December 2002
Business West Magazine
A Fair Way to Launch a Business
Box of Golf Tees It Up
By George O’Brien
Robert Labrie admits that he doesn’t play golf—he says he’s learning—and that he’s never been a big fan of board games. But he knows business, and believes he’s created a winner in a venture that puts the game of golf in a box—hence the name of his new enterprise.
The concept attempts to take the frustrations and the triumphs that make the game great and incorporate them in a board game that people of all ages and golf abilities can appreciate. The few early reviews that are in would indicate that Box of Golf just might be a new form of entertainment and a business success story.
No one really knows yet.
Indeed, Labrie who owns a trucking company in Easthampton and recently sold a quarrying operation he owned on Mount Tom, is just getting this new venture off the ground. After nearly two years of taking early prototypes and adding new dimensions, more sophisticated artwork, and a solid cherry box—and then going through several incarnations of the rules—the product is ready for the marketplace.
A few hundred games have been sold to date ($179 for the “deluxe” model and $95 for the standard version), and Labrie is hoping to attract some of the holiday shoppers who are looking for something a little different—although he admits that he might be getting to a market a little late for this Christmas.
He is really setting his sights on next February’s PGA Merchandise Show in Atlanta. There, 11 miles of booths with the latest golf equipment, apparel, and assorted miscellany will try to catch the eye of retailers and wholesalers. It was at last year’s show that an early Box of Golf prototype won some praise from The Wire, a daily golf newsletter, which said the game, then with a suggested price tag of $295, was “worth every dime”.
It was that positive press and other supportive feedback that prompted Labrie to step up his investment in the concept and bring it to where it is today.
Rough Idea
Labrie told Business West that after he sold his quarrying operation, he set about looking for other business opportunities. He said Box of Golf essentially fell into his lap. As he tells the story, he was looking for a cherry table for his dining room when he was introduced to a woodworker/inventor named Stephan Barry, who showed him a concept for a game called Box of Golf.
That version was very crude compared to the product on the shelves today, said Labrie, who told Business West that while Barry had the idea for the game he lacked the resources to refine it and take it to market. And that’s where Labrie stepped in.
In July, Labrie formed Box of Golf Inc., and in August he started moving his venture into 14,000 square feet of space in the old National Nonwovens mill on Pleasant Street in Easthampton to begin production of the game. He now has 11 employees, including a national sales manager, and has ramped up production to about 1,000 games a month.
Bringing the product to fruition has been an intriguing challenge, said Labrie, one that has included many elements he didn’t anticipate. For starters, he went through five artists before he finally settled on an image for the cover of the box. Crafted by Greenfield artist David Bowers, the cover conveys the history and the tradition of the game, noted Labrie, who said there have already been several requests for prints of the image. The individual golf holes that players take on were painted by noted artist Greg LeFever.
Another hurdle was the set of rules for the game he said. Earlier versions, while they helped replicate actual experiences in the game, were complicated and, in the end, made the game less enjoyable. After several focus groups and some help from a former rules editor at Milton Bradley, a set has been finalized that makes the board game true to the sport and fun to play.
How does it work? Well, the competitors play what amounts a round of golf, either 9 or 18 holes. Using rolls of the dice, they move their playing piece (a colored golf tee) from tee to green and then actually putt.
As anyone who has ever played the games knows, a great many bad things can happen to a golf ball. It can go in the water or a sand trap, stop behind a tree, or hit an incline in the fairway and roll into trouble. Box of Golf replicates all these potential pitfalls.
And it also attempts to bring in some of the factors that make the game intriguing, such as wind, backspin, and even mulligans. The object of the games, as in real golf, is to complete each hole in the fewest strokes possible. In the board game, however, the actual winner is the one who amasses the most tokens, or gems, that are awarded to players for various feats, but also used up for such things as a favorable gust of wind, a mulligan, or a correction to a putt that is off line.
“The rules may sound a little complicated,” said Labrie, “but it only takes a few holes to get used to them.”
To put his new product in the public’s eye, Labrie is investing heavily in marketing. He’s does some direct mail and has plans for radio and television spots, both of which will probably be launched in New York and other major metropolitan areas. He’s also making plans to carve up the country into sales territories and hire area representatives.
When asked about potential markets for the product, Labrie said there are several. There are tens of millions of golfers in this country, he explained, and at least an equal number of people looking for unique items as gifts for those golfers. Meanwhile, country clubs would be another potential market, he said, adding that pilot tournaments are being considered as a way to show how the game can become another diversion for any club’s members.
To keep the product fresh, Labrie is already looking to create special limited editions of the game featuring some of the most prominent golf courses in the country, an initiative that is still very much in the planning stages.
“Imagine playing Pebble Beach one week and then being able to play this game with those golf holes,“ he said. “I think that would be very entertaining.”
Going for the Green
Labrie admitted that the business plan for Box of Golf is still a work in progress and that he has no firm projections on potential sales. He would like to think he could make—and then sell—5,000 units a month.
Time will tell if this variation on the game is as popular as the original or even recent video renditions. Labrie is confident that the products will catch on and that his will be a stroke of genius.
