Chris Cote grew up in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, a short walk away from a golf course where he caddied and practiced even with snow on the ground. Chris was an All-State golfer and State Champion at North Kingstown HS before committing to play as a Blue Devil on the Central Connecticut Golf Team.
School wasn't Chris's strong suit and he left a year and a half in, but his time at Central was well worth it. One night out with his buddies, Chris met Donna, a red-head from Long Island who was working as a CPA in Hartford. A few days later, he was out delivering pizzas on a rainy Friday night and happened to deliver one right to Donna's door. Little did they know where it would go from there. After leaving school, Chris opened CJ's Golf Shop on Stanley Street in New Britain where he ran a small retail operation and built custom clubs.
CJ's didn't pan out but Chris and Donna stuck it out and married a few years later. Once the Cote's started having kids, Chris became "Daddy Daycare" for Danielle, Courtney, and Bryce and started selling golf clubs on nascent eBay to bring in some extra cash. What started as a side hustle, quickly became a full time operation with a few part time employees. Much to Donna's chagrin, golf clubs slowly start taking over the house and garage!
In 2008, Donna wanted her parking spot back in the garage so Chris opened a small storefront on Main Street in Portland. Chris finally had the space expand to custom golf club fitting which was cutting edge for the golf industry at the time. At this time the golf shop began to get national recognition from Golfer's Digest, Golf Magazine, USA Golf Weekly, Mizuno, Callaway, and PING.
In 2011, Donna left her full time job as a CPA to run the accounting department for the golf shop. Around the same time, construction began on a brand new 7,000 square-foot location on Route 66 in Portland. The Cote's opened a second retail location at the former Golf Quest in Southington in 2013. They would go on to take over the attached driving range in 2019.
It is almost like the last puzzle piece fell into place when Danielle and Bryce became full time employees in January 2020. That year boasted the most rounds of golf played in the US with thousands of first time golfers.
2020 and the few years of lingering COVID that followed were spent renovating, transforming, and building. In this time the Cotes were renovating the Toptracer driving range in Southington; constructing a Performance Center in Portland offering a second Toptracer driving range, golf lessons, and Tour Level club fitting; and adding a state-of-the-art Indoor Golf studio to the Portland retail store.
In some ways it feels like the golf shop grew up alongside the Cote kids. Instead of growing a few inches every year like the kids did, it grew more employees and square feet. Now with 4 Cotes, 2 retail stores, 2 pro-shops, 100+ driving range stalls, 15 full time employees, a few viral TikToks, too many awards to list, and a partridge in a pear tree there are no plans to expand any further. Instead, the Cote's plan to continue to improve each location, uphold the self proclaimed title of "Connecticut's Friendliest Golf Shop", and enjoy time together outside the office.
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