The 14th edition of The Post Game Newsletter features co-designer of the Titleist ProV1 and Founder of Snell Golf, Dean Snell.
Dean started his career with BF Goodrich working on Blackhawk Helicopters before responding to an ad for a quality control engineer position at Titleist and launching a legendary career in golf ball R&D.
He’s been at the forefront of designing golf’s most innovative balls alongside the biggest brands and golfers in the game. For the last decade, he’s been doing it with his own direct to consumer golf ball company, minimizing costs that otherwise get passed on to the consumer.
Here are some top takeaways from the conversation:
1) Co-Designing the “#1 Ball in golf”
When Dean first started with Titleist, they didn’t have urethane cover technology, which is the standard in premium golf balls today. He began experimenting with casting liquid urethane into golf balls and was only able to produce one ball every 20 minutes. Over time, the process was refined so they could make a dozen at a time, then scaled it from there.
He began working with tour players like Phil Mickelson and Davis Love III and learned that urethane provided the perfect balance of lower driver spin, longer distance, and softer feel around the greens.
The foundation for the ProV1 came after he posed the question “What if we took this urethane cover and the professional and combined it with a solid core and mantle layer?”
So, the Pro V1 was more of a R &D name that we were using at the time to create a new golf ball that didn't exist, which was a multi-layer cast urethane covered golf ball. That all started back in the mid 90s, like ‘94, ‘95, ‘96 period when that initial thought and those initial things happened.
So, it's been a while now, but that's how it kind of evolved where if I took this core mantle that could go with spin rate, this cover which could add durability and short game spin and combine them together, what would that do? And you know, it's become obviously the number one golf ball in golf now for years.
Unfortunately (for me), his golf ball R&D expertise does not prevent you from slicing your ball into the woods.
2) Giving Value Back to the Customer & The Business Behind Big Brands
After seven years with Titleist and 18 with Taylor Made, Dean saw an opportunity to break out on his own and launch a direct-to-consumer golf ball brand. At Titleist and Taylor Made, the drivers and clubs were often times #1 and the golf balls were further down the list of priorities and marketing spend.
I said, maybe I can take (You know, I think I have like 54 patents that are out there today) that knowledge and give back to the consumer or design golf balls for the consumer, I had this idea to say, let me start this little direct to consumer business where I use the feedback now from consumers to design products.
Dean explains that the biggest names (players) in golf have multi-million-dollar endorsement deals with brands like Titleist, TaylorMade, etc. and that cost has to get passed somewhere, i.e. the consumer.
Snell Golf doesn’t sell into pro shops and doesn’t have sales reps, so they do not have the markups the pros need. 10 years ago, the cost of his golf balls were $32.99 per dozen and that has remained constant over the years.
3) Don’t Quit
He talks about COVID being a blessing and a curse for the business. With new players getting into the game, golf skyrocketed so the demand took off, but that meant there was a huge material shortage and supply chain issues. More recent roadblocks have come as a result of tariffs.
That said, his old man taught him not to quit.
The challenges for us since COVID have been, they've been out of control for us, you know, since 2020 and 2021 golf was the only thing people could do. They'd let you go out during COVID and play. The demand took off, but there was a material shortage. There was a supply chain issue. were containers to send a container of golf balls over in 2019 would cost $2,000. In 2021, it was $27,000. You know, so crazy, crazy thing.
And then they would take three weeks to get here. Now they took six months to get here. They'd sit out on the water. You know, so there were huge, huge challenges that went on in the last four or five years that I hope people understand. We've tried to work through and continue to provide performance at affordable price where even now this year, the tariffs, the tariffs come in and they've, they've jacked up things, you know, we're just trying to hold it and hopefully it settles itself down.
But every year has been a challenge and that's what kind of keeps us going is don't quit. My dad always taught me that. goes, don't ever quit. That's something that if for some reason the business is over and it's done for a reason, that's way beyond control. But if you have an opportunity to make it work, keep fighting. So that's what we're doing.
You’ll also get a good (PG rated) John Daly story around the 16:20 mark if you choose to listen in.
Check out the full episodes below:
David Senra Podcast
Clip from David’s podcast episode with CEO of QXO Inc., Brad Jacobs
“That was in a critical moment in my life where I understood that it’s up to you. You can diddle daddle through life and just kind of sleepwalk, then die. Or you can live life, embrace life, you can have big dreams, and go all in and find your passion.”
Continued ‘Commercialization’ of College Sports
The Big 10 is reportedly moving closer to a deal with UC Investments (the investment arm of the University of California pension/investment system) for a roughly $2B - $2.4B cash infusion. This news is a few weeks old at this point, but I was just diving into it a little bit last night.
The terms of the deal look like this:
UC investments would take approximately a 10% stake in “Big Ten Enterprises” which would hold the media rights, sponsorships, business development for the conference (revenue generating assets of the conference)
Member schools would receive upfront payments of around $100M-$135M with variable future payments based on performance
The deal would also bind “member institutions” to the conference through 2046, providing certainty to the investor.
It was originally reported the Big 10 would need unanimous approval, but this article by Ross Dellenger says otherwise. With schools like USC and Michigan pushing back on it, the conference is basically saying they would risk their future in the conference beyond 2036 in addition to losing the additional capital proposed in the deal.
via Ross Dellenger with Yahoo Sports
Every time I read about one of these deals and its terms it makes my head hurt and I never really fully understand it, but withholding any expert opinions, I just don’t see how this works out well for all parties in the long term.
Athletic departments will continue seeking creative ways to generate revenue, but once PE enters the chat, is there any turning back?
Past Episode Feature
I’m going to start going back and highlighting previous guests that have come on the pod.
To stay consistent with this week’s golf theme, I thought it was fitting to include Jared Doerfler - the founder of Custom Putter Company, Hanna Golf. Jared quit a promising career in sales to build a boutique putter company out of his garage.
“I’ve always had the itch to do something, so that kind of hit me. I don’t wanna fail at this, but I think for me to start this my ego had to go aside and say alright, failure is a possibility. But I’d rather fail than not try.”
The Underdog Newsletter by Tyler O’Shea
If you haven’t come across Tyler’s newsletter / Instagram yet, go check it out. He highlights underdog stories across sports and puts out a weekly newsletter every Sunday morning.
His latest edition mentioned the Post Game Pod and a conversation I had with former NFL backup QB David Fales. Keep an eye out for episode coming with Tyler in upcoming weeks 👀
Some Upcoming PGP Episodes:
11/19 - Kianna Smith - Former Louisville hoops star who played in the Final Four, Former WNBA player, currently working at Nike
11/26 - Bela Carrasco - Former soccer player at Marquette, Assistant VP at Origin Investments, and podcast host
12/3 - George Boyd - Former BMX rider and founder of “Cut The Pod,” transforming raw podcast recordings into premium video podcasts
12/10 - Vasu Kulkarni - Penn Grad, entrepreneur and founder of Krossover, investing in startups with Courtside Ventures, the leading early-stage fund focused on Sports, Lifestyle, and Gaming
Thanks as always for checking out the pod and for your support. Have some awesome episodes coming in the next few months as we approach 100 episodes.
One future guest just ran a 100-mile ultramarathon. God bless him. Another future guest was at Ohio State during the tattoo gate scandal. Another future guest is helping grow the fastest growing sport in the world, padel.
Feel free to pass this newsletter along to a friend or fellow KPMG tax accountant.
See you next week,
Joe