Inside Golf Pride's Global Innovation Center
The Professional Fitting Experience
Golf Pride makes a product that's hard to understand until you feel it, which makes it a natural fit for experiential retail.
On a shelf, one grip looks much like the next, and the differences only become clear once a golfer holds it, swings with it, and compares it against another. That idea shaped both of the spaces we designed and built at the brand's Global Innovation Center in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
The Retail Lab opened in 2022 as a place where golfers can compare grips and get fitted by hand. The newly opened Performance Lab builds on that, adding professional fitting and performance technology so golfers can test their grip on an actual swing. We carried both projects from early concepts through fabrication and installation.
Concept and Design
Both labs started from the same premise: a golfer should be able to feel the difference between grips, and the room should be built around the fitting that makes that possible. For each space, we mapped a golfer's experience from the moment they walk in through leaving with a new, fitted grip. The fixtures were arranged to sequence every stop in the room, giving the golfer something to hold, test, or experience.
The early concepts set the tone of each room, with the Retail Lab bright and open and the Performance Lab darker and closer to a working studio. Design development then turned those concepts into detailed plans for every wall, table, and drawer.
Making the Details
Once the design was set, the focus shifted to making each detail hold up in the physical build.
An experiential space only works if it stays current, so for the Retail Lab, that meant developing the grip walls and hardware to support a full product display while still allowing the team to reset the system as products and programs change. The shelves, registration slots, and drawer organizers were all built to work together as one system.
The Performance Lab brought a different level of finish to the fabrication. Golfers spend their visit within arm's reach of these pieces, so the grip fitting wall was built as a complete assembly, combining white oak panels, backlit lettering, contour-line graphics, and integrated drawer storage. Tech tables incorporate notched oak club rests, while the illuminated "Inspiring Confidence" lightbox sits inside a custom black powder-coated housing.
Putting It Together
The Retail Lab was installed with the golfer's path through the room in mind. Grip walls, fitting stations, and hospitality areas were positioned to guide the golfer naturally through the experience, from the hand-scanning table to product selection and regripping.
The Performance Lab's crated pieces arrived to a room already taking on the character of the concept, with a dark ceiling, recessed lighting, and layout lines taped across the floor to mark where each fixture would land.
From there, the team installed the grip fitting wall, tech tables, wood slat partition, and hospitality credenza with its hot towel cabinet and beverage refrigerator. Every placement was checked against how the room would actually be used, from sightlines at the entry to clear paths between fitting areas and enough space for a technician and golfer to work side by side.
The Finished Labs
The finished spaces put the product where it belongs: in the golfer's hands.
At the Retail Lab, golfers can work directly with Golf Pride technicians, compare grips, get fitted, and have their clubs regripped while they wait, with the putting green close by to fill the time. The Performance Lab takes that experience into a more technical setting, pairing hands-on grip selection with TrackMan and Quintic technology so golfers can test their choices through an actual swing and putting stroke.
That's the case for experiential retail in a category like this one. When customers can feel the difference for themselves, the product explains itself, and a visit becomes an experience to be enjoyed again.
Rendering
Reality
Retail Lab
Rendering
Reality
Performance Lab
Have a space in mind?
If you're planning an experiential retail space or brand experience center, we'd love to help you design and build it, from the first concept through the final install.
