Perth, Ont. golf tee company featured in ‘Happy Gilmore 2′
When Mario Caya sat down this past weekend to watch the new Netflix hit 'Happy Gilmore 2', he never expected to see the golf tee he has been crafting for more than 15 years appear on screen.
'We played the scene back and forth like 10 times. It's super quick, it's only like a 10th of a second,' Caya tells CTV News. 'But you can actually see them, and I didn't expect that.'
Caya started his golf tee company BirTee Golf back in 2008. It is a golf tee inspired by a badminton birdie. Its purpose is to help golfers consistently tee their ball up at the same height.
'We started watching the movie Happy Gilmore 2 and my wife said, 'wouldn't it be really cool if they used your tee in the movie?' And she got up to get a drink in the kitchen, and just when that happened, I saw a scene where they actually use my tee at a golf simulator.'
Given that Caya's BirTee's do not push into the ground in order to tee up the ball, they have become one of the most popular tees used at golf simulators around the world.
Caya sells the tees in eight sizes, ranging from a quarter-inch up to two inches. They also come in eight colours.
'The simulator they use in the movie is Full Swing, and Full Swing is one of my biggest customers,' says Caya.
'They're a big simulator company out of San Diego, so they buy like four boxes of 250 packs basically every time that they order.'
The tees are entirely locally made. They are manufactured at L-D Tool & Die in Stittsville, the labels are made by Impression Printing in Smiths Falls, and the final packaging is done by Caya and his family in their Perth basement.
L-D Tool & Die president Laurie Dickson says his company can produce 3,600 sets of eight tees every day and tells CTV News he was immensely proud to see Caya's product in Happy Gilmore 2.
'Mario and I happen to be in our own houses watching the same movie at the same time, and I saw it and I sent him a text that said, 'Oh, look, you're on the screen.''
Caya also believes that his product could help improve Happy's golf game.
'What people find is that the constant height is what they like. So especially with [Happy Gilmore's] kind of swing, there's a lot of moving parts when he does that. So, knowing that the ball is always at the height that he likes, then hopefully it would help.'
Caya has sold his BirTees to golf simulators in every corner of the globe, including Iceland, South Africa, Australia, and across Canada and the United States. But he's hoping appearing on the big screen will help move his product onto the course.
'Maybe now with the little bit of exposure with Happy Gilmore, who knows, maybe a golfer one of these days will use them on the course and not just in the simulator they practice with.'
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