Engineer alters path to life of golf
Mull’s journey takes twists, turns leading to St. Clair Country Club
When he was a teenager in Weirton, W.Va., and caddying at Williams Country Club, Jason Mull didn’t think life got much better than that. He would regularly loop for Mossie Murphy, Mr. ShooShoo Rah-Rah himself, and fall in love with a game that saved him from being an engineer.
“Williams was like Augusta for us,” Mull said.
That started a career path that has landed Mull, 48, almost back where it all started. He is the new head golf professional at St. Clair Country Club, one of the plum jobs in Western Pennsylvania. He is only the sixth head professional in the 104-year history of the club and brings with him a 17-year experience with President Donald Trump.
“So many guys in this business, they go to work every day worrying if they’re going to have a job,” Mull said. “That’s not here. They value their golf professional at St. Clair, they truly value their staff. They appreciate how hard we work and what we do, and that really appealed to me. What a better story than to come back not only to an awesome job, but to family. That’s what we do in Pittsburgh, right?”
Roots matter to Mull. He has dated his wife, Kim, since they were in seventh grade. Her family still lives in Weirton. His parents still live in the house in which he grew up. He always would say he would leave Trump National for only two jobs — Laurel Valley or St. Clair. And guess what?
It always was going to be this way for Mull.
His mentor was Ned Weaver, who was the golf professional at Williams when Mull caddied there. He would follow Weaver to Montour Heights Country Club and Southpointe Golf Club, picking the range, washing carts, handling clubs and doing whatever he could to help with the outside golf operations. In between, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, did two tours of duty in Iraq — “I was right there for Shock and Awe,” he said, referring to the Iraqi invasion in 2003 — and got a degree in engineering at Pitt.
He was so enraptured with golf he would work his regular job from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Union Electric Steel in Carnegie, then head to Southpointe and work 3 p.m. until close for $5.25 an hour.
“I called my girlfriend [now his wife] and I said, ‘I don’t want to be an engineer anymore.’” Mull said. “I want to be a golf pro.”
And so he did. Mull quit his job at Union Electric, took a job as an assistant professional at Diamond Run Golf Club and five years later went to work at The Lake Point and Golf Club in Mooresville, N.C., outside Charlotte. That’s where a very unique relationship developed.
In 2012, the course was bought by Trump, underwent a $3 million enhancement and rebranded as Trump National Charlotte, making it one of the best private facilities in the region. Scott McCarron, the 2019 PGA Tour Champions player of the year, is one of several touring pros at the club. Mull couldn’t say enough nice things about his billionaire-turned-president boss and family.
“The Trumps were awesome to me,” Mull said. “I wish everyone could see them the way I did. The way he treated me, his son Eric, and my family was wonderful.”
A whole new world
Walk into Golf Galaxy in Robinson and from almost any point in the sprawling superstore, one voice can be heard above the rest.
Strong. Confident. Unmistakable.
Chris Marchini is more than the general manager of the only Golf Galaxy store in Pennsylvania between here and Berwyn; he is one of the certified club-fitters whose knowledge and energy are captured on Golf Galaxy commercials that air on telecasts of the PGA Tour and on the Golf Channel.
Marchini is the star of the 30- and 60-second spots, taking actors who are real-life golfers and putting them through a fitting process for the first time. He is unscripted and without teleprompter, switching heads and changing shafts just as he would any other day at his Robinson store.
“I’ll be fine as long as they never give me a line,” Marchini said. “If they gave me a script or give me a line, I will mess it up because it won’t be real.”
Marchini is so good at what he does that Ed Stack, chairman and chief executive officer of Dick’s Sporting Goods, the parent company that owns Golf Galaxy, said, “I wish I had 1,000 guys like Chris.”
His objective, when putting a player through a club fitting, is to match them with the right type of equipment that maximizes ball speed and controls the spin rate, all in the interest of finding the most important element for any golfer — increased distance. Nobody has ever bought a club — driver, fairway metal or iron — that reduced distance.
“The fun part about it, they go and get people who have never, ever been fit before,” Marchini said. “They’re good players, they enjoy the game, but when they’re asked if they’ve ever gone through a club fitting before, they say no.”
Like Marchini, the players/actors are unscripted, too. Because they’ve never been measured on a Trackman device, the intent is to capture their reaction when they see how much distance they gain from Marchini matching the right shaft with the right clubhead.
“One of the guys, on one of the driver commercials, the [producers] kept coming around the corner saying, ‘You got to say something.’” Marchini said. “And he was like, ‘I’m blown away with what Chris has done. He has me hitting it like 320.’ And I was. We were tweaking things and he started smashing it and all he could do was turn around and smile. And the guys were like, ‘You got to say something.’”
All of the commercials — two last year, five this year — were filmed in the Robinson store. The five this year started at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday and didn’t finish till 7:30 the following morning.
“The hardest part of it was they had to keep pouring eye drops in my eyes so they weren’t red,” Marchini said.
You don’t need eye drops to find Marchini in the store. Just listen for his voice.