Nick’s son, Jack and his brother Dick, literally grew up on a golf course. Jack played the game and was on the high school golf team. When his father Nicholas, opened Nick DeMane’s Driving Range in Port Chester, New York, Jack operated and managed it with his brother Dick.
It was during this time that Jack started experimenting with clubs... first repairing and modifying the range clubs, then repairing and redesigning clubs for friends and customers at the range.
In 1947, Wilson Sporting Goods needed a company to provide all warranty and other required work in the area, and Jack signed on.
It was around this time Jack finished setting up the shop (phase one) at 35 Chapel Street, and began spending more time there.
In 1959, the Ben Hogan Company asked Jack to do the same. Jack’s refinish and woodwork was without peer. Nobody could restore a beat up MacGregor classic like Jack, who appeared in the December 1964 issue of Golf Digest in a major article entitled, “Make Your Clubs Look Like New.”
The article featured Jack taking its golf readers step-by-step through the process of refinishing a wood (three pages with pictures) and how to replace a golf grip. The article refers to “Jack DeMane as a club repair expert from Greenwich, Connecticut.”
To be featured in a premier national golf magazine was indicative of how far Jack had come toward becoming a master artisan in his field. He certainly lived up to the inscription on his 32nd year business letterhead, “Jack DeMane, Hands of Gold, Golf Club Service.”