These carts at home far from fairway

Chris Barrett

08/14/2011

TO A TEE: Erma Gardner, president of E.W. Gardner Golf Cars, says that every day is different in her business. The 22-year-old company modifies golf carts to fit specific needs. / PBN PHOTO/RYAN T. CONATY

Golf carts belong not just on the golf course. That’s the message from E.W. Gardner Golf Cars Inc.
The Exeter-based business has catered to a former governor, Applebee’s and submarine-builder Electric Boat. Its carts haul yard waste from backyards and merchandise for Ocean State Job Lot. Buyers hail from around the corner to the southern-most reaches of Connecticut.
“Who needs a golf cart?” owner Erma Gardner asks. “People [who] don’t even think they need a golf cart need a golf cart.”
The 22-year-old company sells about 100 golf carts a year, primarily to individuals. E.W. Gardner outfits them for the customer’s specific needs, adding seats or utility boxes, adjusting tires or changing out the body covers to the client’s liking. The shop also services carts with dead batteries, worn tires or other problems.
But one thing E.W. Gardner does not do is sell to golf courses. Textron Inc. – the maker of EZ-GO Golf Carts that E.W. Gardner carries – limits sales to golf courses to distributors. As a dealer, E.W. Gardner may not enter the market.
That has not slowed E.W. Gardner. In 2000, the company purchased land along Nooseneck Hill Road and stored carts there. Five years later, it built a repair facility. Three years ago, it converted a building on the property to a showroom. A year ago, it added a two-bay garage to the existing repair shop. In July, the company added the Textron line Bad Boy Buggies – essentially golf carts on steroids.
Along the way, the company has gained some dedicated – and interesting – customers. Every year Gardner’s husband, Jim Turner, heads to the home of former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri to service his golf cart. Gardner likes to tell the story about the man who chose a $3,000 golf cart over buying his wife a diamond (The two have filed for divorce, Gardner recently learned). Then there are the campgrounds that cater to people with little affinity for clothing.
“Every day’s different,” Turner said. “It’s just an interesting business.”
Gardner started the company in 1989 with her husband at the time, Bill Gardner. He had long held a job at Potowomut Golf Club serving the course’s golf carts. When the club replaced him, Gardner became a service technician, traveling from club to club. Along the way, he bought used carts and resold them. His wife, long an entrepreneur, quit her secretarial job and together they launched E.W. Gardner from their North Kingstown home. Gardner never doubted the business would take off.
“I had a lot of faith,” she said. “I had a lot of perseverance and determination.”
When her husband died in 2002, Gardner carried on. She attended a bereavement group where she met Turner, whose wife had recently died. In 2007, the traveling medical-supplies salesman lost his primary sales line. Gardner quickly offered him a position at E.W. Gardner.
Now Turner has become an expert in golf carts, rattling off the mechanics of their operation and reviewing with customers the differences between electric and gas-powered carts.
And these are not the golf carts of 20 years ago. Today’s carts include computers that regulate the power from batteries and the maximum speed. And just like with a regular car, mechanics can attach a computer to a cart and diagnose its mechanical operations.
There’s also the option to add a solar roof to provide an almost continuous charge. And soon Textron plans to release hybrid golf carts that can go more than 100 miles on a single charge.
“It was simple 20 years ago,” Gardner said. “It was a fuse, a solenoid and a micro switch. Today’s it’s much more complicated.”
Perhaps that’s why there are few companies in the local market. E.W. Gardner calls itself the only seller of golf carts – of any brand – in Rhode Island. The closest competitor is in Seekonk.
But Gardner says maintaining the business takes a lot of work. Customers can be just as fickle about the details of their golf carts as they are with the details of a luxury car.
Selling to government entities – such as the Newport Naval Station – helps drive business but also comes with mountains of paperwork. And buyers cannot take their carts on Rhode Island roads, potentially eliminating a group of customers looking for an alternative mode of transportation for short trips.
Gardner says she and Turner work hard to keep up and find new ways to generate business.
“It’s our life,” she said. “We’re not only married to each other. We’re married to this business.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
E.W. GARDNER
GOLF CARS INC.
OWNER: Erma Gardner
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Seller and servicer of golf carts
LOCATION: 247 Nooseneck Hill Road, Exeter
EMPLOYEES: 5
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1989
ANNUAL SALES: WND