Stephanie in the Morning 9/10/26: Sharon Riley, StrokeMaster + 9/11 Remembrance

A stepfather who could not grip a golf club, a dream twenty years later, and a glove that is now on Walmart.com.

Cape Cod's only daily show, live from Mashpee on September 10, 2026.

TODAY: Sharon Riley, StrokeMaster and Get A Grip LLC. THIS WEEK ON CAPE COD: Trail Talk bird walk, Sept 11, Osterville / Biz Bites virtual networking, Sept 14 / Getting Started with AI for Business, Sept 16, Hyannis

No Hank today. He and Mari were out celebrating 38 years at a real estate conference, which is exactly as romantic as it sounds. In his chair: Sharon Riley, who sewed elastic and Velcro onto a golf glove twenty years ago so her stepfather could keep playing, put it in a drawer, and then built it into a product that is now on Walmart.com.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Twenty years ago, Ray. An avid golfer who played every day with Sharon's uncles, had a stroke, recovered his athleticism, and could not grip the club. He was also driving Sharon's mother crazy sitting in the house
• The first one was elastic and Velcro sewn onto a golf glove. It bought him close to five more years of golf until a second stroke ended it
• They named it StrokeMaster, loved the name, and shelved it, because the kids were little and Sharon was running a payroll company
• Winter of 2023. Sharon is in Maine, going through the hardest stretch of her life, and Ray comes to her in a dream and tells her to make the glove, because they need it
• The patent search and the viability study that came back with nothing else like it on the market
• The PGA Show in Orlando, the Invention Arena, two weeks to get ready, and a battalion of family and friends in Maine sewing like mad
• Discovering the adaptive community was far more interested than the golfers were
• The market she thought she was in versus the market she is actually in. Golfers say they are fine. Occupational therapists and physical therapists say yes
• Made overseas, because US manufacturing quoted eight to ten times more. The RFQ, the OEM search, and learning procurement and fulfillment from scratch at this stage of a career
• Walmart.com, and what it feels like to be walking around town knowing you made a thing that is on Walmart.com
• The boy with MS at a Maine adaptive golf clinic. He raised his hand, put on a glove made for adults, swung perfectly, his mother cried, the pro cried, Sharon cried, and the cousin with the camera was crying too hard to hit record
• Eleven and a half million golfers in this country are 50 or over
• Get a grip. Stay in the game, play with purpose. And the one she is not ready for yet: get a grip, give a grip
• Question of the day: what is your hobby? Nobody on this show has a good answer
• The third act. Starting over at an age nobody tells you that you are allowed to start over at, and the Chinese tradition of celebrating a woman at 60 because her life is finally her own
• What the invention taught her about herself: trust your intuition, and stop letting the people who love you dilute the dream
• Signs, coincidences, and a financial planner at trivia who turned out to sit on a golf association board
• Hard truth about patience, the finish line you can see, and being ready for the glory now, thank you

WHAT STROKEMASTER ACTUALLY IS

Two products, both built around the same idea: keeping a hand connected to a thing it can no longer hold.

• The Grip Assist Glove. A golf glove with the strap built in
• The Grip Assist Strap.
• 
  

Sold at strokemastergolf.com and on Walmart.com, with in-store still to come.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED

Sharon Riley, StrokeMaster and Get A Grip LLC (strokemastergolf.com), Karen, Hank and Mari, the PGA Show and its Invention Arena, the American Society of Hand Therapists, the Maine State Golf Association, Walmart, Mashpee TV, the Mashpee Chamber of Commerce.

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