they love this product and we even
have people emailing us from all over the
world. Its great to hear from
our customers!
Kate says SwingRite is also
sold on line at Swingrite.com and is
shipped all over the world. We are
not only expanding in the U.S. but
overseas as well. We fill orders in the
Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, all over.
In China and Japan they dont have
the type of training aids we have here in
the US so we are capitalizing on that
market which is very exciting.
Whitney says manufacturing SwingRite is
very expensive. Its all
custom made in Massachusetts, if we were
to make these in China it would be much
cheaper in every way. SwingRite is
assembled by hand and all of our
printing, packaging and machined parts
are from companies in Massachusetts with
a few exceptions. We really believe in
helping out local companies but when we
cant find a local company we make
sure all of our products are produced in
the U.S. Supporting companies in
the United States is something that is
very important to us.
Considering SwingRite is a product
thats been around since the
60s, which proves what a great
product it is, I am really excited to see
its continued success. Its so great
to have some of the original customers
ordering the new product and helping us
expand it to new customers. Kate
concluded.
Asked how she finds time to rescue
puppies, write a column and run an
international company in Boxford, Kate
replied when you love what you do,
you make time.
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