Crystal Wise
It was a trip to Las Vegas that planted the seed in Travis Schmidt’s mind to start a clothing line aimed at golfers and their sons. While preparing for his vacation to the Strip that would include a round of golf, Schmidt noticed something amiss with the golf shirt selection at his disposal.
“I wanted to find a shirt, you know, that kind of had that Vegas vibe,” Schmidt says. “I wanted something that had a little bit of personality.”
He didn’t want the typical pinstripes or checkers or houndstooth or argyle. Schmidt was after something, well, wild.
After perusing the world of online shopping for days on end, Schmidt came to the realization that he simply wasn’t going to find a shirt with a fun/edgy pattern that would meet his price point. This is when the gears started turning.
Crystal Wise
“I was thinking, ‘Where are these cool Texas shirts? Where are the shirts that have a little bit of personality, not only for me, but for my sons, too?’”
The answer to his questions became Chaparral Golf Co., an online store where one could find funky patterns at a reasonable price for both fathers and sons. The idea was there; he just needed some funky patterns.
As fate would have it, Schmidt happened to have a couple of graphic design buddies, Jay Wise and Zac Saathoff, who both work as graphic designers at Alcon — a billion-dollar Swiss medical company specializing in eye care products.
The three — who all happened to be Texas Tech grads — had a lunch meeting over burgers at Grumps, where Schmidt would pitch his idea for a clothing line to Wise and Saathoff.
“We all enjoy golf. We all have sons,” Saathoff says. “[Schmidt] was wondering if we had any interest and what it might take to get the idea off the ground. Interestingly enough, Jay and I had discussed a couple years prior wanting to do something in the apparel industry.”
Crystal Wise
Initially, the partnership was meant to be Wise and Saathoff designing shirts while Schmidt paid them for their services.
“Eventually, we said, ‘Hey, not only do we want to design for you, we want to be part of this.’ So, we both invested,” Saathoff says. “We also wanted to come on as marketers. We’ve got some ideas and ways we might be able to expand this moving forward.”
The three landed on some designs that were toeing the line between edgy, sophisticated, and uniquely Texas.
“We wanted to hit something right there in the niche,” Wise says. “We all kind of lean into the Texas thing a little bit. We got a list together of some shirts that we would want to wear. Travis came in with some ideas, as well, and Zac and I designed them.”
The trio named each shirt on their website — there are currently six adult and youth patterns available — after a Texas town. The Bulverde features a vibrant cactus pattern; the Pecos, a bandana look; the San Jacinto, a concoction of Texas clip art; and Marble Falls, a zigzag of blue bonnets.
Crystal Wise
“It’s no secret there are some Texas-inspired things within our shirts,” Wise says. “We created the patterns and designs that we like, and then we’d come up with a name that related back to a place in Texas. For instance, Pecos is where the first rodeo in America was. So that’s why we went with a Western bandana for that shirt.”
Even the name, Chaparral, is Texas-inspired. According to Schmidt, the three initially chose the name simply because it was one that no one else in the apparel industry had. And, on further inspection, it also tied into their Texas motif.
“We kind of randomly fell upon it, and the name really stuck,” Schmidt says. “There’s no real reason for it. It just sounded cool, and nobody else had it.”
The website, chaparralgolfco.com, has been live since November 2021, which launched only a few months after their initial meeting at Grumps. And, while they’re happy making shirts on the side of their other projects (work, parenting, and golf), the dream would be to grow Chaparral to a point where it’s their full-time gigs.
“I think about it every day,” Schmidt says. “What if I was able to wake up, go to the warehouse, pack a hundred orders, and then go play a round of golf? That sounds like the dream.”
