Golfing enthusiast Dusty Metcalf used the direct route to advance out of an early-morning job mowing greens at a Western Washington golf course.


He agreed to play a friendly round of golf with the courses head professional one afternoonand beat the pro by several strokes. That showing led to a job in the pro shop, an intensified love for the game, management positions at several other courses, and finally an urge to channel his passion into a golf-related business venture of his own.


Metcalf now owns Metcalf Golf, a 2,600-square-foot shop in the Whitworth Square retail center, at 10208 N. Division. The shop, which opened four months ago, carries a broad range of golf supplies and attire. It also custom fits and repairs golf clubs, offers indoor golf lessons, and has a computerized golf simulator that it plans to make available for winter practice use.


Its been fantastic, Metcalf says. Weve built a good customer base. Were getting a lot of repeats and referrals. He says he expects that volume to grow steadily as more golf enthusiasts learn about the shop.


The shop offers free 10-minute golf lessons every Saturday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Last week, it launched a Web site through which customers can order products that it carries, and Metcalf says it will deliver those products at no charge to customers who live in the Spokane area. It also is working to capture more attention through a monthly e-newsletter that includes a mix of golf news, anecdotes, tips, and humor blended with information about Metcalf Golfs latest sales promotions.


Additionally, it has introduced a rewards program through which participants receive quarterly vouchersgranting them points based on their purchasesthat they can apply like cash toward future purchases.


A small handful of businesses in the Spokane area, including several chain stores, specialize in selling golf clubs and related supplies, and the pro shops at all or most of the Spokane-area golf courses also carry some golf merchandise, as do a host of chain sporting-goods and general-merchandise stores. Metcalf says he is striving to set his shop apart from the packparticularly the other off-course specialty shopsby offering the broadest possible range of services, such as the custom club fitting and building and the golf simulator, and by creating a nice country club feel.


One of the special touches his shop offers, for example, is a free custom-label cigar with the purchase of a driver or a set of irons. Additionally, Metcalf has used some dark wood furnishingsincluding a massive, curved front counter that formerly was in a downtown stockbrokers officeto give the store a warm, upscale look. To entice customers to spend some leisurely time there, he also has placed a pair of thickly padded leather chairs in front of a wall-mounted flat-screen TV in the stores shoe area, where customers can relax and watch golf coverage.


The whole goal was to provide a place where people want to come in and hang out and talk golf, Metcalf says. We really want to make sure people feel at home.


A raised, custom-built putting green for trying out new putters is located near the center of the store, serving as a focal point and foot-traffic divider. Its flanked on either side by displays of golf clubs, bags, shirts, shoes, balls, and miscellaneous accessories.


The store sells high-end clubs, such as some of those marketed under the Ping and TaylorMade brand names that can cost upwards of $1,000 for a set of irons. For novice or budget-minded golfers, however, it also offers sets priced as low as around $200, Metcalf says.


Though hes tried to give the shop as much of a country club feel as he can, he says his focus isnt just on golfers who have lots of money to spend. We want to get anyone who loves anything about golf in the store, Metcalf says.


Metcalf Golfs repair facility is located near a rear corner of the store and has a window that enables customers to see the work being done there. On a wall just outside the room is a large display of different club shafts that customers can order.


Metcalf says the shop offers free club fitting to customers who buy clubs there and offers a 24-hour turnaround time for a full set of custom clubs. Weve got all the latest gadgets you can find, such as laser devices for aligning putters and putter grips, he says.


The P3ProSwing golf simulator is located at the back of the store, behind the club building and repair room. The shop currently is using the simulator mostly for club testing and fitting, and is using a separate video system there more for golf lessons, Metcalf says. Still, the simulator has multiple cameras that enable it to analyze a customers swing, and to provide immediate, detailed information about the swing on a giant projection screen. The customer strikes the ball into a golf course image on the screen, and the system uses the data it collects to show information such as where the face of the club impacted the ball, and the estimated arc, direction, speed, and distance of the shot.


Metcalf says the simulator can be used to play a full round of golf, and is compatible with the popular Tiger Woods PGA Tour golf video games.


The shop charges $35 for an initial 20- to 30-minute lesson, $65 for a 45- to 60-minute game-improvement lesson, and multiple-lesson packages starting at $240. In addition, it offers a nine-hole playing lesson for $150, not including greens fees. For winter practice golf on the simulator, prices will range from about $10 for a half-hour of use to $900 for an October-through-March season pass that includes 60 minutes of play five days a week.


For now, he and assistant manager Charlie Riter are the shops only full-time employees, but his wife, Jamie, does the bookkeeping for the store, and the shop has one other part-time helper. Riter coincidentally attended the same golf school that Metcalf didthe Professional Golfers Career College, near San Diegoand Metcalf says, We have a lot of similar interests.


The 27-year-old Whidbey Island native says he learned to play golf when he was 6 years old, but his varied sports interests led him into other athletic pursuits, including playing baseball on the Columbia Basin College team, in Pasco, while he attended school there from 1998 to 2000.


He then attended Western Washington University, in Bellingham, and says he took a job mowing greens at the North Bellingham Golf Course that didnt pay anything, but enabled him to play as much golf as he wanted free of charge.


That was my first taste. I really started loving golf, he says. Beating the pro there was memorable, he says, because, After that, it just kind of clicked. That was what I wanted to do.


He was promoted to working in the pro shop there, then decided to go to the golf college in Southern California, where he received a two-year degree in golf management and received the Most Valuable Player award for the class of 2002.


While in California, he served as first assistant golf professional at one of the Trilogy Golf Club courses there and tournament director at Landmark Golf Club, then became tournament manager for the Southern California section of the Professional Golfers Association. In the latter role, he says, he managed PGA Tour qualifying events for tournaments such as the Nissan Open and Buick Open.


He met his wife while there, and they moved back to Whidbey Island after marrying. Metcalf became manager of the Whidbey Golf & Country Club, in Oak Harbor, Wash., and his wife served as food and beverage director and restaurant manager there. Metcalf also managed the Holmes Harbor Golf & Beach Club course, at the south end of Whidbey Island, for a time.


Growing weary of living on an island, though, and wanting to start a business, he and his wife decided to move to Spokane to start the golf shop, which he opened May 1 through a company he formed called Metcalf Golf LLC.


This markets great for golf, he says of his reason for establishing the business here. He adds that he has friends who own a cabin at Loon Lake north of Spokane and was familiar with the Spokane area from having spent a lot of time here as a kid.


For us, this is a stepping stone, he says. One of his goals, he says, is to use his past expertise to develop a 15- to 20-event tournament series here, open to golfers at all handicap levels.


Theres nothing really like that around here, Metcalf says. Basically, were planning to put the entire series together, manage it, and secure sponsors. Participants would sign up as members through us, he says, and prize money would be half cash and half credit at Metcalf Golf, which would compensate the shop for the cost of the series.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.