Welcome to Issue #14
"Golf is a compromise between what your ego wants you to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do."
Bruce Crampton
What’s on our mind this week
Would you turn down a Masters invite to turn pro instead?, WTGL signing the big guns of ladies golf, Reed following Brooks (who's next?), "Ciao" TopGolf goes Italian because everything tastes better with a Negroni, AmEx viewership +150% - looks like we missed those guys, YouTube still sending me 'one simple move' videos, Augusta calling time on slow play, TaylorMade Qi4D... they've officially run out of ways to say "it goes far".
In the news
Why it matters: Rolex has officially joined LIV Golf as an Official Partner for the 2026 season, but the deal is strictly limited to premium hospitality and elevated guest experiences.
Our Take: The agreement excludes the full brand integration such as the clocks, broadcast graphics, and timing packages that define Rolex's legacy partnerships with the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Majors. This isn't an endorsement of LIV's model; it's a B2B tactical play. By securing hospitality rights, Rolex buys high-net-worth access in markets like Singapore, Adelaide, and Riyadh, where traditional tours have a thinner footprint. Rolex is monetising LIV's geographic reach for VIP relationships while refusing to underwrite the league's legitimacy on the global broadcast. It's value extraction without reputational exposure. Equally strategic: this move blocks luxury watch competitors like Omega and TAG Heuer from accessing LIV's affluent audience and emerging markets, securing Rolex's category exclusivity without full brand commitment.
Why it matters: LIV Golf has hired Citigroup to facilitate the sale of minority stakes in two franchises at reported $300 million valuations. The move follows significant operating losses and comes amid roster instability, with high-profile players like Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed having recently departed for the PGA Tour.
Our Take: This is a liquidity test framed as validation. At $300m per team, LIV is asking whether investors value the team structure independently of Saudi subsidies and the star power currently driving attention. Seeking outside capital immediately after losing marquee players signals a shift from expansion to stabilisation. Franchise models depend on scarcity, revenue visibility, and appreciation; LIV is still proving it can deliver any of the three without central subsidy.
Why it matters: After 16 years, Tommy Fleetwood has ended his head-to-toe Nike apparel partnership, appearing across events in Vuori, Lululemon, and G/FORE without announcing a replacement deal. The World number three is effectively in open-market apparel free agency.
Our Take: This marks the decline of the category-exclusive apparel deal. Nike’s pivot, evident at the 2026 PGA Show, has created a vacuum that lifestyle-first brands are aggressively filling. For Fleetwood, apparel has become "modular": identity-driven rather than contract-driven. By keeping Nike footwear while testing Vuori and Lululemon, he is proving that elite players no longer need total brand allegiance. The move also fuels speculation regarding Tiger Woods’ Sun Day Red, suggesting player-owned brands are the new destination for established Tour talent looking for equity over endorsements.
Pic from Nike
Worth your time
Read: No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention This week's book was mentioned in our GolfRoots interview with Benjamin Stromberg as a “must-have” for building business culture.
Watch: Fanatics Sportsbook’s first-ever Big Game commercial, Kendall Jenner leans into the memes, the lore, and the speculation in “Bet on Kendall.” This is going viral for all the right reasons. One of the best sports marketing ads. (even if you are NOT a Kardashians fan)
Listen: Leading with humanity: Brendan Reidy on people-first leadership As Chief People Officer at Acushnet, Brendan has responsibility for over 7,000 people. His insights are valuable to any leader, in any industry.
Follow: Zack Enriquez A great LinkedIn follow, Zack posts golf marketing education for the golf industry. His content is insightful, thought-provoking and practical.
Feature story
How GolfRoots is re-engineering the $10B used equipment market
When Benjamin Stromberg and Jake Hoffman started flipping golf clubs from their university dorm room in Dallas, Texas, they weren't just building a business, they were testing a hypothesis about market failure.
The used golf equipment market had all the characteristics of information asymmetry: buyers didn't know what they were getting, sellers didn't know what their clubs were worth, and trust was effectively non-existent. While the market existed, it barely functioned.
Five years later, GolfRoots has grown into a 21-person operation with partnerships across 350 private clubs. But the more interesting story isn't the growth, it's the strategic choices Stromberg and Hoffman made that prioritised mission over scale, service over speed, and trust over transaction volume.
Strategic positioning: redefining the category
Most companies in the used equipment space position themselves as discount alternatives to new gear. GolfRoots deliberately doesn't.
"We don't want to be just another used-club company. We want to be a golf company that sells used clubs," Stromberg explained. "The clubs are the tools, golf is the destination."
The distinction matters fundamentally. Positioning as a "used-club company" competes on price and selection. Positioning as a "golf company" competes on experience, education, and outcomes. The former is a commodity play, the latter is a relationship play. In a market where trust is broken, whoever rebuilds it often owns pricing power.
This positioning shapes everything: customer acquisition, content priorities, product development, and resource allocation. GolfRoots spends significant resources on educational content, community building, and customer service that would be irrational for a pure discount retailer.
Business Model: The three-way value exchange
GolfRoots' inventory sourcing model reveals sophisticated thinking about value creation.
The company runs trade-in events at private clubs where members drop off old equipment and receive pro shop credit. GolfRoots pays the club for that credit, collects inventory, and ships everything to headquarters for resale.
"It creates incremental sales at zero cost for the club, we get inventory, and the member cleans out the garage," Stromberg said.
This model solves three problems simultaneously. For the club: revenue without investment. For the member: convenience without hassle. For GolfRoots: quality inventory without marketplace competition. The best business models create value for all participants, not just extract it. When you design transactions where everyone wins, you build sustainable competitive advantages through relationships rather than scale alone.
Currently working with 350 of roughly 3,000-4,000 private US courses, GolfRoots has substantial room for growth.
The control versus scale trade-off
GolfRoots refuses to sell through eBay or major marketplaces which may be viewed as a consequential and counterintuitive decision.
"Controlling the experience is how we set ourselves apart," Stromberg explained. "If demand generation was our issue, we'd sell everywhere."
The trade-off is explicit: slower growth and higher costs in exchange for complete control over quality and service. In a low-trust market, giving up control of the customer experience is existential. The underlying principle that GolfRoots demonstrates is knowing which dimension they're competing on and optimising ruthlessly for it, even when it means sacrificing other metrics.
"If someone finds us on Google, they're not going to say I bought my clubs on Google. They're going to say they bought them from GolfRoots," Stromberg noted.
Economics: Deliberately inefficient
GolfRoots photographs every single club individually rather than using stock photos. They call customers after they purchase beginner sets. They build full club sets by holding inventory back and waiting for specific components, even though this slows turnover.
"We could certainly go way faster if we weren't doing that," Stromberg admitted about the photography. "But we've always thought that it is really unfair to not know what club you're getting or the condition before you get it."
This is strategic inefficiency, deliberately choosing a more expensive approach because it compounds over time in ways pure efficiency doesn't. Individual photography builds trust. Customer calls provide learning and community. Full set building removes friction for overwhelmed beginners. The lesson here is that not all costs are the same. Some are expenses; some are investments in defensibility.
With cost of goods averaging around 60% of revenue, GolfRoots maintains enough margin to fund the deliberate inefficiencies that create competitive advantage.
Culture as competitive advantage
During our chat, Stromberg's most candid admission wasn't about metrics, it was about culture.
"We had a bad culture at one point. I was micromanaging," he said. "I think I knew too much about everything happening in the business."
After reading "No Rules Rules" about Netflix's culture, he rebuilt the organisation around "intrapreneurs", people who experiment, build, and solve problems without rigid playbooks. He implemented a feedback framework, held weekly meetings to build trust, and eventually stepped back.
"I tell people to be the CEO of your own position," Stromberg explained. "If you're doing a good job, you're looking for the next set of problems down the road and starting to come up with solutions before they arise."
This structure only works if you've solved the alignment problem. If everyone shares the same mission and values, you can afford autonomy. If they don't, autonomy creates chaos. Culture isn't HR soft skills. It's the operating system that determines which decisions get made when the founder isn't in the room.
Product strategy: Vertical integration as last resort
When golf ball manufacturers wouldn't accommodate lower pricing for grow-the-game initiatives, GolfRoots launched their own ball at $24.99 per dozen. When affordable putters weren't available, they built three models under $100.
"I'd been trying to work with some golf ball companies saying we have customers who don't have any brand loyalty. We have an opportunity to get your golf balls in their hands and develop instant loyalty," Stromberg said. "It was just really frustrating. None of them would engage with us. So I said, forget that. Let's just make our own."
This vertical integration is strategic, not opportunistic. GolfRoots fills gaps where existing suppliers' business models conflict with their mission. Premium ball manufacturers optimise for margin, not participation.
"Are they the best ball on the market?" Stromberg asks. "Absolutely not. Are they good? 100%."
The inventory constraint paradox
GolfRoots faces an unusual constraint: they're limited by inventory, not demand.
"Golfers want what we're offering. We just can't stock clubs fast enough," Stromberg noted.
This is the opposite problem most businesses face. In most retail categories, supply is infinite, and businesses compete for demand. In used golf equipment, supply is finite, and the constraint is accessing it efficiently. Understanding which resource is actually scarce in your market, and building capabilities around securing it is key. For GolfRoots, inventory acquisition is the primary growth lever, not marketing optimisation.
The GolfRoots Team
Financial sustainability: Profitable from day one
Unlike venture-backed startups that prioritise growth over profitability, GolfRoots has been profitable since the beginning and remains entirely bootstrapped.
"We kept coming back to the conversation, should we raise money?" Stromberg explained. "Our cash flow is funding our growth, and we don't have the right opportunity to deploy outside capital efficiently. We wanted to solve problems on our own and mature as leaders, not just throw money at problems."
This discipline forced operational improvement rather than capital-intensive scaling. The company now has 21 employees and reinvests heavily in inventory acquisition, team development, and marketing.
Industry critique: The cognitive dissonance problem
Stromberg doesn't hold back when discussing the golf industry's approach to growth.
"There's a cognitive dissonance," he said. "You want to grow the game, but you create price points that make it inaccessible, or the price points that are accessible are attached to clubs that are junk."
He points to structural issues: the annual product release cycle, the fitting industrial complex that creates barriers to entry, and missed opportunities like Callaway's failure to convert TopGolf customers.
"Their [golf equipment companies] relationship with the customer is too transactional. They have to milk everything they can out of one transaction because they don't know that customer's coming back. Their effort to maximise every transaction is actually hurting them."
When Stromberg approaches OEMs with partnership proposals, offering to build brand loyalty with price-sensitive beginners, the response has been consistently disappointing. "It blows my mind that no one is receptive to these concepts," he said.
Some manufacturers have launched certified pre-owned programmes, but Stromberg sees a structural problem: "Building out a pre-owned programme under the same umbrella as your own company is inherently cannibalistic. Either you're making the used clubs seem less desirable to sell new ones, or you're making them affordable, and people buy those instead."
Lessons for mission-driven business building
GolfRoots' story offers principles applicable beyond golf:
Position on outcomes, not outputs. "Golf company that sells used clubs" versus "used club company" changes everything about competition.
Design transactions where everyone wins. The three-way trade-in model creates sustainable advantages through relationships.
Know your dimension and optimise ruthlessly. Control over experience may cost you scale, but in low-trust markets, it's existential.
Some inefficiency is strategic. Photographing every club and calling customers is expensive but compounds through trust and learning.
Culture is infrastructure. It determines decisions when you're not in the room. Invest early.
Vertical integrate only when you must. Build what you can't buy at the price and quality your mission requires.
Understand which resource is actually scarce. In many markets, it's not demand, it's supply, distribution, trust, or something else.
The path forward
At 26 years old and five years into building GolfRoots with Hoffman, Stromberg has no exit plan.
"I have no intention of an exit anytime soon," he said. "What would be amazing is if we could wrap up other companies and build something sustainable that improves the industry as a whole."
The five-year vision is ambitious: expanded trade-in systems, continued focus on starter sets, and new products addressing the three barriers to golf entry, cost, difficulty, and finding places to play.
"Our competitive advantage is that we can create new customers. We can create new golfers," Stromberg explained.
Success won't be measured purely in revenue. "I think there will be a feeling when we've had a large enough impact," he said, recounting a cart attendant who bought his first driver from GolfRoots and now plays college golf. "Moments like that define our success."
The question for GolfRoots isn't whether the mission is valuable, clearly it is. The question is whether mission-driven businesses can achieve scale necessary to materially change industries.
Can GolfRoots grow large enough to fundamentally improve golf accessibility? Or will they plateau as a beloved niche while structural problems persist?
The answer depends on execution and market structure. The used equipment market is growing rapidly, driven by post-COVID participation, resistance to premium pricing, and changing consumer attitudes toward value. If this continues, GolfRoots' model works at scale.
But perhaps scale isn't the only measure of success. Maybe the goal is proving an alternative model works, creating permission for others to follow and slowly shifting industry norms.
"We're building it to create an impact and change an industry I really love," Stromberg said.
In a sport struggling with accessibility and affordability, that mission matters. And the strategic choices GolfRoots has made offer a playbook for anyone building mission-driven businesses in industries that resist change.
The real test will be whether those choices prove durable at scale or whether mission and margin ultimately diverge. For now, Stromberg seems willing to find out, one deliberately inefficient decision at a time.
One thing from history
The bag that broke golf's back
Pic from X
At the 1936 Walker Cup at Pine Valley, Bobby Jones and Tony Torrance watched American Amateur Albert Campbell step onto the first tee. Then they watched his caddie struggle under the weight of what followed: a golf bag stuffed with more than 30 clubs. Seven niblicks. Multiple left-handed clubs just in case. An arsenal for every conceivable situation.
Jones and Torrance looked at each other. This had gone too far.
For generations, golfers carried whatever clubs they wanted. When steel shafts were fully legalised on both sides of the Atlantic by 1929, the floodgates opened. No longer worried about breakage, players started collecting specialised clubs like trading cards. Lawson Little, who won back-to-back U.S. and British Amateur titles in 1934 and 1935, carried 26 clubs including seven wedges. During the 1935 U.S. Open and Amateur, surveys found the average bag contained more than 18 clubs.
The governing bodies had three concerns: it was de-skilling the game, creating inequality between wealthy golfers who could afford extensive sets and those who couldn't, and caddies were lugging bags exceeding 35 pounds around courses in the summer heat.
At the end of 1936, the USGA and R&A announced a 14-club limit to take effect in 1938. Why 14? Nobody knows for certain, though it's believed the standard set at the time was four woods, nine irons, and a putter.
The rule remains unchanged nearly 90 years later. Technology has transformed every club in the bag, but the number stays the same.
Next week
We look at the FIFA World Cup & Lenovo partnership and what it could mean for golf's AI future.
Have a good week. Until next Friday,
David