>> ... Next Generation ...

An
Techner's
Homecoming

Custom golf club business
relocates to Michigan.

You pack for everything.
Why not be ready for anything?

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ALLAN NAHAJEWSKI I CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ant to play
better golf?
Get better
clubs.
Ari Techner, 34, has built a
business around that concept.
He co-founded his Scratch Golf
custom club-making venture
10 years ago in Oregon, moved
it to Tennessee and now has
brought it home to Michigan.
He is happy to be back. With
a 4-year-old son, Milo, and
2-year-old daughter, Dahlia, Ari
and his wife, Ashley, wanted to
be closer to family.Ari's father,
David, is the third-generation
funeral director of the Ira
Kaufman Chapel in Southfield.
Ari Techner
Ira was Ari's great-grandfather.
However, the move to the
Detroit area also positions
was in his prime."
Scratch Golf for greater growth.
You could say that Techner was
"We felt we outgrew
born to be in the golf business.
Chattanooga," Techner says. "This
His great-grandfather Saul
is a great golf market, and we
Kopman played in PGA tour events
were looking for partnerships in
in the 1920s. "He died when I was
metalworking and forging. With the
very young, but I do remember
auto industry here, there's a lot of
him," Techner says. "He was the
experience that we can tap."
guy with the big hat who always
Scratch Golf opened a store on
gave me a dollar every time I saw
Woodward in Berkley in August
him. But I never got on the golf
and a manufacturing facility in
course with him, unfortunately."
Warren in October. Plans are to
Techner's grandmother won
add a new sales location at Boyne
championships at several golf
Highlands in the spring.
clubs. "She always tried to get my
The company has eight
brothers, cousins and me interested
employees who moved from
in golf," he says. "I got serious
Tennessee to Michigan, including
about golf when I was 12 or 13."
president and CEO Techner, and
A lifelong member of Temple
three others who helped launch
Israel, Techner attended Andover
the business — his brother Chad,
High School and, for one year,
vice president of marketing, and
the University of Michigan. No
college classmates — Jeff McCoy,
one was too surprised when he
chief design engineer and master
decided to transfer to Ferris State
craftsman, and Paul Friedrich,
University, one of the few colleges
executive vice president.
in the country offering a degree
One employee, Don White, is
in professional golf management.
maintaining Scratch Golf's presence
"I knew then I wanted a career in
in Chattanooga. "Don is probably
golf," he said.
the most famous club grinder in the
The idea for Scratch Golf
history of golf," Techner says. "He
surfaced after Techner graduated
made Jack Nicholas' clubs when he
from Ferris State and moved to

Ari Techner on page 32

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December 19 • 2013

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