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Talking with Cut Golf, purveyors of the “best damn golf balls” under 20 bucks

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6 years ago

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“The best damn golf balls under 20 bucks.” That’s the tagline that accompanies direct-to-consumer upstart Cut Golf’s wares.

What seems at first like an extremely bold claim really isn’t, as co-founder and CEO, Sam Uisprapassorn explains, the company produces the only 4-piece urethane ball that retails for under $20/dozen–in addition to three-piece and two-piece offerings, which technically fall under the “best damn” umbrella.

Thus, in bringing to market a four-piece urethane ball for markedly less than competitors, they are assuredly selling the highest quality and most sophisticated golf ball for under 20 bucks per dozen.

Founded out of Uisprapassorn’s frustration at losing pricey golf balls, Cut Golf is built on the principle that top-quality golf balls don’t have to be expensive.

I spoke with Uisprapassorn and Dennis Chang (co-founder and COO) about the company’s journey, unique value proposition, product offerings, and what’s ahead.

Uisprapassorn and Chang (Photo: JROJAS MEDIA)

BA: So take me back to the beginning. What’s inspired you to get into the golf ball business?

SU: Well. we’re avid golfers, so golf was a passion first. Other manufacturers have done a great job marketing their great products, but I thought there was room to do something different…to take a simpler approach to how we message our product benefits. But we got started right about the time Nike was exiting the golf equipment market. I was very loyal to Nike golf equipment, maybe to a fault, but I had to start looking for another golf ball. I eventually started looking at the folks in the direct-to-consumer space, and I didn’t see a value proposition in their pricing.

I was actually in the process of learning to hit a cut, and I was losing so many golf balls, that I thought, “There’s no point in this, there has to be a more cost efficient way to get the ball to the consumer.” So we started looking around for the right manufacturing partner, we found one, and then our business was born.

BA: Tell me about R&D and getting from concept to reality…

SU: To start with, we looked at multiple manufacturing options. And it was a process of looking at what the product was…understanding how the product would perform on the course and for a variety of different players.

There were a lot of designs we threw out and a lot of factories that didn’t work for us. We developed a ball that performed very well against “the other guys.” We got a baseline of what it was doing on the TrackMan and what it was doing on the course, so it was something we were confident in taking to market.

BA: Can you talk a little at selling your four-piece ball at the $19.99/dozen price point and how you’re able to do that…

Dennis Chang: Sam and I scrubbed the business model of everything we could in getting the ball from Point A to Point B. We don’t do big dollar spend at the PGA Show or pay tour pros. Ultimately the consumer pays for all of that. We manage our overhead efficiently, and we’ve grown a lot faster than expected.

(Photo: JROJAS MEDIA)

BA: Can you talk about demand and what the response has been like?

DC: I think the biggest way we’ve been able to drive sustainable growth without spending more money is awesome customer service and a great product. Word of mouth is obviously big for us. We get a lot of referrals. So we think that means that golfers are looking for a high-quality product at a very good value.

BA: How does your value proposition relate to competitors in the direct-to-consumer space?

SU: You can lump all of the competitors together. We have a four-piece urethane ball for $19.95 per dozen. The closest competitor offers a four-piece ball for $24.95, and I think that’s only with a bulk order of five dozen. With us, you don’t need to do a bulk buy to feel the savings.

BA: OK. Run through the golf ball lineup for us.

SU: We have Cut Blue and Cut Gray, which are both on the premium, urethane ball side. Cut Blue is a 90 compression 4-piece construction performance ball. Cut Grey is the softer compression performance ball with a 3-piece construction. Cut White is a 3-piece ball with a Surlyn cover ($14.95/dozen). 2-piece Cut Red is the lowest-compression ball. You can call it a “distance ball.” We’ve been asked to release some matte colors like you’re seeing in the market right now, so we’re deciding on colors. That’ll be $14.95/dozen with a 3-piece Surlyn cover. We’re leaning toward yellow and orange, and those will be out end of spring.

But we stay away from a lot of the golfballspeak. Look at how golf balls are communicated, everyone has some sort of value proposition. We have a no-nonsense approach: It’s core, mantle, urethane cover. If you want to get into dimple counts, we can get into dimple counts…but we don’t claim our golf ball is more dynamic than anyone else’s or that it’s going to fly farther than anyone else’s.

DC: Because there are so many options right now, golf ball preferences are pretty subjective among consumers. And one of the reason we’ve had such great adoption rates is we push for trial sleeves with our sample packs. So at a very low barrier to entry, without making a $20 or $40 investment, you can try our product.

(Photo: JROJAS MEDIA)

BA: Cool. Anything in the immediate future you’d like the readership to know about?

SU: We have the Cut Golf Club, which will be a middle-spring to end-of-spring launch. Back when we launched, we thought this would be a subscription service, but I knew that we needed some adoption before we could gain traction with any subscription service. We made that decision early on, but we never lost sight of the idea. So, April-or-May timeframe, folks will be able to set up a subscription/auto-ship to say, “I need golf balls every month,” or “I need them every other month.”

BA: So that’ll all be based on customer preference, not on tiers or plans?

SU: Right. We want to make sure we’re still offering top-notch service. We don’t want to be sending a monthly golf ball order to a guy in Fargo, North Dakota, in the middle of winter.

 

Check out Cut Golf on the web at cutgolf.co.

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9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. Charlie

    Mar 14, 2018 at 11:23 am

    These balls are no where near as good as the Kirkland Signature golf balls. The cut 4-piece ball is extremely high spinning. Which is great around the green. These things check up and spin back better than most tour balls, BUT they are also extremely high spinning off the tee. They are good feeling, and they are not terrible, but they are not the “tour ball hack” or whatever you want to call my ever-going search for the best 3 or 4 piece ball for the cheapest $$$.

    Reply Report comment

  2. Dougie Mann

    Mar 10, 2018 at 4:20 pm

    Once you go Cut, you’ll never go back.

    Reply Report comment

  3. Ell

    Mar 10, 2018 at 7:55 am

    Sure beats the come on from Kickx-z. They’ll let you try them for 3 months at $9.95/dozen. After that if you don’t return them, you have to come up with the difference to make up for the $59.95 they really cost.

    Reply Report comment

  4. Charlie

    Mar 9, 2018 at 4:39 pm

    Wonder how the CUT ball compares to the COSTCO Kirkland urethane ball that’s $39 for 2 dozen. But the Kirkland is only available in white, I think.

    Reply Report comment

  5. peter collins

    Mar 9, 2018 at 3:02 pm

    Great you can’t buy them in the UK

    Reply Report comment

  6. That 1 Guy

    Mar 9, 2018 at 10:16 am

    The price is way too high, you need to Cut it!

    Reply Report comment

  7. Rich

    Mar 8, 2018 at 8:02 pm

    Interesting , it’s worth a try at 20 bucks !!!!

    Reply Report comment

  8. Gaspard

    Mar 8, 2018 at 1:28 pm

    Hmmmm… I think I will start a golf ball company and I will call it “Draw Golf” with three models… Red, White and Blue… and each will have different compressions and dimple counts.
    And I will promise improved performance after you optimize the ball model to your golf swing.

    Reply Report comment

    • Jon

      Mar 9, 2018 at 11:05 am

      All the while making golf great again. I’m in.

      Reply Report comment

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Whats in the Bag

Kevin Tway WITB 2024 (May)

Published

11 hours ago

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May 10, 2024

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Driver: Ping G430 LST (10.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X

3-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 80 TX

5-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2 (18 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 90 TX

Irons: Wilson Staff Utility (2), Titleist T100 (4-9)
Shafts: Mitsubishi MMT 100 TX (2), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (4-9)

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (48-10F @47, 52-12F @51, 56-14F), SM7 (60-10S)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (48-56), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (60)

Putter: Scotty Cameron T-5 Proto
Grip: Scotty Cameron Black Baby T

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Plus4

More photos of Kevin Tway’s WITB in the forums.

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Did Rory McIlroy inspire Shane Lowry’s putter switch?

Published

12 hours ago

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May 10, 2024

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.

The timing of Lowry’s putter changeup was curious: Was he just using a Spider putter because he was paired with McIlroy, who’s been using a Spider Tour X head throughout 2024? Was Lowry just being festive because it’s the Zurich Classic, and he wanted to match his teammate? Did McIlroy let Lowry try his putter, and he liked it so much he actually switched into it?

Well, as it turns out, McIlroy’s only influence was inspiring Lowry to make more putts.

When asked if McIlroy had an influence on the putter switch, Lowry had this to say: “No, it’s actually a different putter than what he uses. Maybe there was more pressure there because I needed to hole some more putts if we wanted to win,” he said with a laugh.

To Lowry’s point, McIlroy plays the Tour X model, whereas Lowry switched into the Tour Z model, which has a sleeker shape in comparison, and the two sole weights of the club are more towards the face.

Lowry’s Spider Tour Z has a white True Path Alignment channel on the crown of his putter, which is reminiscent of Lowry’s former 2-ball designs, thus helping to provide a comfort factor despite the departure from his norm. Instead of a double-bend hosel, which Lowry used in his 2-ball putters, his new Spider Tour Z is designed with a short slant neck.

“I’ve been struggling on the greens, and I just needed something with a fresh look,” Lowry told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. “It has a different neck on it, as well, so it moves a bit differently, but it’s similar. It has a white line on the back of it [like my 2-ball], and it’s a mallet style. So it’s not too drastic of a change.

“I just picked it up on the putting green and I liked the look of it, so I was like, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”

Read the rest of the piece over at PGATour.com.

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Equipment

Webb Simpson equipment Q&A: Titleist’s new 2-wood, 680 blade irons, and switching to a broomstick Jailbird

Published

15 hours ago

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May 10, 2024

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With seven career wins on the PGA Tour, including a U.S. Open victory, Webb Simpson is a certified veteran on the course. But he’s also a certified veteran in the equipment world, too. He’s a gearhead who truly knows his stuff, and he’s even worked closely with Titleist on making his own custom 682.WS irons.

On Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship, I caught up with Simpson to hear about his experience with Titleist’s new prototype 2-wood, how Titleist’s 680 Forged irons from 2003 ended up back in his bag, and why he’s switching into an Odyssey Ai-One Jailbird Cruiser broomstick putter this week for the first time.

Click here to read our full story about Simpson’s putter switch on PGATOUR.com’s Equipment Report, or continue reading below for my full Q&A with Simpson at Quail Hollow Club on Wednesday.

See Webb Simpson’s full WITB from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship here

GolfWRX: It seems like you’ve been a little all over the place with your irons in the past six months or so, and now going back to the 680’s. Is that just a comfort thing? What’s been going on with the irons?

Webb Simpson: Titleist has been so great at working with me, and R&D, on trying to get an iron that kind of modernizes the 680. And so the 682.WS took the T100 grooves, but kinda took the look and the bulk and the build of the 680’s into one club. They’re beautiful, and awesome looking. I just never hit them that well for a consistent period of time. It was probably me, but then I went to T100’s and loved them. I loved the spin, the trajectory, the yardage, but again, I never went on good runs. Going through the ground, I couldn’t feel the club as well as with the blade. So last week, I’m like, ‘Alright. I’m gonna go back more for…comfort, and see if I can get on a nice little run of ball striking.’

So that’s why I went back.

 

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OK, that makes sense. I know you had done some 2-wood testing recently. Is that in the bag right now?

It’s like day-by-day. I used it at Hilton Head every day. Valero, I used it one round. And this week, me and my caddie will do the book every morning, and if it’s a day where we think we need it, we’ll just put it in and take the 3-wood out. I love it because it’s a super simple swap. Like, it doesn’t really change much.

Yeah, can you tell me about that club? I mean, we don’t really know anything about it yet. You know? I haven’t hit it or anything, obviously.

It has grooves like a 3-wood. Spin is perfect. And it’s honestly, like, everything is in the middle of a 3-wood and driver number. Trajectory, spin, carry, all of it. So, a Hilton Head golf course is almost too easy to talk about because, you know, there, so many holes are driver 3-wood.

Valero, our thinking was we had two par-5’s into the wind, and we knew that it would take two great shots to get there in two. So instead of hitting driver-driver, we just put it in. And I used it on those holes.

Hilton was a little easier because it was off-the-tee kind of questions. But Colonial will be a golf course where, you know, there’s a lot of driver or 3-woods. It’s kind of like a backup putter or driver for me now. I’ll bring it to every tournament.

So it’s, like, in your locker right now, probably?

Well, it would be. It’s in my house [because Webb lives near by Quail Hollow Club, and is a member at the course.] It’s in the garage.

Oh, yeah, that’s right. Do you know what holes you might use it out here if it goes in play? 

Potentially 15, depending on the wind. Second shot on 10. Could be 14 off the tee. The chances here are pretty low (that he’ll use the 2-wood). But, like, Greensboro would be an awesome club all day. I’m trying to think of any other golf courses.

There’s plenty that it’ll be a nice weapon to have.

It’s interesting, the wave of 2-woods and mini drivers. Like, it’s just really taken off on Tour, and all the companies have seemed to embrace it.

Yeah. The thing I had to learn, it took me, like, at least a week to learn about it is you gotta tee it up lower than you think. I kept teeing it up too high. You need it low, like barely higher than a 3-wood. And that was where I got optimal spin and carry. If you tee it up too high, you just don’t get as much spin and lose distance, I don’t know if that’s just a mini driver thing.

And you obviously have a Jailbird putter this week. What spurred that on?

Inconsistent putting. I’m stubborn in a lot of ways when it comes to my equipment, but I have to be open minded – I just hadn’t putted consistently well in a while. And I’m like, ‘Man, I feel my ball-striking coming along. Like I feel better; for real, better.’

If I can just get something in my hands that I’m consistent with. Being on Tour, you see it every year, guys get on little runs. I can put together four to five tournaments where I’m all the sudden back in the majors, or in the FedExCup Playoffs. You can turn things around quick out here. I’m like, ‘Man, whatever’s going to get me there, great.’

My caddie, David Cook, caddied for Akshay at the Houston Open and he putted beautifully. Then, I watched Akshay on TV at Valero, and he putted beautifully. And, I’m like, ‘I’m just going to try it.’

I’ve never tried it for more than a putt or two, and I just ordered what Akshay uses. It was pretty awkward at first, but the more I used it, the more I’m like, ‘Man, it’s pretty easy.’ And a buddy of mine who’s a rep out here, John Tyler Griffin, he helped me with some setup stuff. And he said at Hilton Head, he wasn’t putting well, then tried it, and now he makes everything. He was very confident. So I’m like, ‘Alright, I’ll try it.’”

And you’re going with it this week?

Hundred percent.

Alright, I love it. Thank you, I always love talking gear with you. Play well this week. 

Thanks, man.

See Webb Simpson’s full WITB from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship here

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