Golf Apparel

Finding The Right Fit

Hoffman’s Boston Scott Golf Apparel Is An Emerging Fashion Force

By Tom McNichol, Contributing Writer

Stephen Hoffman didn’t set out to be the head of a golf apparel company.

But here he was less than a week before Memorial Day at a ribbon-cutting and Founder’s Grand Opening for the new showroom for Boston Scott Golf Apparel in Perkiomen Township just above Collegeville. It is an unlikely setting for the headquarters for one of the emerging lines of golf apparel in America, but no more unlikely than Hoffman’s journey to this moment.

A Skippack native, Hoffman studied computer programming and mechanical engineering at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown. He wasn’t a golfer, didn’t come from a golf family. He was a baseball player in high school.

When Hoffman’s son Boston Scott Hoffman, for whom the company is named, got a golf ball airborne at age 2, dad thought he might have discovered his son’s best sport. The dad got interested in the game and, of course, he got hooked. Stephen Hoffman’s handicap went from 19-something to less than three.

As dad and son looked around at golf apparel offerings, they weren’t overly impressed. Stephen Hoffman can go on and on about his search for the better golf shirt, but the bottom line is his “tapered fit” is catching on in pro shops and with some of the young up-and-comers on the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour.

“We fooled around with a lot of different materials and a lot of different designs,” Hoffman explained as he prepared for the ribbon-cutting ceremony that was ultimately moved indoors by a late-afternoon thunderstorm. “It just fits better when it’s tucked in, the collar doesn’t bunch up and when you get off the golf course and you’re having a beer, you can untuck it and it still looks good. Basically, my hobby turned into a business.”

Things have moved quickly as Hoffman’s concept in 2017 led to the PGA Merchandise Show in 2019. When this year’s PGA Show was all virtual, Boston Scott Golf Apparel still made a splash.

“Golf Digest named us one of the six emerging brands to come out of the PGA Show and the whole thing was virtual, so that was pretty impressive,” said Hoffman, whose home course is the RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve in Phoenixville, not far from his new Collegeville headquarters.

In addition to the 20,000-square-foot showroom, Boston Scott Golf Apparel likes to take its show on the road. In front of the new showroom the day of the ribbon-cutting was Boston Scott’s mobile showroom, an important part of the marketing strategy for the fledgling company. The mobile showroom allows Boston Scott to bring the same showroom shopping experience to the road so people can see and touch its products in person.

The plan is to take the mobile showroom to some of the local clubs in the Philadelphia region this year. Sometimes when the Boston Scott mobile showroom does well in the parking lot, the pro shop notices and puts in an order.

“We’re at 200 courses, mostly on the East Coast, but some on the West Coast,” Hoffman said.

This year, once the main part of the golf season is over in the Northeast, Hoffman and his right-hand man, strategic account manager Paul McGinn, plan to send the mobile showroom to warm-weather golf hotbeds like the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. Hoffman and McGinn take turns chaperoning on the mobile showroom’s road trips.

This time a year ago with golf just starting to emerge from coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, Boston Scott, which maintains a strong presence on just about any social media platform you can think of, could barely keep up with the orders.

“People wanted to golf and couldn’t,” Hoffman said. “So, what did they do? They bought golf stuff. I think we were like 70-30 as far as our percentage of online orders. It’s more like 60-40 now, but ideally you’d like to see it closer to 50-50.”

While sending the mobile showroom to golf courses doesn’t always pay immediate dividends, Hoffman and McGinn believe it’s an important aspect to spreading the word about their brand.

“Getting to all these courses can be hard,” McGinn said. “But sometimes when you go somewhere and do well, you hear from three or four courses nearby that are interested in having you come.”

You know your branding is working, though, when you flip on The Golf Channel and see a PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour pro wearing a shirt with the increasingly familiar Boston Scott logo on it.

Sitting in the conference room at the new Collegeville showroom, Hoffman points with pride to large pictures of some of “his guys,” players like Scott Piercy, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, Colombian Sebastian Munoz, winner of the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship, and rising Korn Ferry stars Max Greyserman and Austen Truslove.

Hoffman, once a golf novice, really enjoys cultivating his relationships with guys who play the game at the highest level.

Hoffman is a classic entrepreneur. He recounts the story of starting up a T-shirt business when he was in high school. He had the shirts made by a supplier in China. When he was getting Boston Scott off the ground, Hoffman tried calling his T-shirt guy in China. It was 17 years later and by then the company was being run by the grandson of the guy Hoffman had dealt with.

“He said, ‘Send me your designs, let’s see what you got,’” Hoffman said.

That contact Hoffman had made in high school had turned into the maker of Boston Scott shirts and hats nearly two decades later. Pants are in the works. A foray into the wide-open world of women’s golf apparel is on the horizon.

Despite the stormy weather, the ribboncutting was an event. The Perkiomen Valley Chamber of Commerce used the occasion to stage its first promotion of that kind in more than a year because of the pandemic. It was the startup of a new company with nine full-time employees. Chambers of Commerce love that kind of stuff.

Hoffman’s family and friends were on hand, most notably the company namesake, Boston Scott Hoffman. Sounds like you’ll be hearing from the 10-year-old on the junior golf circuit in the next few years.

Boston Scott Golf Apparel figures to grow just as quickly is its namesake’s game does on the golf course.

For more information, visit www.bostonscottgolf.com

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