Melissa Cain sews up business with a flair

Follow this link to a hole by hole preview of The Honors Course.

Melissa Cain, maker of monogrammed golf gloves, is the first to admit she's not a golf fan though she was an avid supporter of one player, her father, Gibby Gilbert, a Chattanoogan who achieved success on the pro tour.

And sewing was never a hobby. Well, not until a year ago.

"I was a new mom and I wanted to have something to do," she said of making the gloves. The idea came from her father.

"It was something that just came to my mind," he said. "It's unique and there's a demand for it."

Area golf stores report that personalization in their industry has become a trend.

"In the last five years personalization has really picked up, before then it wasn't that popular," said Jon Williams of Golf Headquarters at Hamilton Place.

For Mrs. Cain, the decision to personalize gloves came with a learning curve.

"The whole thing was completely new to me," she said. I had never sewn a button or stitched a hem."

She said there was a lot of trial and error and mistakes. But she kept at it, realizing she had a niche product and launched her business, Custom Golf Glove Designs.

Key items personalized in golfBallsTeesTowelsCapsSource: Melissa Cain

"Personalizing is the new thing and now it can be done with golf gloves," she said. "Everything else has been done, towels, bags. No one is really doing gloves."

To date Mrs. Cain has made close to 200 gloves with customers able to choose from a variety of fonts and colors.

Men lean towards the natural circle font, while hot pink is the color preference among women who often opt to have just one initial monogrammed.

The gloves, which costs $13.99, are being sold at cccgifts.com, monogrammed-gifts.com, girlytwirly.com and clubcontessa.com. For more on the gloves, visit customgolfglovedesigns.com.

Follow this link to the Times Free Press Golf page.

Continue reading by following these links to related stories:

Article: Honors not built for big comebacks

Article: Aggies all but out of hunt

Article: Ching, Smart shoot 66s to tie Honors competitive lowest

Upcoming Events