Bob Vansweden was born in St. Petersburg, FL in 1967 where he still lives today with his family. Growing up Bob played other sports like soccer, boxing, and skateboarding. Bob’s first career choice came in 1986 where he started working in the music industry, more specifically on tour with rock bands. Bob had the privilege of traveling all over the world working with the likes of Roxx Gang, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Bryan Adams, and Extreme.

I It wasn't until 1991 when on break from touring that Bob picked up golf as a sport. Two years later after playing every day, Bob gave up the Rock-n-Roll life to settle down and start a new career. Bob's first job in the golf industry was working in a small town in an equally small golf shop, and picked up a few club repair skills along the way. Bob soon got the hang of club repair but was always striving to improve his craft, so he went to his first club repair school in 1992. That soon followed with an advance club repair and custom fitting class. In 1993 Bob opened what would later be the first location of The Golf Repair Center in a 10 x 20 room in the back of a Play It Again Sports store. One year later Bob moved into Proline Golf of St Petersburg, a 20,000 square foot golf retail store. The owner Jeff Jones, who hired Bob as the store’s club repairman, leased a 1,000 square foot space in his store. It is here that Bob would stay and work with Proline Golf for 8 years. In 2001 Bob moved his store to 9th Street taking over a store front that at the time was called the Golfer's Attic in St. Petersburg --this location lasted for 2 years. Then Bob was approached by Jim Smith, owner of the Missing Links Driving Range in Largo. Jim asked Bob to take over the pro shop at the driving range. Bob opened his doors on Feb 1st 2004 at the Missing Links Driving Range. For the past 5 years Bob has worked to become one of the top custom fitters in the nation. He has won custom fitting awards every year for the past 5 years from golf companies like Titleist, Cobra, and Ben Hogan. In 2007 he was named Taylor Made Golf’s Southeast Region Fitter of the Year, and one of the top 3 in the Country. Bob has come a long way and worked extremely hard to perfect his craft. He is proud of every award he has received to date, but most of all he is grateful for the thousands of opportunities over the years to help players to play better golf.

"I try everyday to fit players the best I can. Weather they are a touring pro or a weekend player. When I see them coming in weeks later after being fitted and saying to me they dropped strokes off their game because of my help, it makes all the hard work and long hours worth it. I have one of the best jobs in the world."
~Bob VanSweden