Who is GolfWRX?

GolfWRX is a golf website founded in 2005. Its mission is to cover the latest golf news as well as provide in-depth stories and reviews from both our editors as well as our members.

Every month hundreds of thousands of people trust GolfWRX for the best golf information. From expert editorial reviews, breaking tour and industry news, what to play, how to play and where to play, GolfWRX is the new “go to” destination online. The world’s largest and best online golf community on the net, GolfWRX surrounds consumers throughout the buying, learning and enrichment process from original photographic and video content, peer-to-peer advice and or camaraderie, technical how-to’s and more. As a result, GolfWRX has a partnership with the No. 1 golf publication in the world, Golf Digest Publications.

Click here to see the long version and full story as well as a live discussion in the forums

With over 1.4 million unique readers coming to GolfWRX every month, we must maintain our friendly and open environment here. Our staff are trusted to help maintain a friendly environment that is clean and respectable within the rules. Specifically in the community here we must always respect the member and never to make them feel like second-rate citizens. As an administrator or a member there are words that have been stated from day 1:

• Take the high road
• Treat others as you would want to be treated
• Lead by example

With over 1,400,000 unique visitors a month and over 3.5 million visits a month, we never imagined that we would get this large when we decided to start WRX. What does this all mean and for some of you what do we stand for here?

What is our mission?

To be the “go to” destination for golf on the web. Today we are the worlds largest and best online golf community on the web. GolfWRX surrounds consumers throughout the buying, learning and enrichment process from original photographic and video content, to peer to peer advice and or camaraderie, to technical how-tos and more.

We continue to protect the purity of our members opinions and the platform to voice them. We want to protect the interests of golfers by providing an unbiased platform to feel proud to contribute to for years to come. Have you ever contributed time in a club or a community and then one day you weren’t proud of your association with it? Many of us have been involved in forums or some online social network. There were and are many golf communities online and the founders, moderators and many members on GolfWRX became disenchanted with some of those other places. That’s why we created WRX. Click here to see the long version and full story as well as a live discussion in the forums

The tipping point for myself  was when I found a driver I thought was better than the others and began to write reviews and hyping it on other blogs and forums. I did this on one of those other sites, one which I spent countless hours on and gave years of support. The threads (my comments) got squashed and pushed off to a dark place where you couldn’t see it. I tried to repost the thread but the same thing happened. That driver was not for sale by the owner of the site and they could not profit from the hype. So my hype was not welcome.

That led me to believe that I was in the wrong place and needed to find a place that wasn’t motivated by profit but was motivated by the simple objective to create a place that was for the golfers well being and no other reason. Due to the lack of options out there we started GolfWRX. It was built for golfers by golfers. To read and share our thoughts with my peers. The owners all have day jobs and careers that do not lean on proceeds from GolfWRX. All the money GolfWRX has made to date has gladly been reinvested in to the site to make it better for the members. We do not sell equipment and will not do so in fear of spinning reviews and opinions.

Click here to see the long version and full story as well as a live discussion in the forums

Do we work with OEMs?

We sure do. Some big and some small. Does that mean we slant reviews? No … leave that for the members and recently members/editors. When we do reviews I make efforts to hype the great and just not hype the poor rather than bash them. Do we take down pics if they are to early? Yes, if we receive copyright materials prior to a launch where a small or large company ask to have them removed we will make an effort to take them down. However if we catch them in pros hands out on tour or playing somewhere most all OEMs call that fair game. Here is a quote I wrote in a thread where we removed early pics that came from a PDF of a brochure in the pre-launch phase of a program. The PDF was acquired illegally by person and posted on another site on the net and was copyrighted.

Let me say this again. I (and many others) didn’t dedicate the last eight years on this site to make money. This place is not a business as much as it is a sacred place we have built for golfers. We have this special place here that will always stay clean and unbiased. I am fortunate that I don’t need the money that we could make here. Money that we have generated here has all gone back to the company to make it better and better. Wait and see what we  are going to do next for 2013! The owners Ryan and Richard have careers outside of WRX and have been very lucky and fortunate in their business life. We started WRX not make a buck, but to have a special place were we can be proud to support and be a member.

Click here to see the long version and full story as well as a live discussion in the forums

WRX is first and foremost a place for us and other golfers to hang out. To feel that we can dedicate hours upon hours of our lives adding opinions, developing relationships, starting threads, adding pics and reviews. We add all these hours of our lives here in confidence WRX will not turn around and betray your experience here — reverse the direction it promised to travel for years. Start selling gear and only propping up what we are selling? Death card. We would never do that in fear of becoming biased. So when I hear comments that we have changed directions it is painful to read. We have NOT!

I added a lot of time in my life to sites before WRX was around to only find out they weren’t a place I could be proud of. They became so poorly managed that the site stopped operating properly or in some cases they became so greedy they put profit before their members.

We started WRX so we would be proud of the community we helped to form. As a member we will want to add this value to WRX because we don’t run it as a business but as a place that will stand the test of time. We will always put members first here at WRX. We have and will. I apologize if you had experiences here that made you feel less than what you should have. We aren’t perfect. We had times that our Mods were stretched so thin only two or three of them were effectively managing the place.

If you were one of those guys, after the 3000th violation you might be short too. We had some complaints and we brought on more Mods to help. These are growing pains. I hope you know I am speaking from the heart here.

We are today as we were in the beginning. There have been twists in the road but at the end of  the day we are here for the same reasons we were in April of 2005. Built by golfers for golfers!

Lastly … we are only as good as our members. Were are here to support our members. We make all of our  decisions with that in mind. I hope you and anyone else can feel as if they can. Email me if you want to understand that in more detail. I (we) are sooo passionate about this place and for the preservation of our membership, goals and principles I want you to know we will always act in the best interest of our community.

Click here to see the long version and full story as well as a live discussion in the forums

Thanks,

Richard
richard@golfwrx.com