Creative Passion: Tremont Sporting Co. Q&A with Christian Cavaliere
Past Met Junior champion and three-time Westchester Amateur champion Christian Cavaliere considered turning professional, but instead decided to go all-in on Tremont Sporting Co., a custom golf goods company that all began with Cavaliere making hats out of his dorm room. We recently caught up with Cavaliere to learn about the journey the business has taken him on and what lies ahead.
MGA: How’d you come to launch Tremont Sporting Co.?
Christian Cavaliere: Tremont Sporting Co started originally as PinPoint Custom Studio during my time in college. Throughout my junior and senior year of college I sold custom hats out of my dorm room as a side hustle to make some money. I had a few friends and roommates help me when the demand was overwhelming and had a sewing machine set up in my dorm room to sew the patches onto hats. Before I knew it students all around campus at Boston College were walking around school wearing hats that I had designed and made. It was a really unique experience being able to see someone proudly wearing a product that I created. By mid senior year I had branched out to other schools and was designing and making hats for students at numerous other college campuses. This unfortunately came to an abrupt end when we were all sent home from school in March of 2020. When we first arrived home there was a period of uncertainty about the end of college, golf, tournament schedules, and normal life. This odd period gave me an abundance of free time which I spent experimenting with new products for my small custom business. I have always been fascinated with how things are made, especially garments and accessories. Throughout my years of tournament golf I have been lucky enough to receive numerous tournament tee gifts and prizes. Many of these gifts and prizes were golf headcovers and other leather golf goods. I began to take apart almost every prize and gift that I had laying around, trying to figure out how these pieces were made. Before long, I had ordered my own materials and started prototyping my own headcovers. After making a few successful pieces I posted them on my instagram stories where a few friends saw them and asked me to make pieces for them. Faster than I could have imagined my inbox was flooded with requests from family, friends, and soon people I didn't even know, asking if they could commission me to make headcovers for them. I knew I was onto something pretty special. This business continued to evolve throughout the year as word of mouth spread and I continued to post on a new instagram page for "PinPoint Custom Studio". As things opened up in the world and my golf tournament schedule resumed I started to practice and play again but I didn't want to neglect this growing business. Luckily, I had some friends who needed summer jobs. I hired a few of them to help me during my time away at tournaments and we kept the ball rolling. After training them well, my friends would show up to my house even when I wasn't home and they would work in our living room, cutting, gluing, embroidering, and sewing. The living room of my parents house in New York started to resemble a factory, with rolls of leather everywhere, sewing machines, an embroidery machine, cutting mats, scissors, and spools of thread. Looking back on it, it is pretty hilarious that my parents allowed me to take over an entire room in the house. I should add that my mom is also an incredible seamstress and was key in helping me develop these products. She has been nothing short of amazing in every part of my life, including this business. After the end of my college career was fully cancelled in 2020, we were given another year of NCAA eligibility. I then committed to Notre Dame to use my fifth year of eligibility and play for the Fighting Irish. I wasn't sure what would happen to the business when I went away to school in the fall but was optimistic I could handle the challenge. Only a month after I committed however, the fall NCAA sports season was cancelled. With an uncertain future for golf in South Bend, I decided instead to move to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida to live with two of my friends Tom LaMorte, and James Nicholas. Here I could train for my ultimate goal of playing professional golf at the highest level. In the fall of 2021 I packed up my sewing machines, materials, and of course my golf clubs and drove from New York to Florida. The business operation remained my side hustle and a way to make some money on the side while I practiced and played. I set up my machines and materials in my bedroom in Florida and would split my days between designing and making products, and practicing and playing golf. In early 2021 two of my old teammates from Boston College approached me about the business. They saw the trajectory of the business and they wanted to get involved. Overwhelmed with demand, I was thrilled to have some help and welcomed them with open arms. We discussed for weeks about the best way to get them both involved and to take the business to the next level, we thought about names, a logo, everything. We finally decided on Tremont Sporting Co.
MGA: Where did the name Tremont come from?
CC: Tremont has a few very important meanings for us. It draws from the famous Tremont Street in Boston and Tremont (TriMount) was actually the first name given to Boston before it was Boston, as it means the three hills of Boston. This has some cool underlying ties for us as the three partners in the business who all met in Boston at Boston College. This also inspired our logo as it has the T with three peaks incorporated in it. Unfortunately, one of our partners left the business right after we incorporated but we still loved the name, the meaning, and the logo so we kept it. Now it is myself and my teammate from BC, Pat Hallisey, as the two owners of the business.
MGA: There’s definitely a lot of creativity and skills involved in making these—was there any aspect you’ve had to learn recently to launch Tremont, or was it just bringing together skills you’ve learned over the years?
CC: I have always been very crafty and creative my whole life so I definitely have drawn from this while starting Tremont. My biggest passion in life is to create, whether that is drawing, or carpentry, or taking photos and videos, to now sewing and creating golf products. I have always loved to make things. Golf does involve a huge amount of creativity in shot selection and shot making so this definitely helps with my business as well. I also was fortunate enough to get involved at Greyson Clothiers when I was finishing high school and they were just starting up in Hawthorne, NY. I was able to become close to the founder, Charlie Shaefer, and see from the beginning how he was able to build such an incredible brand. I was able to help out Greyson with certain design work, photo and video work and other projects which have proved to be vital in my own venture at Tremont. I really do attribute so much that I have been able to do at Tremont to the skills and knowledge that I picked up while working for Charlie at Greyson.
MGA: What do you enjoy most about making these products?
CC: My favorite part about making these products is the joy that it brings my customers. There is no better feeling than being able to bring to life the vision of my customers and to watch the idea they have come to fruition in a physical product. The magic of our custom products is that we are able to accommodate some pretty crazy requests and we love to take on the challenge of bringing these concepts to life.
I also love the pursuit of a better product and continuing to prototype to improve the products, through design, materials, and construction there are always little things that can be tweaked and improved upon. The R and D process is so much fun to be a part of.
MGA: What have been some of your favorite projects so far?
CC: One of my favorite projects that we have worked on thus far has to be the MGA Carey Cup team. We were able to make some really unique putter covers for the team and heard some great feedback from the players. Who knows, maybe the covers were the extra boost that helped the team bring home the trophy!
We also were fortunate enough to work with Morgan Hoffman and provide covers for his charity event at Ohoopee Match Club this past March. It was an honor to be a part of such a special event and to do it for such a great cause. Morgan is a good friend of mine and it was incredible to be able to help out with this event.
MGA: What excites you most about the future of Tremont Sporting Co.?
CC: It really is hard to say one or two things that excite me about the future of Tremont. I believe we have only just scratched the surface of what is possible with this brand and this business and I couldn't be more excited to wake up every day and work as hard as I can to bring this business to the highest level possible. In 2021 I made some decisions regarding my golf career that were incredibly difficult. I decided to put my professional golf aspirations on hold while I pursued this business venture. I was a bit burned out from competition and had lost some of my love for the game. In the fall of 2021, I decided to turn my full efforts to the business and work on Tremont full time. My teammate and partner, Pat Hallisey, took a leap of fate and quit his job in New York and moved to Florida to join me. We opened a production and design shop in West Palm Beach in January of this year and we are jumping in with both feet to grow this brand and bring this business to the next level. The support and demand has been absolutely overwhelming since I started this journey in March of 2020 and it has never waned. I am hoping that this wave continues and I can't wait to see where this business takes us. I have been so fortunate to meet so many amazing people through my golf career and have been able to make great connections at some of the best courses and facilities in the country. I am so excited to bring something special to the golf industry through Tremont and to give back to this game and community that has given me so much.
MGA: What does your playing schedule look like this summer?
CC: Although I should be spending as much time as I can at our shop in West Palm. I am going to sneak away for a few weeks this summer to play in some MGA events. I originally signed up for a few events as I have exemptions from last season that I did not want to pass up on. I think my break from golf over the winter really helped me mentally and physically as I have been playing pretty good golf in my first couple events this year. The Westchester Open last week really lit a fire in me to want to compete again so I am really looking forward to the remainder of the summer. I will be playing in the Ike, the New York State Open, Met Am, Met Open, and hopefully I will qualify for the US Am again. At Ridgewood and Arcola this year this would be an incredible one to play in.