The History Of Club Clean
An Interview With Founder Ed Mauro
If you’ve been in the Golf Car industry within the last 30 years, Club Clean is likely a household name. Back in the late 1980’s, inventor and entrepreneur Ed Mauro developed the very first combination Club and Ball Cleaner, now known as the Club Clean! You’ll be hard pressed these days to find a golf car or course that isn’t equipped with a Club Clean unit (or a knockoff!). Ed came across a golf club cleaner that mounted to the back of a golf cart, purchased it, and realized that it wasn’t a very good product. Being the perfectionist and innovator that he is, Ed redeveloped the idea and added a ball cleaner, and Club Clean was born! Little did he know, this product would become an international success and would sell over hundreds of thousands of units to golfers all over the world.
Ed began his entrepreneurial journey in the 1970’s in the textiles industry. “My company made all of the branded sweatshirts for the 1988 Seoul Olympics,” explained Ed during a recent interview. “We produced over 350,000 sweatshirts for this fantastic event.” After successfully pulling off this venture, Ed sold his T-Shirt company and moved to Florida for the weather! Upon arriving in Florida, Ed transitioned into the Golf Industry, and Club Clean hit the store shelves.
“I remember at the beginning of the Club Clean days, I was desperate. I wanted to get my product seen by any means necessary,” Ed tells us in a recent interview. “I found a back door entrance to the PGA show in Orlando and began to co-mingle with other exhibitors! I noticed that there was an empty section of a vendor table available, so I rented the last-minute space for $200 and displayed my Club and Ball Washer for everyone to see. A few golf courses stopped by my table, liked what they saw, and I sold 1,000 units in the first two days. It really took off from there. I was thrilled.”
Alike to any new business venture, Ed was met with problems along the way. From design and manufacturing issues, quality errors, and cost discrepancies – everything that could go wrong did. However, that’s the nature of a start-up business! Over time, Ed refined his product, aligned with superior manufacturers, fixed every design flaw, and paved the way for his company to become one of the most well known Golf Car Accessory providers in the USA. In 2005, Club Clean began to manufacture and sell other golf car accessories alongside the Club and Ball Washers, such as the Spike Swipe, Grip Coach Training Aides, Buggie Bags, Floor Protectors, and rubber Floor Mats.
Ed noticed that the Floor Mat market was surging. Utilizing the expertise of his brilliant engineers, Ed was able to create mats that fit 21 of the most popular Golf Car brands, thus skyrocketing Club Clean to the top as one of the biggest players in the mat industry!
Club Clean is still thriving today, having sold over 600,000 units of the Club and Ball Washer alone since the early 1990’s. Ed’s mission was simple – provide golfers with the tools they need to have a great golf game and equip their golf cars with the highest quality accessories on the market.
Capitalizing on the success of Club Clean, Ed also opened a Lawn and Garden Company called Nature’s Distributing and an Invention Company called Source Direct. His affinity for product development and innovation led him into owning multiple businesses with retail sales as their main objective.
“We’re working on an exciting new Golf Car product that’ll be hitting the marketplace in 2018. It’ll be one of our biggest innovations to date, and I’m incredibly excited.”
Contact: Club Clean | 248 Alt 19 N, Suite A, Palm Harbor, FL, 34683 | 877.510.5550 | www.clubclean.net
