Bench staff

Small Enough That You Will Meet Everyone

Three people work here. Two of them will be in the bay during your session and the third will probably interrupt at some point to ask whether we still have a particular shaft in the rack. That is the whole organisation chart.

Arman Kalfayan

Founder · builder

Grew up in the Sunnyside area, worked six seasons in the back shop of a private club in the foothills, then spent four years repairing and reshafting out of a garage before the North Blackstone unit came up. He does all of the cutting, tipping, glue-up, swingweighting and bend work himself, and he is the one who fenced off the plot in 2011.

Ask him about shaft profiling and you will get twenty minutes. Ask him whether a particular head is better and he will ask you which rung you mean.

Assembly and bend work
Shaft profiling
Driver and fairway

Nayeli Cordero

Fitting lead · turf plot

Came out of turf management rather than golf retail, which is exactly why she runs the outdoor half of every session. She maintains the four patches on separate irrigation and mowing schedules, keeps a log of their condition week by week, and will tell you plainly when the plot is not representative enough that day to trust a reading.

She writes most of the ladder cards. If your notes come back with a line about entry point drifting toward the heel, that is her handwriting.

Ladder readings
Irons and wedges
Plot condition log

Bao Xiong

Parts and scheduling

Runs the shafts, grips, ferrules, adaptors and the calendar. The racks are sorted by measured profile rather than by manufacturer, which was his idea and took a full winter to implement. He is the person who answers the phone and the person who tells you honestly that the shaft you read about is on a nine week lead time.

He also putts better than either of the other two, which is a source of ongoing friction.

Component sourcing
Rack inventory
Bookings

Where the disagreements live

Three Things We Do Not Fully Agree On

A shop that claims total internal consensus is either very small or not being honest. These are the live arguments, and you may well hear them during your session.

Argument one

How much rung four should count

Arman weighs the settled rough reading heavily and will move a player into a wider sole on the strength of it. Nayeli argues that most golfers hit rung four maybe four times a round and that over-weighting it costs them on the shots they hit twelve times. The compromise is that rung four decides ties, not first choices.

Argument two

Whether the collar rung belongs in a driver session

Bao thinks it should, on the grounds that people do hit three-woods off collars. Everyone else thinks a driver session that includes a collar rung is theatre. Currently drivers get two rungs and fairway woods get three.

Argument three

Seasonal double builds

Nayeli would sell a summer wedge and a winter wedge to anyone who plays more than eighty rounds. Arman thinks that is a lot of money for six weeks of benefit in a valley where the soft window is short. Your card carries both readings either way, so you can decide.

Who You Get Depends On The Club

Driver and fairway sessions are led by Arman with Nayeli reading the plot. Iron, wedge and hybrid sessions are the reverse. Putter work is done indoors and is usually Arman on the bench with Bao running the stroke capture, because the putting surface does not need a plot reading.

If you have a preference, say so when you book and we will schedule around it. It costs nothing and nobody takes offence.

Hold a Bay How the shop started

Bench hours
Monday	Closed
Tuesday	7:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Wednesday	7:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Thursday	7:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Friday	7:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Saturday	6:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Sunday	Closed