Young entrepreneur takes ‘Mulligans’

JIM FALL/DAILY FORUM
Ten-year-old Connor Blackford displays some of the inventory available thorough his most aptly named business, Mulligans. Connor may not be Maryville’s largest purveyor of athletic supplies, but he ranks right up there among the city’s youngest entrepreneurs and smallest businessmen as he collects, grades and offers used golf balls for sale.

Webster’s dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.”

Checking further, in a thesaurus, such words as “enterpriser,” “speculator,” “wheeler-dealer,” and “idea man” pop up.

None of those quite fit the bill for Maryville’s, if not newest, certainly its youngest, entrepreneur.

“Whiz kid” somehow seems a more appropriate designation for Connor Blackford, a fourth-grader at Horace Mann Laboratory School at Northwest Missouri State University.

Connor, who turned 10 Monday, operates Mulligans, his recycled golf ball business, out of his parents’ (Nate and Andrea Blackford) garage and estimates his accumulated inventory is approaching 2,000 golf balls.

He classifies his business as “part time,” for now, considering he has school to attend, but sees it perhaps expanding come next summer, when golfers return to his two favorite “collection courses,” the Sechrest 18 at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park and the Maryville Country Club.

“I got interested when my dad took me to the golf course and I found some golf balls,” Connor said Wednesday afternoon. “Then I started to look for them.

“I find ’em, wash ’em, and then divide ’em up by quality and brand,” he said, admitting that his dad assists with the “quality control” aspects of the business, “sometimes.”

Young Blackford gives some of the credit for his early success — he says he has already made “about $180” since the middle of the summer — to John Van Cleave, a former elementary teacher in the Maryville School District who works part time on the staff of the Mozingo clubhouse since retiring from teaching. Van Cleave also sold used golf balls, but is basically out of the business now, according to Connor.

“He’s helped me a lot, telling me it’s better to ‘hunt’ on cloudy days, and giving me pointers on where to hunt,” the young golf ball mogul said.

Mulligans is basically a one-man operation, although Connor said his sister, Chloe, 5, helps in the hunting sometimes.

Young Blackford said he also gets “volunteer” help in his regular quests to replenish his inventory from his folks and his granddad, Jim Blackford of Maryville, who he said “seems to know where to look for ’em.”

But aside from a bucket of “girls’ golf balls” to Chloe, he does not pay his “pickers.”

“That is just an unnecessary expense,” he said, casting a coy glance at his grandfather.

Mulligans balls range in price from a nickel, for the “worst” balls, to “$2 for first-quality balls,” according to Connor. “And Titleist Pro V1s are my best sellers,” he said.

The available inventory at Mulligans is separated according to quality, Connor said.

“First quality is just like new; second quality has some scuffs and stains.

“And I try to keep my prices cheaper than the real stores,” the young salesman noted.

But Connor is not all about Mulligans all the time. He also carves out time to play golf himself.

He has been participating in the junior golf program at Mozingo for the past three years and carded a six-hole score of 34 this past summer. That was good enough to tie for second place, but Connor lost a coin-flip and was the official third-place finisher.

Like many a successful entrepreneur, Connor plows part of his profits back into his business, and hopes to set aside “some for maybe a college fund.”

More impressive goals, however, are reflected by two lines at the bottom of his professional-looking business card:

“Thanks for your business and God Bless” and …

… “10% of all proceeds will be donated to a non-profit organization”

Connor says no recipient has been determined yet, although his church, The Bridge, or a Haiti relief project are the leading contenders.

If Mulligans does pay off, even in fourth-grade terms of success, young Connor Blackford might some day be moving his office from the family garage at 1150 Andrew Dr. to the Dean Hubbard Center at Northwest — as a real, big-boy entrepreneur.