A little more than a month after winning the Azalea Invitational, Christian Cavaliere will be one of 60 mid-amateurs in the field this week for the inaugural Giles Invitational at Virginia’s Kinloch Golf Club.
Despite capturing his first mid-am title at the Seth Raynor-designed Country Club of Charleston in South Carolina, Cavaliere hasn’t had much time for golf since.
“I’ve played once since the Azalea,” Cavaliere said. “I had to take seven to 10 days right after the Azalea just to get caught back up on work without even touching a club.”
Cavaliere, 27, is the founder of Tremont Sporting Co., a Florida-based company that specializes in golf apparel, headwear, customized headcovers and leather goods. Tremont goods are found in more than 300 pro shops across the country. However, none of his success as a golfer or an entrepreneur would have happened without his mother, Kelly, who introduced him to golf and sewing.
“She is the most meticulous and detail-oriented person,” Cavaliere said. “It was really cool to work together. I owe her everything for helping me to get my business off the ground.”
“Like with golf, I wanted to do things my own way.”
Christian Cavaliere
Kelly taught Christian the game at age 7. She was the golfer of the family, having played since she was 12. She says her son took a liking to it immediately and constantly tried to improve.
“He was fun to play with but he was always good and hard on himself,” Kelly said. “But I guess that’s what makes a good golfer.”
Cavaliere says the reason he fell in love with golf is because of its individual aspect.
“I like the fact that the ball is always in my hands so to speak,” Cavaliere said.
When Christian was 10, Kelly introduced him to sewing. While she didn’t sew a lot, she made curtains and hemmed pants. Christian became curious.
“He would always come over to me when I was doing something on the sewing machine and watch and ask questions,” Kelly said. “He was always very curious and had a creative side to him.”
Christian says his love of sewing was similar to his love of golf.
“Like with golf, I wanted to do things my own way,” he said. “I used to make toys or little things with the sewing machine because I loved creating and molding something into my own thing.”
In 2016, Cavaliere took both passions to Boston College, playing for the golf team and sewing on the side. During his junior year, he had an idea.
“We had team hats for the golf team at BC and I hated them,” Cavaliere said.
Cavaliere started making hats with custom patches for the team. The hats grew in popularity and soon he was making hats for six Boston College teams and for non-athletes too.
“I had a good little side hustle going at school there,” Cavaliere said. “I was like the underground hat guy. I don’t think people knew they were wearing my hats but I was very happy to see them worn around campus.”
Despite the successful side business, Cavaliere still wanted to pursue professional golf.
“I was supposed to just do the business on the side and then turn pro the fall of 2020,” Cavaliere said. “But then that whole scenario got kind of messed up by COVID.”
The pandemic sent Cavaliere back home to Katonah, New York, where he tried to figure out what to do next. He says when he wasn’t playing golf, he was designing and making products with his mom’s sewing machine.
“I had to figure out what to pivot to and golf accessories just came as a second kind of option there,” Cavaliere said. “That was the start of Tremont.”
Launched in 2020, Tremont quickly took off. Cavaliere said orders started coming in so fast that it couldn’t be a side hustle anymore. He had to hire full-time help. One of his helpers was his mom.
“We started in the dining room with two sewing machines,” Kelly said. “It was great to be able to spend as much time as I did with him.”
As with golf and sewing, Cavaliere loved the idea of running his own business because he got to make the decisions.
“I want to be involved in everything and control everything,” Cavaliere said. “The driving force behind the business was that I had a vision I wanted to create. I wanted to do it my way and do it through my own lens.”
After fully committing to Tremont, Cavaliere abandoned his professional golf dream. However, the mid-amateur path was still available and Cavaliere took it without looking back.
“I can scratch my competitive itch with the Giles, the Azalea, the Gasparilla and all those fun events,” Cavaliere said.
In 2023, Cavaliere earned the opportunity of a lifetime: he qualified for the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, advancing through local and final qualifying.
“It was the most surreal and bizarre experience ever,” Cavaliere said. “I had actually consciously taken a step back from golf and that’s what allowed me to play well.”
Despite missing the cut with rounds of 72-77, Cavaliere says playing in the U.S. Open was the greatest week of his life.
“It lit a new fire in me,” he said. “It was almost like a curse because I started playing really well and then I had to sit down and put everything into perspective. I had to build a business.”
Cavaliere will once again take a break from work for the Giles Invitational, which honors legendary amateur and Kinloch co-founder Vinny Giles. However, his business will always be in the back of his mind. He wants to win golf tournaments, but he also wants to make Tremont a full lifestyle apparel and accessories company. Both will take time and hard work.
“I’m insanely neurotic and never feel like my work or my game is good enough,” Cavaliere said. “I always want to do better or more. But I think that’s the mentality you have to have when you’re growing something or building something. It’s never finished.”
E-MAIL EVERETT
Top: Christian Cavaliere, playing here in the 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur, founded Tremont Sporting Company in 2020.
Logan Whitton, USGA