Christian Cavaliere, who bypassed pro golf to start a business, is now in U.S. Open

Christian Cavaliere was a golfer who sewed. Now, he’s a sewer, who plays golf.

And still does the golf part well enough to have qualified for the U.S. Open, shooting 67-69 on Monday at Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, New Jersey, to collect one of four spots.

A few years ago, Cavaliere, now 25, was an aspiring professional golfer. He shined at Boston College from 2016-2019, earning All-ACC Academic and All-New England honors. He won three straight Westchester Amateur Championships from 2017-2019, with the third title coming at Winged Foot.

He also gained a reputation around Boston College’s campus for his apparel creativity. Cavaliere made and sold custom hats out of his Chestnut Hill dorm to make some extra cash. When the COVID-19 pandemic sent everyone home in 2020 for what would have been Cavaliere’s senior spring, he didn’t want to stop the creative part.

The hat business expanded to headcovers, as Cavaliere set up shop in his parents’ Katonah, N.Y. home.

“I made a couple prototypes on my mom's sewing machine in March 2020,” Cavaliere remembers. “A few of my friends wanted some and it just took off. It was something I never planned for or imagined.

“Organically, people were interested in it and thought it was cool and I just kept doing it. That first summer, I had three of my buddies working for me in my parents' dining room.”

Cavaliere’s mother Kelly, who showed him the ropes with a sewing machine, was also part of the initial team

Originally founded as PinPoint Custom Studio, Cavaliere’s company is now Tremont Sporting Co. The brand specializes in customized headcovers and all leather goods associated with golf, such as yardage books, alignment covers and Dopp kits. Hats are also still a part of the inventory.

The name “Tremont” is an ode to the company’s founding in the Boston area. Trimountaine, an original name for Boston, shortened to Tremont, referred to the three hills of Boston and is also the namesake for famed Tremont Street.

There is a good chance you’ve seen or even purchased a Tremont product in golf shops across America. The company has had partnerships with colleges like Arkansas, Notre Dame and Tennessee and currently sells products in pro shops at Hudson National Golf Club and Sleepy Hollow Golf Club, among others. Cavaliere has especially focused on his connections back home in the Metropolitan Golf Association Area but plans to expand.

The success of Tremont put Cavaliere’s golf career at a crossroads. As the business grew, his pro aspirations shrunk. Cavaliere originally intended to use his fifth year of college eligibility at Notre Dame, but with the program still on hold in fall 2020, he changed course. He packed up his sewing machine and moved to Florida, where he could still play golf while running the business.

n 2021, Cavaliere spent his summer “simulating tour life,” as he traveled from amateur event to amateur event across the country. His Tremont revenue stream helped fund the journey, so much so, he could no longer ignore the potential.

“I would say if I hadn't started the business I probably would've turned pro, but I was so busy with work and I was a little bit frustrated with where my game was at,” he says.

“I kind of missed being at home, missed having some stability. I know pro golf is really tough. You’re on the road a ton. It's a lot of stop and start. I was like, OK, I have this great business. It's growing rapidly. I don't want to just throw that to the side, I’m not loving where golf is at, so I said, ‘I'll take a step back from golf.’ It's still my passion, but I have this opportunity that I need to kind of see through.”

In fall 2021, Cavaliere returned to South Florida and made Tremont his main focus. The following February, he opened a 1,400 square-foot physical shop in West Palm Beach, which was a bit more roomy than his parents’ dining room. Cavaliere’s Boston College teammate Patrick Hallisey, who had been helping Cavaliere on the side since 2020, quit a job in New York to join the team full time. Others were brought in for production and marketing purposes. Cavaliere does not do all the sewing himself anymore, but he does point out every product is done in-house and still has a “homemade feel.”

Most of Cavaliere’s time is now spent running his growing business. But he never stopped playing golf cold turkey. He actually thinks the trimmed grind has been a good thing on the course.

“Honestly, it's improved,” he says of his game. “It’s hilarious because I still am a neurotic swing technique guy, so I'll go out there and grind on the range after work and on the weekends and I'll play as much as I can. But I’m playing significantly less, probably twice a week, and over the winter, I took a couple months off, so yeah, less golf, but better golf.”

Tremont is entrenched in golf and most of Cavaliere’s friends and co-workers live in the golf ecosystem. While his mind this winter was mostly on his second full year building Tremont full-time, he credits his pro peers with indirectly steering him back toward the course.

“I'm always following them,” he says. “There was a week in March where a few guys played really well and I thought, I need to sign up for some tournaments this summer. I wasn't going to sign up for U.S. Open qualifying, but I'm really glad I did and that sparked me.”

But did he actually think he could make it all the way to LACC?

“No expectations like that. Local qualifying was my first competitive round since mid-September. It had been a while and I played well. It was just like, ‘Oh, I want to go compete again.’ I love competing and we’ll see where it goes.”

The good news for Cavaliere is he won’t have to tell his boss he needs a week off. The bad news for Cavaliere is that he is the boss, and he’s about to fall a week behind from his work.

“I got a stack of design work I got to get to,” he said while at Canoe Brook Country Club, holding his U.S. Open participation certificate. “I got to check in on the guys at the shop. They're all holding down the fort in Florida. But I mean, it worked for me splitting time now, so I might keep that going.”

Christian’s mother and original co-sewer, Kelly, was involved in Tremont all the way until last October, when she stepped away as she originally planned. She watched her son wrestle with his decision to choose business over golf over the years. And yet, there she was watching Christian advance to the U.S. Open on Monday with his Tremont hat and headcovers in tow.

“He's a hard worker. He's dedicated, he's disciplined, he's a perfectionist and just an all-around good person,” Kelly said. “I think he has what it takes to do whatever he sets his mind to do. Whatever it is, he'll do it.”

Once again, Christian Cavaliere is embracing his side hustle. Only this time, that side hustle happens to be playing in the U.S. Open in front of thousands of fans in person and millions more on TV around the world.

Not a bad advertisement for a budding golf start-up founder.