Fore Ahead

Business was bleak when Marilyn Stenten launched a golf carts accessories business in Sarasota in 1986.

So bleak that Stenten once pawned a diamond ring she inherited from her grandmother to pay for an order of wheel covers. (She eventually got the ring back.)

Bleak enough that she once ran the business out of the backroom of a barber shop, with dirt on the floor, one light bulb and no phone. She went home to make phone calls. Bleak enough that even when Stenten's son agreed to help run the business, she could only afford to pay him $100 a week, plus peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.