By Riley McGeough
When Walter Voorhees and four local businessmen founded Standard Manufacturing Company in Cedar Falls in 1910, the operation was rooted in farm equipment, producing steel farm gates, which they later expanded to ornamental gates, street signs, boat docks and automatic hog waterers, among other products.
Sixteen years later, Voorhees, who was a member of the Cedar Falls Park Board, saw an opportunity when the Washington Golf Course was built in Cedar Falls. Since at that time no one offered a full standardized line of golf course equipment, Voorhees decided to add cups, pins, flags, ball washers, and much more to the company’s manufacturing line.
So, in 1926, Standard Golf Company was born.
“Why not develop a product so good that it would be in demand all over the United States,” Voorhees wondered, according to the company’s history.
Today, his idea still rings true, as Standard Golf not only sells products in the United States, but all over the world.
Voorhees’s legacy is carried on by current Vice President Matt Pauli and the rest of the Standard Golf family of employees.
“In 2026 we’re going to celebrate 100 years in golf, and we have no plans to pack up, we want to hit another 100 years,” Matt says.
The Voorhees family owned the company up until 2017. Walter Voorhees’ grandson, Peter, wanted to make sure the legacy of Standard Golf stayed in the Cedar Valley. To do so, he sold the company to the employees as an employee stock ownership program (ESOP).
“He could have probably sold it to a competitor or private equity and who knows what would have happened, Matt says. “But he’s a local, his grandfather founded it here. We’ve always been a part of the Cedar Falls community. So it was important for him, and his heritage, to keep it here in town.”
Standard Golf Company products can be found at thousands of courses all over the world. Matt recalls playing a small 9-hole course in the northern part of Ireland and much to his delight, saw Standard Golf equipment throughout the course. It is instances like this that really hit home for Matt and others who work at Standard Golf.
COVID-19 and the golf industry
COVID disrupted every industry in 2020. But golf was not one of them. Matt talks about how the sport took off after COVID struck. The rounds of golf played (a measurement for how much golf people are playing) reached record highs in 2020 and have continued to climb since then.
Standard Golf reacted quickly to COVID and the rise of “no-touch golf,” a way of playing golf without touching the golf products. Matt says “within a month, we had four or five products that were manufactured and out in the marketplace.”
He also mentioned how COVID ushered in an era of do-it-yourself landscaping. Standard Golf recognized this and started selling some products directly to homeowners that assisted them in landscaping.
“But, 98 percent of everything that we’re selling is going to a golf course,” Matt says.
A sports enthusiast teeing it up in Cedar Falls
Matt Pauli attended the University of Michigan, graduating in 1995. His love for sports led him to study communication journalism and marketing, with hopes of doing sports broadcasting. He later went back to school for his MBA at Michigan State University. Upon graduation in 2004, he left Michigan and moved to Chicago where he found jobs in commercial real estate and digital marketing. He later left Chicago and moved to Iowa to start a family.
As an avid golfer, Matt had heard of Standard Golf. So, when he moved to Cedar Falls, he looked for any open positions at the company, and “lo and behold, they had a director of marketing job available.” It was a great fit as it allowed him to use all his skills and experience to help the company modernize its marketing approaches. The work paid off and eventually he was promoted to vice president.
Matt’s favorite part about golf is how you don’t have to be a superstar athlete, or be extraordinarily tall to play the game. He also loves the social aspects of the game, which allows him to enjoy the greens with friends and family.
Friends of superintendents
With thousands of customers all over the world, it would be impractical for Standard Golf to sell its products directly to individual customers. The company relies on 250 distributors to sell its products around the world. These distributors, in turn, sell directly to golf course superintendents.
Matt describes Standard Golf as a “friend of the superintendent,” the person responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of a golf course.
The company has a warehouse in Amsterdam to store inventory. This allows it to deliver products to European customers products quickly, typically in five days or less.
Matt says he feels pride when he watches some of the biggest tournaments on TV in golf and knows that Standard Golf’s products are being used there.
“To turn on the Ryder Cup and see your tag on the flag at Bethpage Black, or to end up in the middle of nowhere in Ireland and find our products from Cedar Falls, Iowa, is pretty cool,” he says.
