Golf gloves are traditionally made of leather, which traps in moisture, stretches out and rips easily. Jason Desoldato, co-founder of Clinch Golf, said he never understood why leather was the go-to material to make these gloves, so he set out to create a better, more efficient one.
Clinch Golf was founded in 2022 by Desoldato and his friend, Matt Mahoney, and it makes golf gloves that the company says are breathable, stretchy and long-lasting. It achieves this by making its gloves out of synthetic suede instead of leather on the palm, and a stretchy, breathable fabric on the top of the hand to allow air to flow through and wick up moisture.
After 13 years at Nike, most recently as its senior director of global basketball apparel, Desoldato said he missed having a more hands-on involvement with products, so he left the company to co-found Clinch.
“I just love product creation, and a lot of my best times in the industry involved making products. As you get higher at Nike, all you're doing is making decks and meetings and things like that,” Desoldato said. “So after I left Nike and before Covid hit, I was looking to get back into a smaller company for my next stop, and Matt Mahoney, my partner, had started on this journey.”
Clinch is entirely self funded as of right now, Desoldato said. The company spent the better part of a year prototyping its product on real golfers on real courses across the rainy Pacific Northwest, the perfect testing ground in his eyes for a glove that needs to survive lots of moisture.
It was important to Desoldato and Mahoney that every problem they faced with golf gloves — tearing, slipping, stretching and more — were addressed in their product, which took a while, Desoldato said. Finally though, the two were able to create a glove that they say lasts up to two times longer than traditional leather gloves, weighs less and costs about the same, Desoldato said.
“Once, when I was playing with a really, really dirty pair of our prototype gloves, we had one of those downpours and I had left my gloves outside. But the next morning, it was like it was brand new, the sweat marks had gotten out of it and it rebounded back to its original shape,” Desoldato said. “So happy accident, our gloves are gentle machine washable and hang dry, and you can basically get them back to a really good state if they get dirty or sweaty.”
Clinch has been pleasantly surprised with its sales growth over the last year or so, Desoldato said, but declined to go into more sales details. He also noted the company has been able to carve out a niche in the market and gain some momentum as it prepares for its second year.
Though Desoldato and Mahoney love golf as a whole, Clinch will stay focused on further innovating its gloves rather than breaking into new products. Desoldato said the company is working on new colorways and versions of its first glove, but a release date for those is still in the works.
