Vinings' Golf Distributors expanding operations throughout the country

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Back in the late 1970s, the Vining family would never have envisaged their Golf City enterprise mushrooming into being the biggest New Zealand-owned golf equipment distributor.

It started when Warren and wife Gillian Vining bought a piece of farmland adjacent to Palmerston North Airport in 1979 and began cutting no 8 wire fences.

Warren was selling cars and Gillian had worked in a bank.

Now, with sons Sheridan and Callum, they are the directors in the Vining Group which bought the old RSA building in Broadway two years ago and employ a staff of 13.

Sheridan reflected: 'It's quite cool to look back on mum and dad's start.'

Golf Distributors are the official apparel and hardware brand for NZ Golf and the NZ Open.

At the age of 21, New Zealand Eisenhower Trophy player and professional Richard Best drove up from Blenheim to join them will little more than his clothes and his Toyota Corolla. He is now Golf Distributors' operations manager.

He and fellow pro Tim Wilkinson worked at Golf City assembling clubs. Wilkinson had joined the junior programme which at one stage had 140 kids.

'It was the biggest in the country,' Warren said. 'We miss the development of the kids out there.'

Warren continues to be the ideas man and hasn't been afraid to diversify, even to things like importing road cones. 

'There's been some epic schemes of Dad's,' said Callum. 'He's the brains behind it all.'

They were in a factory in China watching golf trundlers being made and heard the same factory produced wheelchairs. Another subsidiary, Goldfern Mobility, was born and is thriving. 

Most product comes from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan and a little from the United States, cutting out middle men.

They also have Blackout Power Products selling generators, water pumps and water blasters during golf's quieter periods.

Golf though is what they know and is their bread and butter.

Cobra and Puma are one of the big five in the world's golf market and the Vinings have the New Zealand rights, the same for the hot-selling Bushnell rangefinders.

 They sold Golf City in 2000 when developer Paul Barris called out of the blue.

They had two weeks to get out.

'We thought we were going to be there for quite a bit of time,' Warren said. 'It came as a bit of a shock.'

The Vinings kept the Goldfern golf assembly, import and distribution parts, and set up in a Taonui St building. They went 100 per cent wholesale and were there for 12 years.

'We had something to go to straight away and we just expanded from that.'

Now retailers send in orders and they custom-build golf clubs. They have 200 active accounts, with pro shops, sports shops, resorts, even Golf Warehouse.

'We are the only ones making golf clubs here. Years ago there were dozens.'

Where equipment bought overseas takes up to three weeks to arrive, Golf Distributors can supply in two to three days.

But they take umbrage at so much golf gear being untaxed when bought from overseas off the internet.

Looking back, they spent 22 years at Golf City, each of them working 109 hours a week.

The lived on the premises; all four would be cleaning dishes, cleaning out toilets. On rainy days when no one was on the course, there was no income.

The course opened in 1981, Gillian often doing the mowing and running the mini golf.

'It was always hard graft,' she said. 'We didn't reap the benefits until we sold.'

While golf can be an elitist sport, the Vinings always wanted to make it affordable and Warren would always do a deal.

Even now if someone wants a packet of golf tees, in the interests of goodwill, they will send then even if it's outweighed by freight costs.

'We have to be offering the best deals all the time,' Callum said.