PGA Tour equipment crews play quiet but critical role

The PGA Tour is called a tour for a reason.

It’s dozens of stops and thousands of miles of travel — and not just for the players and caddies, but for the equipment crews responsible for making sure the clubs are just right.

The mostly unseen crews work out of a miniature village of about a dozen giant trucks retrofitted to serve as rolling workshops. They’re parked this week at Harbour Town Golf Links for the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing.

Randy Hughes, an equipment technician with Bridgestone Golf, said Tuesday that each of the pros “all have different things they like” in terms of club length, weight, shaft flexibility, grip size, and loft.

Hughes, who has spent the past 25 years touring for up to 30 weeks each of those years, said it can take up to three hours to build a set of clubs to meet a pro golfer’s demanding set of specifications.

Ben Schomin, Cobra Puma Golf’s manager of tour operations, said Tuesday that the equipment company’s “mobile workshop is essentially a condensed version of what we have at our home office.”

“There’s not a lot of space in here, but there’s a lot going on and a lot of machinery,” he said.

Hughes, Schomin and the many others who work out of these mobile workshops aren’t just responsible for golf clubs.

“We are taking care of all the gear, whether it’s shoes, new spikes, socks, belts,” Schomin said. “We literally keep all that stuff with us.”

“You wouldn’t believe how many (professional golfers) show up and forget to bring a belt, even though they wear slacks every day to work,” he joked.

Webb Simpson, winner of the 2012 U.S. Open, said Tuesday that PGA Tour pros “are really, really blessed to have these guys come with us every week.”

“I’ve got great people behind me,” he said of his Titleist equipment team.

Because the equipment teams support more than one golfer, they are often on the road for longer stretches than most pros.

Schomin said he travels about 45 weeks a year.

“It’s a grind,” he said. “Not only am I a professional at (building and fixing clubs), I’ve become a professional at traveling.”

Schomin, who has a wife and two children in California, said, “The job comes with super-long hours and a lot of time away from my family. But I love my job. I love getting up everyday and doing it.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "PGA Tour equipment crews play quiet but critical role."