Callaway Names Aulenti National Clubfitter of the Year

Angela Aulenti

Angela Aulenti, head golf professional at Sterling Farms Golf Course in Stamford, CT and owner of the Aulenti Fitting Studio, has been named the National Clubfitter of the Year by golf equipment manufacturer Callaway.  Aulenti, the first female head professional in Connecticut, combines a reputation as an expert clubfitter with her dedicated teaching skills.  Her year-round indoor facility provides the most current technology and precise fitting analysis for golfers of all ability levels.

“Callaway Golf is extremely honored to announce that Angela Aulenti has been named the
2013 National Clubfitter of the Year,” said Rob Chase, Director Strategic Sales.  “Angela is one of our highly valued Callaway Master Staff Professionals, a designation which she was given many years ago due to her skills as a golf professional, teacher, clubfitter and her overall golf business acumen.  Her students, customers and all of us at Callaway Golf are so privileged to be able to work with such an accomplished leader in the golf industry.  Angela is incredibly deserving of this award, not only for the high level of success she had in 2013, but also for all the years she has been a valued member of the Callaway family.  We sincerely congratulate Angela for her great accomplishment!”

Aulenti was selected as National Clubfitter of the Year from hundreds of Callaway certified professionals.

“This truly is an exceptional honor for Callaway to have this level of confidence in my clubfitting abilities,” said Aulenti.  “There are so many fine professionals around the country who fit golfers with the right equipment so they can better enjoy the game.  Too many golfers are playing with the wrong clubs and this has a negative impact on their ability to advance and score better.  I am very proud to receive this national award and I look forward to continuing to help all golfers improve by using custom fitted clubs.”

Aulenti, a PGA and LPGA member, currently is in her third term as president of the LPGA Teaching & Club Professional’s Northeast Section.  In 2012, she was inducted into the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame.  Aulenti has won numerous awards for her excellent service and commitment to the game, including the 2011 LPGA Professional of the Year.  She received the Callaway National Clubfitter of the Year award on November 11th in Palm Springs.  Aulenti resides in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

Callaway Honors Jim Bender

Callaway Golf Company recently named Jim Bender, head professional at Ardsley Country Club, the winner of the Company’s Golf Professional of the Year Award.

Bender was honored by Callaway for his ultimate support of the brand, his overall excellence as a club professional, for having high level of proficiency at playing the game, for having the skills necessary to run a successful business, and for special events or extraordinary support he has illustrated throughout the year.

Bender has been head pro at Ardsley for thirty years, a mark not just of his affable personality and popularity among the members, but his ability to run one of the best golf operations in Westchester if not the Northeast U.S. Bender has been named PGA Merchandiser of the Year twice and served as President of the Met PGA Section as well. He's a player, too, having competed in the PGA National Club Pro Championship twice and played on the South African Tour for a season.

Previously, Callaway named Bender Regional Club Fitter of the year three times and National Club Fitter of the year twice.

In addition to writing about golf, Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Invasion of the Square Heads

The morning mists drift serenely across the lush landscape at dawn. Suddenly, an other-worldly CLOANG! wrecks the pastoral calm and a white bullet streaks down the middle of the fairway. The square-heads have arrived.

The heads in question aren’t bobbing above alien shoulders; they’re attached to graphite shafts on revolutionary (looking, at least) clubs new in golf pro shops everywhere last year. Both Nike and Callaway introduced drivers with heads shaped like square bricks, firing yet another salvo in the golf equipment manufacturers’ battle to give the average golfer a fighting chance to make par.

The first thing everyone says who hits one--or even hears one being hit--is how weird they sound. I remember the same thing being said when metal "woods" began to replace persimmon ones, too. But the nostalgia for timber lasted about thirty seconds when golfers saw how hot the ball came off the face of titanium drivers. Suddenly, that "awful" sound faded into the background.

The same is happening with the square-headed drivers. “The people who’ve tried them like them a lot,” says Ardsley (NY) Country Club head pro Jim Bender, who put a Callaway FT-i in his bag when it came out as a prototype and fitted several Ardsley members with it last spring. “Distance-wise, we’re finding they’re about the same as the FT-5 driver, which is a really good model, too.”

What’s the advantage? “It’s maxing out the distance like all the other big-headed titanium clubs, but, with the weight distribution at the four corners, it allows for less opening and closing of the club face when mis-hits are made, so the ball stays on a straighter line.”

Even the low-handicapper can benefit from the new design, according to Bender: “The ball doesn’t curve as much, so if I’m hitting a draw that I used to curve ten yards, now I’m only curving it five yards.”

The real payoff comes, though, for those of us who only hit the sweet spot when we’re in a candy store. “It’s great for when you hit that toe ball or the heel shot every now and then,” Bender says. “It doesn’t go off-line like it does with some of the other drivers.” So who cares what it sounds like?

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo