TheClub

A golf club gets talked about in the clubhouse. It is kept going outdoors, by the greenkeepers who move the holes early in the morning, and in the office, where someone thought of new flags in good time.

What that takes is not exciting: flagsticks, cups, bunker rakes, tee markers, ball baskets, range balls. Nobody notices any of it until it is missing.

Dura Range supplies these things. We regard the courses that order from us as members. They have no vote, and there is no annual general meeting. They do get graduated prices.

The club under discussion here is a limited company. Thomas Reiter, then a student at the Vienna University of Economics, founded it in 1988 alongside his studies, to import US and UK products that were hard to come by.

It is registered as Golf Tech Golfartikelvertriebs GmbH and still goes by the long name. The short one says what it was about: technology and golf.

In 1994 two things coincided: a gap in the European trolley market and a newborn son. The house brand that came out of the gap is named after the son: BIG MAX, for Maximilian.

The namesake has since grown up and, as the second generation, shares responsibility for the business. Golf Tech has been family-owned since 1988. Dura Range belongs to the same family.

Golf Tech has supplied golf courses since 1988, in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, from its own warehouse in Vienna and with field sales staff in the region. In 2007 came Golf Tech Deutschland, a subsidiary with eight sales staff for pro shop and course equipment.

For three decades one name has been out on the ranges: Dura Range, in black on the ball. Today it stands for the full equipment of a golf course, from the tee mat to the flagstick.