Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number three hundred and eighty, published on April sixteenth,
twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: We know how to make a good quality golf ball,
that's what we do. But we said, why don't we
make something that's a little better for the environment.
Speaker 1: And there's two issues.
Speaker 3: One don't put harmful metals and materials in the golf ball,
and two make something that can be recycled after the fact.
So we created the Dixon Earth golf Ball, who was
the first eco friendly high performance golf ball, and we
took out all the heavy metals. We actually put in
heavy salts that were not harmful to the environment. If
they were put in a landfill or if they were
lost in the lake river stream, they wouldn't be harmful
at all. So it's not going to bio a grade,
it's not going to melt yea.
Speaker 1: When you say to somebody I play with an eco
friendly golf ball, and the first question is it's biodegradable.
It is all into the environment.
Speaker 3: That's what people think, right, And that was a big
hurdle that we had to get over because they were like, Okay,
I've got this cute little eco friendly golf ball. It's
either going to go up in a puff of smoke,
it's going to plant a flour on the green, it's.
Speaker 4: Going to melt, it's going to explode. Who cares?
Speaker 3: You know. That was a lot of the reaction, and
so that was part of it. Put better products in
the ball so it's not harmful when it's lost, and
the other one, if it's not lost, let's recycle these things.
Speaker 1: Which is the best golf ball for you? With Dixon
Golf President William Carren, this is.
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter, sharing tips and insights from golfers and golf
professionals to help blower your score. It's worked for your host,
Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. William.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Fred, glad to be here.
Speaker 1: I am so glad to have you on the show
because since two thousand and nine, Golf Smarter has been
a big fan of Dixon Golf and the Dixon golf
balls when nobody had heard about what's going on with
Dixon Golf. And I've done what I can to talk
to long drive champions who like Dixon products, the Dixon Wind,
I've talked to instructors who love the product, the Dixon
Earth and Dixon Fire, and we've but we've never found
out about who Dixon is, what you guys do, and
why you're doing this. So please, as the president of
Dixon Golf, I'm so excited to get this story. Who
is Dixon Golf? What are you doing? Where did the history?
Where did this come? Where did you why did you do?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: It's it's a sort of history all as we.
Speaker 3: All have no back in before two thousand and nine. Obviously,
we actually we manufacture golf balls for a lot of
other companies, and it wasn't the Dixon brand that did that,
but we had a manufacturing facility here in Arizona where
a lot of the popular brands that are on the
shelf we made. And so we came from putting that ground.
Speaker 1: And other people were stamping their name on the ball.
Speaker 3: We were making them for them on a contract basis,
and so companies may not want to know this, but
a lot of golf balls are made in the same factories.
They have their own formulas, they have their own molds.
But just like anything in manufacturing these days, certain factories
specialized in golf balls, and so that's what we did.
So we built. We build golf balls for a lot
of companies. I know a lot of companies would like
you to believe that they all make their own golf
balls at their special little factory. So maybe they won't
like this podcast, but the truth is they'll never hear it.
Speaker 1: You could be this is a podcast.
Speaker 3: So the truth is a lot of a lot of
golf balls are contracted out to manufacturers around the world.
We were one of the very few here in the
United States. The problem with that businesses it's not very
profitable to make golf balls here in the United States,
and especially as a contract manufacturer.
Speaker 4: Most of them are done overseas.
Speaker 1: And why is it not profitable?
Speaker 3: It's just almost impossible to compete with We don't we
don't actually, we don't manufacture our golf balls here anymore.
The stark reality is it cost us about the same
to bring in the raw materials as it would to
bring in a finished product. Wow, and so nearly impossible
to compete with manufacturing. But that's what we did. So
we were manufacturing, and manufacturing has changed over the last
few decades quite a bit as well, qualities in product
and the golf ball technology in general has has just
increased tremendously since about two thousand. So if you look
at you know, I was I golfed in high school.
I wasn't good enough to play in college, but you know,
when I was younger, you know, everyone wanted to play
a lot of and so you wanted to play a
lot of ball. You get about one shot out of it,
and then it was oblong after that, and everyone would
would go and they'd pull their balls, they'd open up
their balls, they'd rip the skin off, and you would
see all the rubber bands and all the wound technologies.
And I mean we all remember growing up and seeing
what's going to what's inside this golf ball. It's got
to be magic stuff and uh and so the interesting thing.
So that's that's what we did. We made golf balls
for other companies, and we knew that golf balls in general,
as they're regulated golf balls are regulated on their size,
their weight, They have to have a uniform dimple pattern,
and they can only go so far when hit under
certain circumstances in the USGA testing.
Speaker 1: And so whether they regulated, you're talking to the USGA
correct usg regular.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's non conforming golf balls that don't have
to apply to those rules. But to be a conforming
ball to be played in tournaments, you need to have
the USGA stamp of approval. And so we looked at
that and what has not been regulated by the USGA
is what was put into golf balls and what as
we actually made them. We knew that companies could put
all sorts of things in golf balls if it would
give them more feel, more distance. Maybe it was a
cheap filler, but there were a lot of heavy metals
and harmful elements that were put into golf balls. And
what we realized was that there's over a billion golf
balls made a year and they all end up somewhere
in lakes, river streams, landfills, you name it. They end
up there, and over time, when they degrade, a lot
of these harmful materials.
Speaker 4: They seep into the environment, and.
Speaker 3: So you know, as we were seeing that, we saw, okay,
it's it's kind of like a plastic bag. No one
really thinks about a little plastic bags being harmful, but
when you have billions and billions of plastic bags, they
cause problems. And so that's been a problem that our
country in the world has been trying to trying to fight.
And so we looked at it and said, well, what
can we do to help our world? And we looked
at it and said, well, first, why don't we create something,
you know, back to back to.
Speaker 4: Some of the issues.
Speaker 3: Lockness had some problems with their ecosystem and they were
the vegetation everything was dying around the Lockness.
Speaker 4: They didn't know what it was.
Speaker 3: They actually dove down there and found thousands and thousands
of golf balls that were seeping out. And you know,
this study I think it was a Dutch company that
was doing this study. They were just they're like, oh,
who would have thunk that it's people hitting golf balls.
They try to hit the monster or something in Lockness,
But that's what it.
Speaker 1: Was, using Lockness as a driving range apparently, So oh
my god, So because is there a golf course that's
around I don't think so, and there's thousands of golf
balls that go figure.
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't do the study. We were reading
these things and we're like, you know what, amazing. We
know how to make a good quality golf ball.
Speaker 4: That's what we do.
Speaker 3: But we said, why don't we make something that's a
little better for the environment.
Speaker 4: And there's two issues.
Speaker 3: One don't put harmful metals and materials in the golf
ball and two make something that can be recycled after
the fact. And so that's what we did. So we
created the Dixon Earth golf ball. It was the first
first eco friendly high performance golf ball, and we took
out all the heavy metals and we actually put in
heavy salts that were not harmful to the environment when
they if they were put in a landfill or if
they were lost in the lake river stream, they wouldn't
be harmful at all. And so it's not going to
bout the grade, it's not going to melt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the when you say to somebody, Nico, I
play with an eco friendly golf ball, and the first
question is it's biodegradable. It evolves into the environment.
Speaker 3: And that's what people think, right, And that was a
big hurdle that we had to get over because they
were like, Okay, I've got this cute, little eco friendly
golf ball. It's either going to go up in a
puff of smoke, it's going to plant a flour on
the green, it's gonna melt, it's going to explode. What
is this? Who cares? You know, that was a lot
of the reaction. But and so that was part of it.
Put better products in the ball, so it's not harmful
when it's lost, and the other one, if it's not lost,
let's let's recycle these things. These things are recyclable. Let's
let's figure out a process to recycle. And so we
actually pay golfers fifty cents a ball and credit when
they bring them back to a retail location.
Speaker 4: So we pay them to do good.
Speaker 3: The retail location that carries it correct and so you know,
that's that's how it started. And you know, when you
look at the golf ball world, there's not a lot
of golf ball brands out there. There's a few billion
dollar companies and that's about it. It's a very very
very difficult market to get into.
Speaker 1: Which begs the obvious question, which begs the obvious question,
how are you able?
Speaker 4: Are we still alive?
Speaker 1: Yeah? How do you compactly with those names? And we're
talking about the te name and you know, I mean
obvious titleist is the Beast.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and you know there's just something like forty five
percent of the market share.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Well, you know, and they they spend
a tremendous amount on advertising. And I'm sure that their
advertising budget is much bigger than there R and D
budget because I'm only guessing that, but I'm thinking, because
there are regulations, you can only go so far.
Speaker 3: Well, and you look at how difficult And we looked
at all this because we're not only golf enthusiasts. We're
also business people and entrepreneurs and and you know that
there's a saying in the golf you.
Speaker 1: Don't want to say you're an environmentalist, are you?
Speaker 3: You know the thing, we consider ourselves practical environmentalists, and
that as supposed to radical. Well, the bottom line, everyone
I believe wants to do good for our earth that
we live on, and so we want to do practical
things that make sense that you know, it's not on
the far end of the spectrum of magic. It's just
practical measures. It's like recycling. It's doing things that are
just smart that people want to do it. It's not
a political thing. Some people take it political. We're not political.
We're about just doing something good, having a good product.
We see a good business model there well that nobody's touching.
It's a difficult business model. So if you look, so
if you go back and look at the industry, look
at Nike and and Nike has come on board probably
in the nineties when they really started getting into golf,
obviously with Tiger, and look at the billions of dollars
they've had to spend over the last two plus decades
just to get to where there are. And they're still,
you know, with the pack of companies competing against titleist.
Speaker 1: Right, So what's their market share?
Speaker 4: And so I'm sure you know.
Speaker 1: Because it seems Listen, I live next to a golf course,
and so I'm just sozy. We need to find a
market share.
Speaker 3: To find market share, it can be defined in a
number of different areas.
Speaker 4: I was at the PGA show a couple.
Speaker 3: Of years ago and and talking someone anonymous from Calawai,
and the numbers he threw out were about like I said,
so I'm not saying if these are correct or not,
he said. He said titleist Own is about forty five
percent of the market share, and the other major players
like Calawai, Nike, Taylor Made, they went about twelve. They're
all right around. Yes, Rickson's building its way up. So
if you look at from the business perspective, you know,
they're all right around the ten twelve, and they still
spend billions of dollars just to get to that area.
So you look at a new product, you're like, how
do you even touch that market?
Speaker 1: How and so different?
Speaker 3: And so what we knew and that was the question
we didn't have an answer for. All we knew initially
was we've got a really good product here. It's good
for the environment and it performs really really well and
people don't realize that, but it does. And so we
launched it because people liked the idea of being good
and pros liked it, and.
Speaker 4: You know, so we got a bunch of reps that.
Speaker 3: Actually wanted to rep the product because they thought, oh,
this is going to be the next big thing, and
so they actually launched it. We had it launched in
retail shops all over the country back in two thousand
and nine. The problem is no one bought it because
they'd never heard of it. Because one of the things
that the way the major golf ball companies do they
spend one hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and
paying players, and we didn't have hundreds of millions of
dollars in advertising or to pay players. And so what
we found is people loved the product when they played it.
People didn't expect much, to be honest, when they first
saw it because they thought, oh, it's a cute little gimmick.
But once they play it and it outperformed the ball
they were used to, then they were sold.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what did you think when you first thought of
the product?
Speaker 1: So I was using I went from an NXT tour
to a bridgetone E five and bridgetone E six and
then was introduced to the Dixon Earth and was not
just hitting it as far off the tee probably farther,
felt more comfortable and was putting better and felt like
this ball was equal or better than those balls for
my game. And when I did lose a ball, and
I do lose balls, when I did lose a ball,
I didn't feel so awful about it.
Speaker 3: And that's that's well, you know, yeah, And when people
realize that, that's when we gain a good customer because
it's based on sound product, and that's what we had.
So that's what we had going for Ust. We had
a really great product that doesn't necessarily make a business.
It makes a good product. As we got out there,
we had a few breaks that most people don't have.
One of the breaks was I got a phone call.
I think it was back in it was either two
thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, and it was
from an actor. His name is Don Cheatle and so,
and I know who Don was. He was in Ocean's
eleven and Hotel Rwanda. Now he's got a show on
Showtime House of Lies. And he called and he says, Hi,
I'm Don Cheatoh. I ordered some of your balls off
the internet because I was looking for eco friendly golf
products because I loved to golf. And he goes, and
I ordered some and I played him. He goes, I
loved them. He goes, I want to.
Speaker 4: I want to. I want to.
Speaker 3: Promote your product. Do you guys have a celebrity spokesman?
And I said no, don don't've been waiting for you
to call. So I was really bad, I said, I said, don,
I don't even like celebrities.
Speaker 4: I go, I go, come on, man, I go.
Speaker 3: I've been to so many charity golf tournaments, and all
these celebrities take the products and they don't do much
with them, and they might give them to their assistants,
so they give them away, and they're just there for
the free stuff and the golf and maybe the charity
that they're working for. And so, you know, honestly, I
see celebrities.
Speaker 4: There's a bunch of divas out there.
Speaker 3: And he's like, oh really, He goes, yeah, you're kind
of right.
Speaker 4: We are kind of like that. And he goes, well,
he goes, well, I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 3: He goes, I really am interested in helping, because he goes,
he goes, let me be honest with you, I'm not
in this for money.
Speaker 4: He goes, I got a day job. I'm okay on
that side.
Speaker 1: That was the first thing you wanted to hear exactly.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, I'm listening, I'll talk to you. Done now.
I'm excited. I like actors.
Speaker 3: But he goes, you know, the points that you just
made were very interesting, because he said, the United Nations
is going to make me uh an ambassador for the
environment here in the next couple of months, and not
because of how I live my life. And Don's very
true to form. He's he's very conscious of not being hypocritical.
So when he talks about a cause or anything that
he does, he lives that and he that's very important
to him to be very good at what he does
and to be very honest and transparent that way. And
so he says, I really like this, But he goes,
I need to make sure that all aspects of my life.
If I'm going to be an ambassador for the environment,
I need to make sure that I'm living that and
doing what I can.
Speaker 4: And so kudos.
Speaker 1: Are people who want to walk the walk the talk.
Speaker 3: And he, like I said, he did research and you know,
make sure that we're not, you know, employing slave lavery
or slave wages in China or something like that. So
he had to make sure that what we said was
actually true research and uh, and he says, but the
bottom line is I need to I need to do
well from from an environmental perspective. And he goes, and
I like to golf, and if I can golf and
do well for the environment, I feel better and I
don't feel so guilty about golfing.
Speaker 4: So if I can do that, I'm in. I'm all,
you're hired. Don.
Speaker 3: This fantastic and so he that was one of the
first things that I thought, you know, that's pretty cool.
You get an a list actor calling you offering to
promote your product for free. And he said, you know,
I have a lot a lot of friends, and we'll
get a lot of these people.
Speaker 4: Playing your ball.
Speaker 3: So we have some great actors that play a golf ball.
So Samuel Jackson plays our golf balls. Anthony Anderson, Kevin
Sorbo from Hercules. He actually came down and helped us
with our grand opening of this green building, and he's
been really helpful and a lot of and a lot
of things. Also was in a training video for us.
Speaker 4: Don.
Speaker 3: Actually, we have a little web commercial on our on
our website.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll put it at golf smorter dot com.
Speaker 3: He actually, Don came to me with that concept, really,
so he thought of it, he wrote it, she directed it,
had some help and obviously starred in it. And worked
with that, and so he's really done some great things
to help us out. Yeah, and so just been fabulous.
It's been a great relationship with him. Okay, but but
that still doesn't make a company exactly.
Speaker 1: But right, because now when you tell people like so,
I'm playing and we're we all hit our ball and
we're going up and somebody pulls in their cart. As
I'm slowly walking up to my ball, someone goes this
youth tricks on, this is you, and no, it's Dixon.
What's Dixon exactly? Glad you asked? Well, but so, so what
that says to me is the if I say, oh, well,
don Cheatle plays the ball and Samuel L. Jackson plays
the ball, They're like, yeah, so right, what's it gonna
do for me? But if I said, you know, you
got one of the one of the guys who was
in the FedEx Race or whatever, anybody on tour, if
you said, yeah, well they're playing the ball, it's like, oh, now,
I'm not susceptible necessarily to a tour player doing it
because I don't play like a yeah, I just does
I don't necessarily buy it.
Speaker 3: Well, here's here's the reality of the reality is you
got tour players. They are independent contractors who are that's
their livelihood, and so they play for the most part,
who will help them make the most money. And so
I mean, you look what Rory's gone through in the
last little bit. We're been thank you for him absolutely.
And so we actually had a number of tour players
play our fireball love it, that have come to us
and said we can win with this ball. I want
to play your ball on tour. And I said, that's great.
We would love you to play the ball on tour.
I won't pay you, though, and a couple of them, man,
we'll give you our logo exactly. A couple of them
actually been very close wanting to do it, but they
got really good offers from some of the other companies.
And I actually told a few of them, you need
the money, take it. That's a great offer. If I
were in your shoes, I would take it. So my
guess is, and so we have a number of tour
players that are interested that there will be some that
play our ball.
Speaker 1: What is the value And I'm sure that you guys
have worked this out. You must have an NBA or
two running around. What is the value of somebody playing
on the weekends and hopefully making the cut with a
Dixon logo on his shirt.
Speaker 3: It varies by the company. It's not a strict it's
not a strict marketing value because it depends what your
business model is. And like we said, we were able
to get our golf balls in shops all over the country.
We did that part, but we couldn't support a national
ad campaign millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: You got to create a brand identity for somebody because
you want them to walk in and go, oh, I.
Speaker 4: Heard about this exactly.
Speaker 1: And I'm you know, it's just a slight guess, but
I don't think you're going to get enough of a
business of people going, oh, I heard on the golf smarter.
I know.
Speaker 3: You know. The reality is is even for you know,
a great player to play it on the weekends and
do well, there's great value in that. How much value
is very indeterminate because it's all based on sales and
how you can grow that. What we did is once
we realized so we knew we had assets, We had
a great product, we had a great message. We had
some great stars from Hollywood that are playing our ball.
We also actually had cities that started calling us wanting
to be the official golf ball of their city.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Goundo, California was the first one.
Speaker 1: Southern California.
Speaker 3: They called and they said, hey, we heard about your product.
We want you to be the official golf ball of
our city. And I said, where's El Segundo, California? That
was my first question.
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, the Lakers practice here.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, okay, I know where that is. But no,
we did it.
Speaker 3: They did it because they wanted to differentiate their city.
You know, they have a lot of recycling programs, wastewater
treatment plants, and they wanted to differentiate their cities being
a green city. So this played right into it and
it got them a lot of great press in marketing
and as well for us, and so we did that.
Speaker 4: What we've determined, so that was a few years ago.
Speaker 3: What we've determined is that people really love our products
once they played them. And so most of our marketing
is actually on the course and we support charity and
so charity golf tournaments. We go out to thousands of
charity golf tournaments all over the country every year. We'll
be in more charity golf tournaments than any other company.
This year will probably be in about fifteen thousand charity
golf tournaments.
Speaker 4: And we're there.
Speaker 3: We hand out our products and we help the charities
raise money, and we allow people to test their ball
versus our ball. And that's where people think, oh, this
is a gimmick until they play it and then they're like, wow, right,
that's awesome. And so that's the primary way we've been
marketing the product.
Speaker 1: William, just before I broke there, you were just starting
to talk about providing product for charities. Of course, I
get emails regularly people saying we're having charity golf tournament.
So how can people get in touch with Dixon.
Speaker 4: You can go to the Dixon Golf website.
Speaker 3: There's this cab on there for donations or charity, and
you can click on that and send and we can
we can either send you some donations or if we've
got someone that's available, we can send them out to
your course and they can hand out some golf balls
to people.
Speaker 1: Are you doing this globally or just the United's just
in the United States? Okay.
Speaker 3: Charity golf tournaments are not a global phenomenon really.
Speaker 4: Just from a culture perspective.
Speaker 3: If you look over in Europe, they have a few,
but you have to have a license to golf over there,
so you can't just invite all your friends to come
and okay and raise money for charity. And so that's
that's been our focus and it's been phenomenal for us.
It's been growing since we released the Earth. We then
released the wind which was a distance ball. The long
drive community absolutely loves the windball because it is it's
been proven it is the longest ball in golf.
Speaker 1: Well I wanted to get into so okay, So if
anybody wants to have Dixon Balls at their charity tournament,
go to Dixon goolf dot com, click on donations, yeah,
and find out information and make sure that you let
them know that you you heard about it on golf Smarter. Please.
That's going to help everybody because we've got to prove
to them that there's more than two people who are this. Yeah. No,
and you know we have the Dixon Balls. I'm not
allowed to say that we have the best prices on
the web because they've got retailers that would crush me
like a bug if they knew that.
Speaker 4: But you should just won't.
Speaker 1: We just won't say it, but you should go to
golf Smarter dot com and look at and see and actually,
if you're in the United States and you're not a
Golf Smarter member yet, there's a good opportunity to get
a box on that North American membership. A couple extra
bucks and you will get a box of the Dixon
win balls. So now I want to talk about you
have three balls in your line, the Wind, Earth and Fire. Correct,
there's a differentiation of those. Please give us the explanation
of each of the balls and then if you can
what they compare to on what most people are playing
and how they compare.
Speaker 4: So if you want to compare.
Speaker 3: The earth ball was the original golf ball that we introduced,
and it like you had mentioned it, it's compared. It's
it's the ball that most golfers would want it. It's
the mid to high handicapped golf ball. That is a
really good ball. You can still you can shape it
if you're a lower handicap. So if you're I would
stay anywhere from a five to twenty, you could you
could play with you could play with the earth ball.
It's a phenomenal ball. So that was our original one.
By the way, the only congratulations. I've never had one,
so I'm jealous. So that was our first ball. Once
you realize this was really growing and it had legs,
we knew we needed different balls for different golfers. The
next ball we came out with was the wind and
that is that was focused on distance. Our original endorsement
on that was Sean the Beast Fister, who was on
Long Drive Champion.
Speaker 1: Who was on Golf Smarter. He's in the archive. We
talked to him about why he was using the ball.
Speaker 3: Oh cool, and Sean's a great guy. And since then,
a lot of long drivers around the world, not just
the United States, over in Europe.
Speaker 4: Actually a ton of long drivers use the wind ball.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, they can't use in the competition.
Speaker 3: They can't use it because typically the competition is sponsored
by a ball company, although there are competitions that are
using it because enough people want them to use it
and so, and you know, for example, a lot of
there were some world records set recently on ball speed
and distance by another brand, and after he hit the
other brand officially, he went over and unofficially hit the
windball and broke all the records. That he just said,
And so it is for the people that for long drivers,
that that's their life and that's their livelihood. And so
they know their swing, they know their ball speed, they
know everything. They will all that aren't related to us,
they will all tests that it's along with ball they've
ever hit. So they absolutely love it. So if you
want distance and you need more distance than windballs for you,
we then came out with the Fireball, and we wanted
a ball that was just the best of the best,
and so it would compare to your top top balls
on the tour from your prov one prob one X
to any of the major brands and their premium ball.
And so obviously your celebrities like the Fireball, and the
tour players played with the Fireball. And then recently we
came out with a women's ball called the Dixon Spirit.
Speaker 4: And the reason we did that was.
Speaker 3: Over in Europe, up in Scandinavia. Actually, there's a lot
of business going on up there for a product. We
have some great distributors out there and over there there's
a much higher percentage of women that golf than golf here,
and they were just clamoring for an.
Speaker 4: Eco friendly women's ball.
Speaker 3: And you know, they actually helped come up with the
spirit because you have the earth, fire, wind, and spirit,
it's the other element, absolutely, and so it worked out.
And that's a that's a fantastic women's ball. So in fact,
when we first launched it, we sold out way faster
than we expected, and so we got a little bit
behind our production.
Speaker 4: But congratulations. But yeah, so that's those are the four
balls in our family.
Speaker 1: Okay, And and we really didn't go into comparing them.
Do you do you are comparing?
Speaker 4: I don't care.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's start with so if you're looking at
more like an NXT tour, a lot of people compare
it to if you're looking if you're looking at a fireball,
you're looking at obviously the top balls of any brand,
from the Penta, the pro V, those type of balls.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't there's something about the Provy I
cannot play. I know this is really weird, but to me,
any ball that stands for pro Visional, I just don't
feel comfortable hitting it. Why am I going to spend
that kind of money to lose the ball exactly right now?
If I'm going to do it and lose it and
not feel guilty about it. That's a different thing, but pro.
Speaker 3: V Yeah, the fire and the fireball comes with a
with a premium price too. It is it is more
expensive to build than it is a it's a multipiece
ball with the feel that the tours need. The problem.
Speaker 1: So that's for the single digit that absolutely player who
can put the back, who can shape it? Who can?
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly? And then the wind is for those that
want distance.
Speaker 3: And so you're doing with all your distance balls, you know,
anyone from a pinnacle down to a you know, if
you look at the sozengers actually got a decent distance.
Speaker 1: Ball, Okay, and then the spirit compares to just spirit balls.
Speaker 4: The spirit is actually a really good golf ball.
Speaker 3: It's a bit lower compression than the earth and so
from a compression standpoint, it's between the earth and the.
Speaker 4: Wind.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you have time? Can we do a part
two of this conversation? Okay, So we're going to go
for members only. We're going to do part two of
this conversation because I'd like to get into a couple
of things. One, what is inside a golf well, what
makes a golf ball? And how do you make it
so it's comparable to the tops and the competition there,
and what does it mean dimple, What do all those
elements mean? Why is it important? Why is the elements
that you're constructing your ball with? Why does it make
an ego friendly but still a competitive ball?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: And also I read this really interesting article in the
Wall Street Journal just recently, I don't know if you
saw it, and talking about how there's a move to
push balls to be not so low, and what the
USGA is listening to and what people like Tiger and
Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas are saying. Listen, we can't
keep making the golf courses longer. We've got to make
the balls not play as long, and there's a move
towards that. So I'd love to get your thoughts on
that kind of stuff. So thank you very much for
your time for allowing me to come in here. Hopefully
we'll get some video too so we can put that
on the Golf Smart TV channel. And thanks again for
your time.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thanks Fred, appreciate being here.