GRIPIT GOLF SOCIETY
The Blog — Golf Culture, Gear & Absolutely No Khaki
By Tony Golden, Co-Founder | Brand Story | 8 min read | Keywords: golf lifestyle brand, golf apparel brand story, GRIPIT Golf Society, Park City Utah, golf culture 2026
Let me be straight with you about something.
I didn’t grow up surfing. I grew up in landlocked America, nowhere near an ocean, with zero legitimate claim to surf culture. I was never the guy who logged thousands of hours reading waves or had a quiver of boards in the garage.
But I always loved what surfing represented. The freedom of it. The attitude. The “I’m going to do this my way and the dress code can find someone else to police” energy that runs through surf culture like a current. The way surfers built communities around a shared obsession and wore their identity on the outside without apology.
I connected with all of that deeply. And it turns out you don’t need an ocean to live it.
The Wave That Never Ended — Utah Style
Here’s the thing about Park City, Utah that outsiders don’t fully appreciate: we find ways to surf.
When my kids were young I bought a boat. Not because I had any particular nautical background but because the idea of creating a perfect wave in the middle of the Utah desert and riding it as a family felt exactly right. We figured it out. We dialed in the ballast, found the sweet spot, and eventually had a four-foot wake wave that was as close to perfect as anything you’ll find without saltwater.
We surfed that wave for years. Our whole family. Weekend after weekend on Utah’s lakes with the mountains behind us and the sun overhead and a wave that just kept rolling.
My daughter Waverly — and yes, her name is not a coincidence, Waverly was named for the water — set what I will maintain until someone proves otherwise is the all-time record for a single wave ride behind a boat: almost twenty straight minutes on a four-foot wake. Twenty minutes. Continuous. Never fell. Never stopped. Just rode it like she had absolutely nowhere else to be.
That’s the energy. That’s the whole thing right there. Find your wave. Ride it like you have nowhere else to be.
REAL TALK: Waverly's 20-minute ride remains uncontested. If you think you can beat it — find us at GRIPITGolfSociety.com. We'll talk.
Surfing the Mountain — 45 Days a Year
The water wasn’t the only wave I was chasing.
Living in Park City means the mountain is your other ocean. And I approached it the same way — on a snowboard, 45 days a year minimum, surfing the mountain with the same attitude I brought to the water. Same philosophy. Different medium. Find the flow, trust the board, stay loose, and let the terrain do what it’s going to do.
Park City people are generally pretty used to outdoor culture. But even by mountain town standards I apparently stood out. The thing is - I ran warm. Still do. Board shorts and flip flops were my year-round uniform when the weather allowed it. And when it didn’t - when the snow was coming down and the temperature dropped and a normal person would switch to something more practical - I made one concession: I swapped the flip flops for Sorel boots.
Board shorts and Sorel boots. In a Park City winter.
I became known for it. People made comments. People always make comments when you’re living slightly outside the expected parameters of your environment. I treated the comments the way you treat a headwind on the back nine: acknowledged it, adjusted minimally, kept moving.
What the Mountain Town Taught Me About Not Fitting In
Here’s what I learned from years of being the board shorts guy in a ski town and the surfer energy guy in a landlocked state: not fitting the expected mold isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s information about who you actually are.
Park City is full of people who moved here specifically because they wanted to live differently. Skiers, snowboarders, mountain bikers, trail runners, artists, entrepreneurs, people who looked at a conventional life trajectory and quietly opted out. There’s a specific kind of person who chooses a mountain town and that person generally has a high tolerance for doing things their own way.
I fit right in by not fitting in. Which sounds like a contradiction but anyone who’s lived in a place like Park City understands it immediately.
And golf — when I found it, or more accurately when it found me — fit perfectly into that same framework. Because the golf I fell in love with wasn’t the polo shirt and khaki pants version. It was the show up at the muni with your people, play 18 holes, stay for the 19th, come back next Saturday version. The version that doesn’t care what you’re wearing as long as you’re present and you mean it.
The Pro Shop Problem - Seen Through Mountain Town Eyes
When I started playing golf seriously I did what every new golfer does: I walked into a pro shop to gear up.
And I looked around at everything available - the polos, the khaki, the logos designed to offend absolutely nobody and communicate absolutely nothing - and I had the same reaction I had the first time someone told me board shorts weren’t appropriate for a Park City winter.
I thought: who decided this was the only option?
Because the golfers I was playing with weren’t those guys. They were guys like me - mountain town people, outdoor lifestyle people, people who had been wearing gear with personality and attitude their whole lives and were being asked to check that identity at the pro shop door. People who loved the game deeply and wanted gear that reflected that love in a way that felt authentic rather than inherited.
That thought sat with me for a long time. Then it stopped sitting and started doing something about itself.
GRIPIT Was the Only Logical Next Step
GRIPIT Golf Society didn’t come from a business plan. It came from a specific kind of frustration that anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider in a space they love will recognize immediately.
It came from standing on a muni first tee in a mountain town with a group of people who rode boards in every available medium - water, snow, now grass - and thinking: we deserve gear that looks like us. Bold gear. Gear with a sense of humor. Gear that says something about who you are before you even swing a club.
The name came naturally. GRIPIT. Because that’s what you do on every board, every wave, every mountain, every first tee. You grip it. You commit. You go.
The tagline - Smooth Stroke. Long Shaft. - came from the same place that board shorts in a Park City winter came from. A complete willingness to be exactly what we are, let people do their double take, and keep moving.
The Golf Society part came from years of understanding that the best experiences in any outdoor culture aren’t really about the activity. They’re about the people you do it with. The boat crew. The snowboard posse. The Saturday foursome. The people who show up every time and make the thing worth doing.
That’s the Society. The gear is just how you prove you’re in it.
What Board Shorts and Sorel Boots Have to Do With Golf Apparel
Everything, actually.
The same instinct that said board shorts work in a Park City winter if you run warm enough is the same instinct that said golf tee shirts work on the first tee if the course allows it and you wear them with conviction. The same instinct that said a four-foot wake wave in Utah is a legitimate surf experience is the same instinct that said a municipal golf course in Salt Lake City is a legitimate golf experience regardless of what the snobs say.
It’s the instinct that says: you don’t have to participate in the traditional version of things to do them authentically. You just have to show up fully and mean it.
GRIPIT Golf Society is board shorts and Sorel boots applied to golf apparel. It’s the mountain town outsider energy brought to the first tee. It’s Waverly riding a wave for twenty minutes because nobody told her there was a time limit and she didn’t ask.
Ride your wave. Grip your club. Wear whatever makes you feel like yourself doing it.
That’s the whole thing.
The Part That Still Gets Me
My daughter’s name is Waverly. Named for the water. Named for what waves represent — movement, freedom, the courage to get on something and ride it further than anyone expects.
She set the record. Twenty minutes on a four-foot wave behind a boat in Utah. Not California. Not Hawaii. Utah.
Nobody told her that was unusual. She just rode it.
Build the brand in the landlocked state. Surf the mountain in board shorts. Launch the golf apparel line that refuses to be beige.
Nobody’s keeping score on how unconventional the approach is. Only on whether the wave was worth riding.
So far? Absolutely worth it.
— Tony Golden, Co-Founder, GRIPIT Golf Society
P.S. Waverly’s record stands. Come find us if you think you can beat it. 🤙
GRIPIT Golf Society - Built in the Mountains. Made for Every Fairway. GRIPITGolfSociety.com - Smooth Stroke. Long Shaft.