Uncommon Balls for the Common Golfer?
So, just how crowded is the golf ball market? Well, each year the USGA Research and Test Center receives around 3,000 equipment submissions, which includes nearly 900 different models of golf balls.
This seemingly overwhelming stat wasn’t about to scare off self-proclaimed extreme enthusiast Jonathon Kantor from launching Uncommon Golf and its new line of golf balls in August.
Kantor, an entrepreneur with a successful background in the action sports world of snowboarding, has a philosophy of building brands around emotional ties with consumers, and literally thinking out of the box.
That’s part of the reason Uncommon golf balls, which are available to order exclusively online, will arrive on doorsteps in a cardboard tube.
“The packaging was probably the easiest solve for us, and people have been really receptive to it,” said Kantor, the founder of Uncommon. “Of course, you don’t buy a golf ball because of its packaging, but our brand is called Uncommon for a reason, and we basically wanted 100 touch points on this brand that add up to telling a really differentiated story. We looked at golf ball packaging and basically asked why. Why do all golf balls come in a square box? Why do they come in sleeves? Why isn’t it eco-friendly? The answer to all those questions is because they have to fit on uniform shelves at retailers in sporting goods shops. We obviously didn’t have to do that, so we could take more creative risks and do something more unique. And we wanted to do something to draw that emotional tie to the consumer and be more environmentally friendly.”
Inside the cardboard tube is a micro-fiber bag, a similar carrier that a pair of sunglasses would fit in. That bag is meant to be reused as a valuables bag or a computer charger bag when traveling — or anything in between.
“We’ve seen all sorts of creative stuff from people with our bag,” Kantor said.
Billed as “two game-changing golf ball models,” Uncommon has launched three-piece and four-piece urethane golf ball designs, in addition to an accessory line that includes golf towels and tees, and a unique artist series.
Color schemes include electric orange and purple, along with cool gray and your standard white. The Model 55 ball costs $34.99 per dozen, while the Model 33 is $29.99.
The upstart company offers a 10-percent discount when you sign up for a subscription in which you set up your own delivery schedule, and breaks down the price of making golf balls on its website for customer’s edification.
“Obviously we wanted some visibility and being able to see the ball on the course, and we wanted the ball to look different,” Kantor said. “If you think of it from a design perspective, it is really hard designing a different golf ball because you have to be conforming, and there is only so much design space, so we did things like our dead aim alignment, which is an alignment tool that goes around the whole circumference of the golf ball, and instead of numbers on the balls we have a dice print, so it’s a little bit unique.”
Kantor acknowledges mega golf ball brands such as Titleist and TaylorMade have a place in the market. But so does his new product.
“We don’t think of our brand going up against the big boys,” he said. “We’re not built to compete with them. Our whole business model is based off of what I call 1,000 true fans, which is connecting with a really small segment of the golf market who believe what we believe and share our values.
"We want to aspire to have a really deep relationship with our consumers. The ambition here was not to be a billion dollar golf ball brand — not to be the next Titleist — it’s to have a very captive audience, and to have a really strong two-way relationship with them like the big brands can’t do.”
Kantor, 36, and his small team (five employees) spent about two years developing the new balls.
“We spent a lot of time breaking balls open and doing testing and thinking about materials and all that other stuff, but ultimately what we wanted to achieve, what our goal was was to build a golf ball that performed well for the 10-handicap golfer,” Kantor said. “We believe not everybody should be playing the ball the PGA Tour players play, so our intention was to make a ball that was slightly softer and had a lot of control around the greens and slightly more forgiving at a really accessible price point for the highly engaged golfer who is not a scratch golfer.
“The golden rule of golf has always been what I call the pyramid of influence, which is the more Tour players play your stuff the more that consumers are going to buy your stuff,” Kantor added. “We’re just kind of throwing that model out the window and saying for us we’re going against the grain, it’s not about Tour players, it’s about making a ball that is reliable, that will perform and is at an accessible price point.”
For now, Park City, Utah-based Uncommon is word-of-mouth, a ton of social media and a vision to target the boutique customers of golf’s suddenly growing millennial market.
“We have a clear goal in mind and it’s not sales,” Kantor said. “Our goal is to inspire people to play golf their way. With the content we’re going to create and stories we’re going to tell it’s going to be about people who are absolutely in love with the game and have a deep relationship with the game that might look different than the average person you see at the country club.
“To me, I want the Uncommon story to be bigger than Uncommon, I want it to be bigger than the brand, and I want it to be bigger than just some golf ball. I want to support increasing diversity in golf, I want to support youth coming into golf, and understanding how beautiful this game is. And I want to support acceptance in the game of golf. That’s where I want to go. We don’t need 10 percent of the market; we just want to do something meaningful.”