The Birth of Brunch Golf: 2 Roommates, 4 Balls, and an 88 billion dollar industry.
In the summer of 2023, fresh off being laid off, my roommate and I set out on a new endeavor: to create a golf ball company. The idea seemed overwhelming, but we were determined. This is the story of Brunch Golf.
REAL WORK
Branding
Website Design
Clothing Design
What the Hell Makes a Golf Ball Good?
We spent countless hours figuring out how a golf ball was made, what it was made of, and if we, as consumers, were reallyyyyyyy being ripped off. Spoiler alert: golf balls shouldn’t be golf ball prices. Our first hypothesis was true. We learned we NEEDED a 3-layer urethane ball—a ball for performance, for the pros (and wannabe pros). I could go into detail, but I won’t bore you.
Sure, golf balls are expensive, but golf is expensive in general. Right? How could we possibly stand out? As pretty mediocre golfers ourselves, we realized that a sleeve of golf balls is NOT ENOUGH for your average golfer. Three balls? That will get me through maybe four holes. So, we decided to offer an additional ball in each sleeve: 4-ball sleeves and 16-ball cases, all for a fair price. We also wanted our design to be different, more on that later...
More Balls=More fun
We Found the Perfect Ball
This part took a while. We ordered numerous samples, had our friends (who know how to golf well) test them, and cut them open to see what’s underneath the shell. We found our spot, a manufacturer in a little country called China. Quality ball, for a quality price. 332 dimples, 96 compression, and 3-layer urethane shell. We were set.
Design Bayyyyybe
I’ll be honest, much of the work above was done by my sales guy roommate, Donovan. He could sell water to a lake. But when it comes to design, thats my bread and butter. Given my unemployment, I had plenty of time to come up with a brand identity. We wanted something that would stand out among the competition. Most brands stick with boring, run-of-the-mill, tech-heavy design. We wanted to be different. Colors, fun illustration, and bold typography.
Now We Wait?
“If you want something done, do it yourself” - someone. Unfortunately, we can’t make golf balls ourselves. So, we had to wait, and boy did we wait. As time passed, we became more eager to get our business going. We thought to expand our ball-making journey to include clothing. A hat and some shirts would suffice, for now.
How Much Do 2400 Golf Balls Weigh?
The balls came—a lot of them. I will tell you, 2400 golf balls take up a lot of space in an LA apartment. But we were stoked. Our idea had gone from an idea to something we could see and feel (and sell for profit ). It was finally time to show everyone what we were working on.
Gates are Open!
Many of our friends knew, but some didn’t. We began announcing on our social media accounts and got a very warm response. People were stoked, and the sales began rolling in. Much of my time was spent running the website, creating social content, and taking packages to the post office.
Not Everything Is Perfect
We had a great launch and were genuinely appreciative of everyone’s support. But we were frustrated with the lack of sales from random folks. We soon realized that most golf ball sales are done in stores—turns out most people don’t think about balls like we do. So, as I continued to create new hat and shirt designs, Donovan started calling shops.
Is this it?!
In January, we finally got into our first ProShop out of Portland. It was a huge step for us. Our idea was out in the world, and people were beginning to see and recognize us. We wanted to celebrate and bring our day ones together.
Lets Party
To celebrate, we talked to our friends at JuneShine in Santa Monica, who graciously allowed us to host an event and sell our merch. The party couldn’t have been better—sales were on fire, drinks were flowing, and our friend Gus DJ’ed like a maniac.
To be continued...
So, that’s the story so far. We are creating a new line of clothing, landed another ProShop, and are starting to get recognized more and more. We plan to keep pushing the brand, creating ad campaigns, and making the coolest clothing and balls you see.
If you want to support, check our site out at www.brunchgolf.com or google “Brunch Golf”—our SEO is pretty fire!
More images below!
