Dean Snell: Lessons From 30+ Years in the Golf Ball Industry | Mortgage Daddies

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:12:07
Craig Snell
Welcome back to Mortgage Daddies. Today we have a returning guest, someone that, uh, is pretty special to me. The old man, my dad, Dean Snell. Uh, it’s been a couple years since you’ve been on.

00:00:12:08 – 00:00:23:21
Dean Snell
Yeah. Appreciate the old man comment. – Old man. – The myth, the legend. – Don’t, don’t invite me back again.

00:00:23:23 – 00:00:28:14
Vernon Miles
I’m Vernon. I run the top mortgage brokerages in Massachusetts with over 20 years of experience.

00:00:28:19 – 00:00:29:08
Craig Snell
I’m Craig.

00:00:29:09 – 00:00:40:21
Craig Snell
I’ve done $100 million consistently since my second full year in the business, and I’m Massachusetts’ top mortgage broker. We’re the Mortgage Daddies, with real advice, real stories, and real results. Let’s get going.

00:00:40:23 – 00:00:45:00
Vernon Miles
Oh, you’re looking great, man. From, uh, from last time you were on here, you probably lost a f- a few pounds.

00:00:45:01 – 00:00:54:23
Dean Snell
Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been working on it. – Exercising. – Yeah. Trying to get back in shape and, and beat this guy out on the golf course. He passed me a little bit, so I gotta catch him. I’m gonna catch him next year. – It’s all right.

00:00:55:00 – 00:01:14:16
Vernon Miles
Just tells me he’s not working hard enough. He’s not doing enough loans. We’ll keep him off the course. All right, there you go. We’ll, we’ll bog him down with some stress. So – no problem. Now, last time you gu- you were here, we talked a lot about kinda your path into how you got into golf balls, how you got into Titleist, TaylorMade, and then what kinda brought you to start Snell Golf.

00:01:14:16 – 00:01:22:19
Craig Snell
Today, I wanna kinda talk about your journey with Snell Golf. How has it been from the start, middle, and then kinda where you are now with everything?

00:01:22:20 – 00:02:04:04
Dean Snell
So yeah. It’s been a rollercoaster. You know, no question about it. We, uh, we s- we started off very small. You know, it was a little small company. I can remember waiting for that first container to back up into the, um, facility we had and unload it with a hand truck by hand, take orders over, print them out, pack them myself, wait for UPS or USPS to come pick them up, and that was the day we had. Um, since that time, we’ve been to f- 4 or 5 different locations, and expanded each time, um, to small places, to a 8,000 square foot place to we’re in a 17,000 square foot building now, um, with inventory and, and, um, uh, where we pack and ship the golf balls every day in our corporate office,

00:02:04:10 – 00:02:21:12
Dean Snell
um, here in New Bedford. So, um, we- we’re – It, it was great. We were growing 30 to 40% per year when we first started. Um, the only thing that limited us on growth was supply. You know, the, the factories that were making the golf balls for us were giving us everything that we could order, and we couldn’t get any more.

00:02:21:16 – 00:02:37:23
Dean Snell
And it was going very well. And when COVID hit, it was, it was kinda a twofold thing. One was it was great for golf because they told you you can go outside, and that’s what they wanted you to do. Go outside and play golf. They gave money to people to join country clubs, so everybody started to play.

00:02:38:00 – 00:03:04:06
Dean Snell
You know, the course that we belong to is, is full with members now. So a lot of young kids, which is great for the game. Um, but what ended up happening was multiple things happened in the industry where there was a material shortage. A, a reactor blew up. Couldn’t get any Surlyn material, which is in every golf ball. So we were low on the totem pole. And by the time they could get that back, we went almost a year and a half without product delivered, uh, because there was no material.

00:03:04:08 – 00:03:29:00
Dean Snell
So we started with another factory to continue the journey with us and got them qualified, ready to go. They had an explosion in the factory, and unfortunately killed 10 people, you know, overseas. Um, and, and they make 20 million dozen golf balls a year at that one factory for all the big companies as well as the smaller companies. So that set everybody back scrambling out to try to find other factories.

00:03:29:02 – 00:03:46:13
Dean Snell
Um, we did that as well. Went out and found some factories. And, you know, when you deal with factories overseas, sometimes you deal with, you know, what they know and what they do, and we, we faced that. You know, we, we had one factory we started. We bring our own material in, so we design our own cover material and our own golf balls.

00:03:46:16 – 00:04:07:08
Dean Snell
So it separates us as a direct-to-consumer business a little bit more by doing it all ourselves, and we would supply that to the factory. Well, we got 80,000 dozen golf balls shipped in, and the factory s- told us that they blended their own material in with it during the processing to help it flow better, and the covers came off.

00:04:07:09 – 00:04:30:21
Dean Snell
You know, durability was bad. You know, so that was a big challenge. And, and, and, and in all honesty, it hurts. You know, you, you’re, you’re going good, you’re going good, and then something like that happens, you know, without us even knowing that they did that. We do inspections during the day, but the blending side to it in the, in the room where they do the molding side to it, you know, there was no way for us to know they were putting a percentage of something in.

00:04:30:21 – 00:04:54:20
Dean Snell
And it’s like oil and water. If you do that, you have to put a compatibilizer in to make them go together, and they didn’t do that. So we faced that, that burden. Shut that factory down, moved over to another one, worked on the processing. Um, w- we invested about three and a half million dollars into this other factory and taught them processing and quality control and, and how to make things th- the right way.

00:04:54:22 – 00:05:11:24
Dean Snell
And in golf balls, for me, the performance is measured on course. That’s where you play golf. It’s not measured, you know, in, in your, in your living room or in your garage, you know, tinkering around and measuring something to say, “This is gonna do this.” On course performance is how we validate product and how we test product.

00:05:12:01 – 00:05:33:05
Dean Snell
So the rollercoaster was going up, COVID hit, came down, and this year, um, we, we’re, we have a great product line this year. You know, we’ve fixed the durability issues. We fixed the manufacturing. We’ve secured supply. Um, and, and we’ve, uh, we’ve been able to, uh, launch 3 new products this year that, uh, that have done outstanding. The feedback’s been good, and, and we’re, we’re growing back again the way we were before.

00:05:33:05 – 00:05:50:13
Dean Snell
Jeez, that’s crazy. What a ride. – Yeah. Some of it was fun. Some of it not so fun. – Yeah. – The not so fun times, though, make you who you are, right? – They do. Going through that- it would’ve been easier to fold up and say, “You know, I don’t need this anymore.” “You know, let’s, let’s, let’s move on.”

00:05:50:14 – 00:06:07:16
Dean Snell
But the people that work for me, uh, are important, and they’ve been there from the beginning. You know, so there were times where, you know, I didn’t take pay for 6 months or 8 months to make sure that we could continue – yeah – keeping the people that we had so they wouldn’t leave. Um, our company is a small company with employees that stay.

00:06:07:18 – 00:06:27:21
Dean Snell
We haven’t had people leave for unhappiness or go somewhere else. The people that we’ve had leave have been due to pregnancies and babies. – Yeah. – You know, and, you know, we’ve, we’ve had 2, 2 very good employees that had kids, and they wanted to stay home or, or work from home. So, um, but the, the, the main people that we have today in our company is, is important to us.

00:06:28:00 – 00:06:44:21
Dean Snell
We keep it fun, keep it friendly. You, you guys know. You got kids and, and involved in sports and things like that. So I tell them, you know, “Your kid’s got a game, go to the game. Friday afternoon, go watch them play softball or baseball. You know, you got appointments to go to, go.” You know, we, we all work together in the mornings to pack.

00:06:45:02 – 00:07:08:18
Dean Snell
We go in early. Our whole company sits and packs and ships golf balls, including myself. And then in the afternoon, people go to their desks and do their regular jobs. So keeping them going and getting them through those times where we had no product supplied, no material supplied, issues with durability and production, um, those were battles that I had to face myself and had to work towards getting that right so we can move forward.

00:07:08:18 – 00:07:14:23
Dean Snell
And, and we’re in that place now. So this year’s 100% in a, in a different direction for us and going very well.

00:07:15:02 – 00:07:58:14
Vernon Miles
Yeah. Those employees are – they saw that. They lived it with you. They’re not going anywhere. Those are the, the rider guys that we, we, we joke around here. I mean, obviously, our business is up and down with or without supply issues, right? – Yeah. – Sometimes there are supply issues or interest rates. But it’s, um, it’s pretty cool to see that you actually rode it all the way through because some of those times after COVID or before that, it gets tough and you’re like, “What am I still doing?” Right? Like, you didn’t have to go to work, but you saw the people. It became family. Those aren’t just people you work with anymore. They’re like family members. So, uh, it’s pretty cool to see you’ve gone through that journey, and it’s even cooler of like where you guys are now and your guys are going right back up. I see you guys all over social media with all the new balls and product coming out, and it’s flying all over the place. So – yeah – kudos, man.

00:07:58:14 – 00:08:19:20
Dean Snell
It’s, it’s been good. And you’re right. It is family. You know, we, we go to their weddings or the birthday parties for the kids or, or different things that they have, uh, within the company and, um, you know, it’s, it’s a good group of people, no question about it. And things are going in the right direction. So there were a lot of times I wanted to, you know, pull the shirt over the head and throw a couple upper cuts at somebody, but I couldn’t.

00:08:19:21 – 00:08:41:00
Dean Snell
So, um, but I wanted to. Um, but, uh, y- you live through that stuff and, and sometimes, like you say, that makes, that makes it better, you know? And if everything’s always good, you don’t face that adversity, you don’t face the issues and challenges that need to make something better. And it, and it also taught us, you know, there, there’s a lot of people out there today that are dissecting golf balls,

00:08:41:00 – 00:09:02:20
Dean Snell
and it’s, it’s just crazy to me how, how they do this and why they wanna do this. But, they dissect golf balls all the way down to pulling stuff apart and cutting them open and doing different things, you know, and then drawing some conclusions. That kind of stuff is, is a little bit of a challenge to face today because there’s some validity to it, and there’s also some fear factor or fear-mongering put into it as well.

00:09:02:20 – 00:09:24:00
Dean Snell
And, and, you know, those are the things today that which we try to, when you say social media, we try to, um, stay up on the social media, on the posts with the new products, the feedback, the reviews. Um, and we also try to answer, um, we have a, a segment called Tech Talk, which we do. Um, I don’t even know how many episodes we’ve done, but maybe 40 or so.

00:09:24:05 – 00:09:45:11
Dean Snell
And they’re technical questions that come from the consumers. So you guys send questions in to us, and we sit and do a 5-minute answer of technical things and put that out to our customers and online on YouTube and things like that. So hopefully the education part helps people understand, you know, golf balls and doesn’t put a fear in people to say, “Oh, this is this, and this means this.”

00:09:45:15 – 00:09:51:12
Dean Snell
Those are the conclusions that can be scary, and, and those are the things that we try to educate and help people understand.

00:09:51:13 – 00:10:43:01
Craig Snell
I’ve seen what you’re talking about on this testing stuff online with some of these companies. And I mean, in my opinion, you can take any product and tear it apart and make it look as bad as you want or as good as you want for the positive, depending on who’s paying you on the background of it. Which I think a lot of people on the consumer side don’t understand is they, do these tests. They talk about things that are really not relevant the performance of the golf ball or, you know, really the difference of 2 golf balls compared to each other. But they make it look so bad. But yet they could take that against any other golf ball and it’s gonna have the same type of performance or the differences in the specs and the weight and, or anything like that, that really at the end of the day is not even going to affect anybody that’s playing that golf ball. And they put a fear into them because they’re not getting money to advertise your golf balls.

00:10:43:06 – 00:10:48:03
Craig Snell
Yeah. So that’s gotta be like a – the, the hockey’s gotta wanna come out and – yeah – with you on that one.

00:10:48:04 – 00:11:10:11
Dean Snell
Yeah, that might well take my teeth out – and uppercut both, but, uh – that was the biggest smile we’ve got out of him so far today. – Uppercut. – Yeah. It’s, uh – it, it is. It, it’s, it’s happened. It’s happened a lot. There’s multiple, people are designing their own fixtures and their own gauges and reporting numbers and, you know, some of it is, is good and some of it has value to it.

00:11:10:13 – 00:11:32:24
Dean Snell
Um, some of the information you get helps you go back and work with your quality control people to try to make things better. I would like to see it be that way. You know, if there’s a concern or something about something, um, let’s talk about it. Let’s see what we can do to make it better. When I started this, the goal for me was to try to help grow golf and help consumers afford good products and afford good performance.

00:11:33:01 – 00:11:52:04
Dean Snell
You know, I worked for quite a few years on tour, and the tour players don’t pay for golf balls, and the tour players get things free and they’re very picky and they’re very, very good. So those guys can tell small differences in performance when I would take prototypes to them. The average golfer’s standard deviation ranges are almost beyond testing.

00:11:52:05 – 00:12:10:13
Dean Snell
You know, they, they’re huge. So when somebody goes and measures something and tries to say that this right here is a number on a measurement, this means it’s gonna do this out there on the field, and that’s not true. That’s the education part that now we need to try to help people because there’s no need to do that.

00:12:10:15 – 00:12:54:23
Dean Snell
You know, y- I would gladly talk to anybody that’s, that’s done any testing and have them call and say, “Hey, we saw this. What does that mean?” Because I’ve done this. You know, I, I have spent a lot of time and a lot of testing making golf balls be bad on purpose, making golf balls be shifted on the layers on the inside, making one layer be very thin, one layer be very thick in the middle, and then l- label them and market them so we have it, and then testing them, thin side, thick side – to see what it really does – see what it does. I have that data and I know what it does. Compression ranges on a golf ball, it’s a, it’s a old, antiquated test method with a, with a gauge that has a huge standard deviation in the gauge itself.

00:12:54:24 – 00:13:16:04
Dean Snell
The – so c- compression has become this new big thing in golf again, and it’s really an old, don’t need it thing, to be honest with you, in golf. When somebody measures compression, it’s a static measurement. The ball gets put on a plate and you take a lever and you pull a lever that comes down and there’s a spring inside, and the spring puts resistance. You deflect it 0.1 inches. – .1. – Which is – a, a driver impact is 0.5 inches, so you’re not even really hitting the golf ball with this little static test.

00:13:16:04 – 00:13:31:19
Dean Snell
The spring re- goes back and it has a gauge and it gives you a number, and if you pull that lever fast or you pull it slow or you pull it and the reading goes up and then comes down where you read it, there’s ranges within that test method alone.

00:13:31:20 – 00:13:49:17
Dean Snell
So it’s a guide for us to use. The specs in the manufacturing side have been set that we know to say plus or minus this range means there’s no performance difference. So now if you go and you measure that in a lab somewhere and you go, “Look, that range is 5 points, that means it’s not consistent,” well, that’s not true.

00:13:49:21 – 00:14:09:07
Dean Snell
It means it’s 5 points. Your gauge may be 2 points or 3 points. Your lever may be 1 point. The balls may be 5 points. But the, that performance range that is done with a spec falls within the s- spin rates and launch angles and true performance on course that is met that we’ve done the testing on. You get 25, 30 points outside,

00:14:09:07 – 00:14:33:04
Dean Snell
that’s a big difference. You get 5 points within a range of golf balls or 10 points within a range – same – on that type of measurement, and it has no impact on the performance of golf. It’s easy to draw conclusions. I’ll give you another good example. There was a, a test that was done a couple years ago, and the s- minimum size that the USGA allows is 1.680 inches.

00:14:33:08 – 00:14:52:24
Dean Snell
It c- it can be as big as you want, it’s gotta fit in the hole. But it can’t be any smaller than 1.68 inches, right? If it, if it falls below that, you get de-listed, and then you – all those products are now not legal to use in main tournaments. So manufacturers would make a 1.682, 1.683. You put a couple layers of paint on them,

00:14:52:24 – 00:15:13:05
Dean Snell
they could go 83, 84, 85. It doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. Once you have the size done for your cavities and your dimples, then you do your aerodynamic design. So you control your depths, your edge angles, all the, the, the layouts, how – the sizes. – All that stuff is done to fit that cavity, and then you, you test the golf balls and you prove it.

00:15:13:07 – 00:15:41:15
Dean Snell
That’s what we do. Well, we had somebody report 1.683, uh, these guys, and we were 1.685. A bigger golf ball means it’s gonna be shorter. Don’t buy it. You know, 1.683 to 1.685 is 2000ths of an inch. That’s one 1000th of an inch on each side. A f- that’s thinner than a thickness of a piece of hair. That’s telling somebody downrange it’s gonna be short because it’s too big, when it was designed to be that way, but there was no questions asked.

00:15:41:15 – 00:16:02:10
Dean Snell
The following year or the year after, that dimple pattern and that size won the longest golf ball in, in golf. So your conclusion 2 years ago was, “This means it’s gonna be short. Don’t buy it,” just won the longest golf ball with the size and the dimples that it’s at. And, and those variables on testing and robot testing and everything,

00:16:02:10 – 00:16:12:19
Dean Snell
they have ranges in them, and that’s what people don’t get from the data that gets published from these companies that make conclusions with averages with no supporting data for-

00:16:12:19 – 00:16:25:04
Craig Snell
It at all. I think it’s pretty comical that a company can go and have that test, say that the golf ball’s gonna be shorter, and then go run a test and say, “This golf ball’s now the longest ball.” How, how do you have any credibility at that point?

00:16:25:09 – 00:16:48:02
Dean Snell
Well, y- there’s a, there’s a couple instances too where, where in the past there was a, a distance test that was done and a ball speed test that was done, and the golf ball – we actually had the golf ball, and it was the fastest and longest golf ball tested that year. The next year, the same group of golf balls are tested against com- competition, maybe some new ones added in, and it wasn’t in the top 10 for, for distance.

00:16:48:04 – 00:17:06:06
Dean Snell
And that can happen. You can run a distance test today. With how distance tests work and what really happens with standard deviations and variables, that can – you got wind and temperature, you got spin rates, you got a, a robot that hits, you got a face that doesn’t hit in the same spot, you have a swing speed that changes with the robot.

00:17:06:06 – 00:17:24:07
Dean Snell
This, the arm that holds the, the shaft, the grip twists. You gotta reset it. So you could have c- balls go left and right a little bit. They gotta be recalibrated. All of those things have a, a value of a standard deviation. So when you get the results of an average, you have to report what happened on each individual shot.

00:17:24:13 – 00:17:46:05
Dean Snell
And I would challenge anybody in golf to say, if you wanna show that your dispersion charts mean it’s the golf ball, then take the exact same golf ball, one golf ball, and run it from 7:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night. Every wind condition as it goes, whatever it is, temperature, whatever it is during the day. Hit that same thing and don’t change anything in your testing,

00:17:46:05 – 00:18:02:05
Dean Snell
just keep hitting it. And I’m gonna tell you that I’ll bet you that your company against my company that that golf ball does not go the same distance every time, and it doesn’t land in the same spot, and the dispersion is not this tight ’cause it happens. There’s, there’s variables in the swing of the robot, there’s variables in the head,

00:18:02:05 – 00:18:23:06
Dean Snell
there’s variables in the shaft, wind, temperature, flight, roll, how it hits. All those things add up. And to draw a conclusion to say, “Look, it’s 3 yards longer. You should, you shouldn’t buy this ’cause that’s 3 yards shorter or 4 yards shorter,” run it the next day and it could be 3 yards longer. You know, those ranges really fall within the standard deviations.

00:18:23:08 – 00:18:41:00
Dean Snell
I went to a lot of litigation things when I was at TaylorMade, and claims that people would try to make, they would try to say, “Hey, you know, look, we just ran this test and this test was 5 yards longer than the Pro V1 at the time. Let’s, let’s go put that out there in a ad.” And we couldn’t do it.

00:18:41:02 – 00:18:57:08
Dean Snell
You had to, you had to run all the different spin rates, all the different launch angles, and all the different ball speeds. Then you had to compare them, but you had to normalize them to the control ball every shot. Then you had to – they had to fall within standard deviations and then have a 95% confidence level to make a claim.

00:18:57:09 – 00:18:58:10
Craig Snell
So to make sure it’s actually-

00:18:58:10 – 00:19:14:10
Dean Snell
True. To make sure it’s true. So you go to court and you’re gonna say if you r- if they were to put me on the stand and say, “Hey, if you ran this test tomorrow, would this still be 5 yards longer?” No. It’s not gonna be, you know? But that’s r- one test, one day, putting an average out there, drawing conclusions and saying something.

00:19:14:12 – 00:19:27:19
Dean Snell
A ball goes off to the right a little bit, saying, “Look, that ball shifted, so it went off to the right,” that’s not probably shifted. The, the, the grip probably twisted a little bit, added some spin, and the ball went to the right, so you gotta adjust it and bring it back to center, and you don’t count that shot.

00:19:27:21 – 00:19:42:14
Craig Snell
And how many times does a golfer – I play golf all the time, and you hit a shot and you’re like, “Oh, I hit that thing perfect,” and you watch it go and you’re like, “How did that come up short? How did that go long?” – Yeah, yeah. – And the next, you’ll hit the exact same shot again and opposite. Like, it’s not, it’s not the golf ball.

00:19:42:20 – 00:20:02:02
Dean Snell
It’s – I, I can remember, uh, I was doing some work with Sean O’Hair at one of the tour events one time, and this was when TrackMan just started coming out, and TrackMan system is a portable launch monitor system you could take out on tour. And he was hitting 7 irons in this thing and, and he was getting the, the data the minute he hit it.

00:20:02:03 – 00:20:27:12
Dean Snell
It gives you the feedback instantaneously. And he was hitting shots and he’s like, “Well, how far’d that go?” And the guy would say, “161 yards.” “How about that one?” “That one went 164.” He goes, “164. How about this one?” “159.” So he ended up having a range of 8 or 9 yards and he said, “That’s how I’m hitting the ball.” And he fired a caddie because the caddie gave him 171 and he hit it 175 and it went to the back of the green.

00:20:27:14 – 00:20:53:14
Dean Snell
‘Cause they, they think they’re that good, or they’re gonna hit to the number. But when he started to see his individual shots, he realized it, it, the, it’s not, it, it’s not a pure – you’re not a robot – when, when – yeah – and then they talk about it, how it has – when you putt, if it’s gonna be shifted. The gravities on golf balls, all the layers are very close to each other. So if you have a s- a sphere and the gravities are real close to each other, the goal would be if every layer had the same gravity, the ball would be true. It’d be a perfect sphere,

00:20:53:14 – 00:21:09:12
Dean Snell
and it’s gonna be true. And Wilson did this, called True. They named the golf ball True, actually. Went to the PGA Show, and they put it on a pool table, and they hit putts with it, and it would roll and go in the pool table hole every time. And they actually used the Titleist DT in this example, which was wound.

00:21:09:14 – 00:21:29:13
Dean Snell
And the Titleist DT would kind of veer off a little bit. And they would say, “See? It goes true.” And they said, “Yeah, that’s great, but we don’t putt on pool tables.” And you got spike marks and grass. Now, that benefit you’re talking about is not in the weight shift to the outside, which is an inertia story. That helps the ball stay in flight and carry further.

00:21:29:13 – 00:21:45:22
Dean Snell
So you can go putt on your pool table with this ball, it’d be 15 yards shorter with your drives. Which one do you want? The next year, the ball didn’t sell anymore. They took it off the market. But if you wanted to analyze that True thing, it’s valid. You know? But what does it do on course to performance?

00:21:45:22 – 00:22:09:04
Dean Snell
How does it work with you as a player play? The robot, when you hit a distance test, the robot has a standard deviation of 5 yards. Right? So within the test, 5 yards. One standard dev- deviation, two and three. 1, 2, 3. That’s plus or minus 3 sigma. That’s 90- f- 99% of the shots fall within there. So 5, 10, 15.

00:22:09:04 – 00:22:29:20
Dean Snell
5, 10, 15. You can take a golf ball and you can hit it, and it can be within the – longest to shortest, there’s an average that they’re all in the middle. But the longest and shortest one can be 30 yards difference with a robot. Average golfers that dou- Tour players go to 10, average golfers go to 15, and bad players go to 30. 30, 60, 90. 30, 60, 90. 180 yards. That’s the guy that rolls one, slices one, and hits a good one.

00:22:29:20 – 00:22:43:08
Dean Snell
To me. – That’s – yeah. So it’s, it’s 180-yard difference. – That’s unlucky. – If I’m lucky. That’s what reality is, you know? There’s perception and reality. Perception is, look, if it’s shifted, it’s gonna fly to the right. Reality is, no it doesn’t. You know?

00:22:43:08 – 00:23:17:21
Vernon Miles
It – the crazy part to me is, that I’m not, I’m not a big golfer, right? I mean, last time you were on here, you told me I could basically just – tennis – hit a soccer ball or something – yeah – or could play tennis. It’d be the same, same thing. Tennis ball. How many – what’s the percentage of people that can actually tell the difference between 4 different golf balls? If they went out and played 4 different balls, no names on it, no nothing, didn’t know anything about it. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t know, right? – Yeah. – But, like, at what level does somebody have to be to have say, “Oh, that’s definitely a Titleist or a TaylorMade or a Snell or a Wilson,” whatever it is?

00:23:17:23 – 00:23:37:09
Dean Snell
I, I think, I think the, the, there’s different levels of people that can t- tell different things. Some people will feel. People where that ball feels firm or feels softer, and they like that. Some can’t tell the difference. Even at the tour level, when I worked on tour for all those years, some guys were truly feel guys, some guys were trajectory, some were spin on the little chip shots.

00:23:37:09 – 00:23:58:12
Dean Snell
They all had their own way that they wanted to test products. Usually from the green back, ’cause the driver side to it, they all go about the same. So a 2-piece golf ball and a tour golf ball have a big difference in full wedge spin. A lot of players would be able to tell that. The tour players for sure. The tour players tell differences of 8,000 to 10,000 wedge spin, where the gap for average golfers is probably 3,000 to 7,000.

00:23:58:13 – 00:24:22:04
Dean Snell
You know, it’s a big – wow – range that they have, ’cause they don’t hit the ball the same every time. So the level of what you can tell differences, I always tell people start 100 yards and in, and take the 2-piece ball, a 3-piece ball, a tour ball, and same brand or different brands or whatever you wanna do. Then test those from 100 yards and in.

00:24:22:06 – 00:24:47:00
Dean Snell
And if you see differences there, then start to fine-tune which one you like. – Got it. – If you can’t tell the difference, then buy the cheapest one ’cause your game’s not there yet. You know, there’s no need to go spend $58 on a golf ball if you hit a, a wedge with 5,000 RPMs of spin and your Pinnacle is 4,000 RPMs of spin. You’re, you’re wasting, you know, $35 a dozen – yeah – ’cause you – until you get to that level, then work your way up.

00:24:47:03 – 00:24:51:18
Dean Snell
But there’s a range of performance, there’s a range of price for a reason.

00:24:51:20 – 00:25:14:16
Craig Snell
And there’s a range inside, like, to what he’s asking. I think there’s an easier way for more average golfers to tell that 2-piece golf ball from that tour golf ball. – Yeah. – For you, no. Right? For me, yes. But to go take the tour balls or even the 3-piece balls versus the tour balls, I can’t tell the difference – and you golf – between them.

00:25:14:21 – 00:25:37:11
Dean Snell
Yeah. Really. And he’s, he’s a low single-digit handicap. – Yeah. – And, and that’s, that’s real common. You know? It’s very, very common. And, and most golf balls made today by most companies are very good. – Yeah. – As far as the performance goes, tested and proven. We use a company in San Diego that’s independent testing. And everything we do, we go through them, and they just give us the results back, but they give us all the results back.

00:25:37:13 – 00:25:54:12
Dean Snell
We get every shot, wind condition, landing area, angle of attack, radius, where it hit. The, all, everything comes in it, and then I can look at all the data and make conclusions. Not send me the average, and look, this ball was 4 yards longer. Oh, that’s the one we’re gonna launch. ‘Cause there might have been a couple outliers in there.

00:25:54:12 – 00:26:10:21
Dean Snell
There might have been a reason for it, you know? Things you can look at with the data that can tell you. This – you’re talking – the other side that really gets me when they do these tests is they’ll test and they’ll say 325 yards. You know, that – look how long it went. You’re 5 yards longer than the other guy.

00:26:11:00 – 00:26:15:16
Dean Snell
You know the average golfer’s driving distance average – 240 – is under 240.

00:26:15:18 – 00:26:17:08
Craig Snell
Yeah, I was gonna say 250 maybe.

00:26:17:09 – 00:26:43:20
Dean Snell
No, it’s under 240. 260 yards are, are, um, 0 to 5 handicaps, 15 to 30 years old. That’s, that’s the 260. And everybody else, for average, for consumers, are lower than that. You know, and the average handicap’s 14.4 now I think. So you’re, you’re looking at numbers that push people into the 220s and 230s for driving. But they’re looking at results that say 325 and 320,

00:26:43:23 – 00:27:05:08
Dean Snell
“I gotta play that golf ball.” And then those tests that they claim to be, even, even the one that we won, the longest golf ball, it’s nice to win that, but that is a specific launch condition. That is 173 ball speed, 12 degree launch angle, and 2500 spin. That is what it is. If you don’t hit that, that yardage isn’t gonna be 323.

00:27:05:09 – 00:27:33:02
Craig Snell
So, to what you’re saying, right, you take all these golf balls and if you did have perfect conditions, right? We take out all the variables. They’re all gonna be very close. – Exactly. – But it’s also can be very different when you get to a different ball speed. So you that may hit the ball 240 yards, the difference of if you took all of those calculations you had exactly, is gonna – d- balls are gonna perform at different club head speeds and swing speeds versus other golf balls too.

00:27:33:03 – 00:27:50:00
Craig Snell
So just testing and looking at testing based on one club head speed and one ball speed – mm-hmm – that’s at the top of the m- – yeah – I mean, that’s, like, nobody has that unless you’re on tour or a very good – correct – amateur player. It, there’s no reason to even test golf balls at that for the average consumer.

00:27:50:01 – 00:28:07:19
Dean Snell
Yeah, it’s correct. They, the, the, the companies do slower swing speeds, but then they’ll say, “Wait, you won this one, but you didn’t win this. Why?” Well, this one was tested at high launch, low spin, which is what we designed. But this test was done at mid launch, high spin. That’s what you picked as your one data point. Which golf balls are designed –

00:28:08:00 – 00:28:27:02
Craig Snell
Are you, you have, you have more than one golf ball that you make, right? – Yes. – You have different ones for different options, right? – Yeah. – You want a lower spin, you want a higher spin, you want a softer ball, a firmer ball. How many – I don’t know everything about golf balls, but you make different ones for different people – correct – at different prices. It’s not the same golf ball that you’re comparing.

00:28:27:03 – 00:28:39:06
Dean Snell
No, it’s not. We, we, we try to price point the golf balls for, like, the seniors, the older people, the slower swing speeds. We try to give them a performance that helps them close to the green, ’cause they don’t hit the ball hard.

00:28:39:08 – 00:28:39:21
Craig Snell
Which would be which one?

00:28:40:01 – 00:28:55:14
Dean Snell
Which would be the Prime 2.0 that we have. And then we have a PR3 golf ball, which we launched this year, which is a 3-piece urethane golf ball that fits a lot of players. Like, it, it fits the mass group of people, not the real slow guys, not the real fast guys, but the big mass – group – of people.

00:28:55:20 – 00:29:10:16
Dean Snell
And then we have the PR4, which is a 4-layer ball, and the only thing different with that ball is I put a layer inside, so when you do hit it hard, you know, the ball speeds that you play at, that layer keeps the ball speed up, so it helps you as a player. It doesn’t hurt you.

00:29:10:17 – 00:29:15:24
Dean Snell
If, if we played it, it doesn’t hurt us. We just don’t benefit the layer like he does.

00:29:16:17 – 00:29:19:24
Craig Snell
Yeah, you’re not getting to it. That’s faster speed. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not – and that ball’s more expensive because it’s only a certain group.

00:29:19:24 – 00:29:21:23
Dean Snell
No, the, the 3 and 4 are the same price.

00:29:21:23 – 00:29:22:06
Craig Snell
Oh, wow.

00:29:22:06 – 00:29:27:16
Dean Snell
They – it was. Last year we made them the same, this year just to try to get people to, you know, to expand out what it was.

00:29:27:17 – 00:29:48:14
Dean Snell
Yeah. And, and our goal has always been to try to give, you know, affordable performance. So we’re not $59 a dozen for golf balls anymore. You know, we’re $34.99, and our value packs go down to $32.99. Um, and then our Prime 2.0 is, like, $18 a dozen for the seniors and ladies, which i- which is better for them to use, you know? It’s made for them.

00:29:48:18 – 00:30:08:16
Dean Snell
S- they don’t have to worry about hitting it 2, 325 yards, ’cause they won’t on their second shot. You know, the first shot drivers are gonna be 200 yards maybe. But now when you get closer to the green, you need a little bit of performance, and that’s where – that’s the urethane – the urethane adds for them, and that’s where it’ll help. It’s not gonna have a spin and suck back like the tour players do, but it might stop a little closer.

00:30:08:18 – 00:30:16:20
Dean Snell
You know, make one 3-putt into a 2-putt, you know, from the distance, and save you a stroke or 2. That, that’s h- why we do it. That’s how we – that’s, that’s how we –

00:30:16:21 – 00:30:19:23
Vernon Miles
You just solved my golf game. I need those balls.

00:30:20:17 – 00:30:20:22
Dean Snell
Yeah.

00:30:20:22 – 00:30:23:18
Craig Snell
You need the 2 Cs. The seniors and the womens. snellgolf.com. They’re online.

00:30:24:19 – 00:30:30:07
Vernon Miles
I’m money within 200 yards. That’s all I’m hearing right there. I can’t hit the ball off a tee, but – how much money?

00:30:30:22 – 00:30:32:24
Dean Snell
That’s, uh – not much. Not much.

00:30:33:17 – 00:30:46:07
Craig Snell
So you, uh – your kinda best ball that you’ve ever created for Snell, you weren’t able to, to make after COVID. But this year you were able to get that going again?

00:30:46:07 – 00:31:16:07
Dean Snell
Yeah, that’s correct. We – we had 2 products when we launched. One was called MTB Black, and one was called MTB X, and those were our only 2 models. And that’s what was driving us to be – to be very good. I think we launched at $32.99 when we started 12 years ago. Um, and, and that was our flagship product, and that went head-to-head with the Pro V1 and Pro V1 Xs and the TP5s, TP5 Xs. You know, those are the cast urethane premium thin covers. A lot of short game spin and control, good feel.

00:31:16:13 – 00:31:37:08
Dean Snell
Um, uh, outstanding durability. That was that product, and we lost that when COVID happened with the factories and, and things that happened in the industry side to it. Um, and we’ve been working the last 2 or 3 years to get that development going and design and bring it back. So, um, fortunately we were able to do that.

00:31:37:08 – 00:31:59:16
Dean Snell
So this year in August, we brought back our MTB Black, and it’s called MTB Black LTD for limited. So it’s kind of a heritage series that we have. Um, you know, the, the prices of golf balls have gone up. The shipping has gone up. The tariffs – tariffs – have gone up. The tariffs are brutal. So, but we still try to keep the ball, you know, 20, $25 a dozen cheaper than the top of the line.

00:31:59:20 – 00:32:17:09
Dean Snell
So if you – if someone plays a Pro V1 or a Pro V1X or a TP5 or a MaxFli Tour, um, those golf balls fall into that kind of class of the elite cover, and that’s what this ball is. And, and, uh, we launched it in August this year and, you know, a lot of our customers have come back and like, “Yeah, thank you.

00:32:17:10 – 00:32:34:04
Dean Snell
This is, this is outstanding.” That’s the benefit of when we talked earlier about staying in the business. The feedback that we get from the customers is very personal. You know, they, they write emails and, and, you know, thank you notes and blah, blah, blah all the time, but we read all of them and we try to answer them and we try to listen to what they do,

00:32:34:07 – 00:32:40:17
Dean Snell
and that’s been our biggest thing is, “When you gonna bring the MTB Black back again?” So – it’s back – MTB Black is back.

00:32:40:18 – 00:32:42:15
Craig Snell
Yeah, it’s back.

00:32:42:18 – 00:33:00:12
Vernon Miles
That’s another thing I think we talked about either on the last podcast or maybe Craig or somebody was telling me. You actually write, like, thank you notes in the morning, uh, to your customers and thanking them for feedback and putting that personal touch on that. That’s, uh, insane considering how big of a company you guys, you guys have become.

00:33:00:12 – 00:33:24:24
Dean Snell
Yeah. I try to. You know, if, if I’m in the office, I try to. Um, I, I do the pack – you know what? I will go in early than everybody else and I’ll print out the packing slips so when the group comes in, we’re ready to go. We turn music on and we all pack and ship and talk you know, weekends and what you did – yeah – blah, blah, blah. So, um, kinda keeps it fun. You know, we open up the, the back door to the warehouse and let some fresh air in and then

00:33:25:01 – 00:33:43:07
Dean Snell
and then, and just enjoy it. Um, that’s, that’s kind of it. If, if I – if I’m there early enough, you know, when we launch new products, it’s a lot of singles, a lot of single dozens. Once people play the golf ball, there’s a savings for us. We have a tiered pricing. S- uh, one dozen to 5. 5 dozen is, is $2 a dozen cheaper, and it comes with free shipping.

00:33:43:09 – 00:34:11:16
Dean Snell
So it, it could save you probably 4 or 5 dollars a dozen, and that’s – wow – that’s becomes our number one seller after people get to try them is the 5 dozen value pack, we call them, and that’s, uh, that’s probably about 40% of our sales after the trial. So a new product is heavy on the single dozen order to try. The, the, uh – halfway through the year, the 5 dozen ship- uh, shipments take over and kinda push, you know, push the volume up a little bit for us.

00:34:11:18 – 00:34:14:12
Vernon Miles
So no more supply issues on the Black?

00:34:14:14 – 00:34:30:01
Dean Snell
No more supply on Black. No more supply on PR3 or PR4. Um, we’ve secured the capacity, the tooling, the production, the process, the quality. We’ve, we’ve done, uh, uh, we’ve done 2 years of digging into that pretty good and, and moving in the right direction this year for sure.

00:34:30:01 – 00:34:34:02
Craig Snell
So that’s getting it all – rebuilding and getting it all out there again.

00:34:34:03 – 00:35:00:09
Dean Snell
It is, yeah. And, and, you know, our customer base when, when we had the issues, obviously, um, golf balls are a repeat purchase item. So you gotta play golf, you gotta go buy something else. So, um, we, we’ve worked this past year and a half to try to bring some customers back and, you know, and, and with the product being as, as good as it is now, we’ve gotten a lot of those back. We, we track that daily for our current customers, our new customers, and returning customers.

00:35:00:11 – 00:35:13:13
Dean Snell
Um, you know, and we’ve come up with a nice, uh, social media email campaign, marketing campaign that, that, that addresses a lot of those things and keeps in touch with people that have bought, people that have not, and people that may be looking to buy down the road.

00:35:13:15 – 00:35:16:12
Craig Snell
And what’s the goal for, uh, next year?

00:35:16:14 – 00:35:42:08
Dean Snell
Well, next year, August started the MTB Black, so it’s just ki- well, we actually missed the May – yeah – May, uh, M- May, April through August is the prime season for golf. Um, September, some places like here start to get cold and, and people stop buying. October, November are kinda s- November picks up, Black Friday. December, January, February in the c- in the cold months, they, they, they get slow, and then April kicks the season off again.

00:35:42:10 – 00:36:06:04
Dean Snell
So right now we’re, we’re preparing for our Black Friday, y- which is – it’s not anymore Black Friday. It’s Black November now, ’cause everybody pushes these things out for 2, 3, 4 weeks during the month – yeah – for these specials. We’re preparing our, in our stuff, uh, social media and launch packages for that. Um, Christmas time comes, and then January, February, March we’re gonna prepare to launch – these things next year, um, you know, full boat where everything’s available, everything’s in inventory.

00:36:06:06 – 00:36:29:04
Dean Snell
When we did the PR3 and 4, the first month we had those in April last year, the yellows sold out in 3 weeks. You know, so then we, we wait. So we’ve secured that capacity, we’ve changed the production schedule, um, now we have enough product in, so, um, the fall season in this area, yellows go up quite a bit ’cause it’s easy to see

00:36:29:04 – 00:36:45:06
Dean Snell
in the leaves. But the – but definitely in a good position. So I’m looking forward to next year. I think next year’s gonna be very good with respect to having everything in place. The product, very good. The feedback has been very good on all of them, but it’s, it’s, it’s time now to, uh, to go.

00:36:45:08 – 00:36:46:09
Craig Snell
That’s awesome.

00:36:46:11 – 00:36:49:06
Vernon Miles
Where does somebody go to buy your golf balls?

00:36:49:08 – 00:37:06:19
Dean Snell
We’re m- we’re primarily direct to consumer, so snellgolf.com. Um, we s- we – if you order today, we ship them out the next morning. Um, s- depending on which way you live and stuff, it can get there in 2 days or 3 days. Um, the value packs are free shipping. Um, we have a, you know, the office.

00:37:06:19 – 00:37:23:10
Dean Snell
If you go on the website, there’s an office. If you’re not good with a computer or a phone, you can call. You know, we can take the orders over the phone. You know, and s- there’s some local, local pro shops, especially around here, that, that, um, would carry golf balls once in a while. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, you know, dependent on the time of year.

00:37:23:12 – 00:37:28:10
Dean Snell
But snellgolf.com is by far the easiest way, and they come straight to your house.

00:37:28:10 – 00:37:54:12
Vernon Miles
One of the other things that you guys do that’s pretty cool is for companies out there, corporations, putting logos on their balls, they order a certain amount, right? Somebody’s not gonna be able to order a dozen golf balls and say, “Hey, I want my custom logo on here.” What are the kind of the, the parameters of that? So let’s say you’re United Wholesale Mortgage or Rocket Mortgage or, or one of these large companies out there who want to, uh, place an order with 20,000 dozen, what does that look like?

00:37:54:15 – 00:37:59:03
Dean Snell
So when, when Debbie calls me and wants 150,000 dozen –

00:37:59:03 – 00:38:01:20
Vernon Miles
Perfect. That’s why we’re doing this, for fucking Debbie. I definitely wait for that phone call.

00:38:01:22 – 00:38:22:03
Dean Snell
When she calls looking for 150,000 dozen, there’s a time period ’cause those will come straight from the factory. Um, in-house, we added custom print in-house now, so we can do one dozen now. – Oh, wow. – Yeah. If you wanna order something for y- you know, Father’s Day, Christmas – bachelor parties – an- anything. Bachelor party. You should see some of the requests we get – we get to, to put on golf balls.

00:38:22:03 – 00:38:44:07
Dean Snell
Like, we gotta decline that one. We’re n- we’re not doing that. But, uh, yeah, we can do a d- it used to be 12 dozen minimum, where they would go out to a logo facility we use. But uh, we, we’ve solved that problem now. We do them in-house every week. – Excellent. – Um, one dozen up to, up to however many you want. You know, we have a couple of customers that, that buy 15,000 or 20,000 dozen a year as giveaways, you know, through banks and different places like that.

00:38:44:07 – 00:39:07:20
Dean Snell
So, um, those we can do custom packaging for. If they want their own packaging through the factory, go straight to you from there, we can do that as well. So there’s, there’s some unique things that can be done on the volumes being. You know, a container of golf balls holds about 10,000 dozen. That’s your best cost savings, you know. A full container of 20,000 dozens, 40 foot. You know, 10,000 dozen goes in a 20-foot container.

00:39:07:21 – 00:39:19:04
Dean Snell
That’s kinda your best efficiency to have things shipped back ’cause they’re full. See, Debbie, we’re always looking to, uh, get you the best deal. 20,000 dozen sounds like the container, we can just drop that right off for you. There you go. Good thing I said 150, Debbie.

00:39:19:14 – 00:39:22:18
Craig Snell
We’ll take – 150, 20 – we’ll take a couple of containers. That’s, that’s mo- yeah.

00:39:22:20 – 00:39:37:14
Dean Snell
Yeah. It, it, it’s, it’s a simple process, you know. And, and we, we handle all of that, you know, in-house. We take care of it and do the artwork for you. If there’s a packaging design you want, we can help with that as well. If you just want regular packaging with your own logo on it, we can do that as well too.

00:39:37:15 – 00:39:47:03
Craig Snell
Yeah, it’s pretty cool to – you s- you’ve shown me a few of them with some of the banks, and like, the golf ball box itself comes with your com- like, looks like it’s your company’s – yes – golf ball.

00:39:47:08 – 00:40:17:16
Dean Snell
Yeah, we had one that wanted a, a hologram designed, so when you take the lid off of it, the sleeves form a hologram. So they get put in a certain or- orientation. With volumes high enough, the factory will do it for you – that’s cool – and, and they have their own custom packaging, you know. So yeah, they won’t – so when they pass them out as, as things, you know, tournaments or gifts to, to people, or every time someone closes a loan, you can give them a dozen balls with their closing date on it or something like that. Or every, every realtor like Ron Oliveira that’s looking to buy golf balls every time he sells a house, we can get –

00:40:17:18 – 00:40:19:01
Craig Snell
his customers to have them on.

00:40:19:04 – 00:40:20:10
Vernon Miles
Javier Rosa needs some golf balls.

00:40:20:12 – 00:40:27:21
Dean Snell
Every time Javier goes and sees a client, we can, we can have them pass them out, so. All these weddings you’re, you’re shooting at these country clubs.

00:40:27:23 – 00:40:28:23
Javier Rosa
Good idea.

00:40:29:00 – 00:40:35:06
Dean Snell
Yeah. So it, it – there’s, there’s a lot of options for custom and, and they’re pretty flexible from one dozen up now, so it’s no problem.

00:40:35:07 – 00:40:56:24
Craig Snell
That’s cool. So this was great. I mean, I think there was a lot, a lot of information for the average golfer, better golfers, how people look at the stats that get put out there. I mean, it would be, it would be awesome to continue to get this kind of information and do testing to actually show the real data. I mean, these companies, it’s not, it’s not these big companies that are doing these things.

00:40:57:00 – 00:41:07:10
Craig Snell
These are small companies that are just figuring out a way that they don’t have degrees, they don’t have anything like that. It’s crazy to me that people listen to them. And, and I think they just think that they do.

00:41:07:12 – 00:41:22:11
Dean Snell
Yeah, they – some, some of the information that they do, you know, and there’s multiple companies that do this, but – and I, and I’ve done some podcasts with a few of them where they, where they’ve called and said, “Hey, we saw this. What do you think?” And I’ll answer them and they go, “Okay, thank you,” you know? That to me is the interaction that should be part of golf.

00:41:22:12 – 00:41:55:07
Dean Snell
It should be, it should be a fun, let’s grow this together. It shouldn’t be a let me try to find out. This is good, but this is wrong, this is wrong. And it’s not just golf balls. I mean, I see this on drivers, I see this on – yeah – wedges. You know, I see, I see conclusions. One of my biggest pet peeves is when somebody posts a thing saying it’s the best. Because a best wedge that they’re testing of people that came into their office to hit off of a mat, which isn’t even golf, and they come up with something and say, “This is the best,” on a rating scale that they create because they say

00:41:55:07 – 00:42:12:03
Dean Snell
it spun 400 RPMs more than someone else when these are 14 handicaps hitting them. Is it really the best? But what if you’re a real high spin guy? You don’t want high spin wedges. It’s not the best for you. So everybody has a different game and a different level and different need. So nothing is quote-unquote the best.

00:42:12:06 – 00:42:27:00
Dean Snell
And when you do iron testing off of a tee that’s teed up about 2 inches, and you hit it off a tee and you measure spin rates and say this ball is a higher spinning ball versus that one, that’s not necessarily true. Because when you get out in the fairway, you don’t put your ball up on a tee.

00:42:27:04 – 00:42:53:22
Dean Snell
You got to hit on the ground and you got to hit down and the ball rolls on the face. It doesn’t slide on a up hit, which adds spin to the golf ball – oh, yeah – and takes loft off. – Sure. – So all of those things are on course performance, which is hard to test, that’s what reality is. This is what – it, it looks good with a number, it’s, to me, it’s just a relative guide to say, “Hey, look, relatively speaking, this happened, but you really need to go do this to find out what’s best for you.”

00:42:54:00 – 00:43:05:16
Dean Snell
And that’s the education part that I think people need to hear. – Yeah. – And don’t draw fear-mongering conclusions about something that you don’t have any performance data to prove it.

00:43:05:22 – 00:43:32:22
Craig Snell
I think – yeah – it’s really, like, for the average person that’s figuring out what type of golf ball is best for them – mm – meaning a 2-piece, a 3-piece, a 4-piece, depending on their swing speed and what they like, and then kind of go from there. And it’s not a one fit all. I mean, we’ve talked about this forever and it was like, you know, when you worked at, uh – I, I kind of take it back to this. When you worked at TaylorMade, mm, pretty much most of my childhood when I was playing golf, everything in my bag was TaylorMade.

00:43:33:03 – 00:43:43:18
Craig Snell
Every single club, everything, with the balls, everything was TaylorMade. When, when you stopped working at TaylorMade, I had to buy my own stuff for the first time. It was a terrible day. And –

00:43:43:20 – 00:43:44:24
Dean Snell
You’re welcome.

00:43:45:00 – 00:44:11:10
Craig Snell
It’s not all TaylorMade stuff anymore. – Mm-hmm. – It’s what I think is best for me. I have different wedges than I have irons. I have different, um – the 3 wood is different than my rescue club. My driver’s a different brand because you test what works for you. And it’s a feel thing and it’s a mental thing – mm-hmm – really. At the end of the day, I mean, there’s probably not much of a difference for me if I played a Callaway driver, a TaylorMade driver, or a Titleist driver.

00:44:11:15 – 00:44:29:11
Craig Snell
But it’s a look, it’s a feel, it’s, it’s a confidence because I think this is better for me. If I went and I hit a – I mean, it’s, this is going off of just feel. There’s no testing that’s going on. – Mm. – This is just a confidence. This is the feel I like. I bought – you know, I had played Vokey wedges for quite a few years and then I switched to Cleveland, and I was like, “I love this.”

00:44:29:11 – 00:44:44:09
Craig Snell
It’s just a different feel. – Mm. – Little bit different weight in the head that I liked. Little more control on some of the longer shots, you know, because the, the heads were just a little bit heavier. And then for the TaylorMade, the heads are even heavier, and I didn’t like that. So it was like, but they all could be better for you, me.

00:44:44:10 – 00:45:00:03
Craig Snell
Like, you might like that feel better than I like that feel. So – yep – I think with golf and just like with anything in life, I mean, everybody wears different pants or shoes because what’s comfortable for you doesn’t mean they’re the best ones. – Correct. – There’s no test that can prove that – right – because there’s so many variables to it.

00:45:00:05 – 00:45:18:05
Dean Snell
I can’t tell you how many times somebody has gone to a, a simulator and got fit for a driver and then takes it on course and goes, “This -” – I did that – “this is for sale.” – Yep. – You know? Look, because you’re hitting into a, um – I did that with irons – net. You know, it’s not, you’re not on a course, it’s a net. – Yeah, exactly. – You did the same thing.

00:45:18:07 – 00:45:32:00
Craig Snell
I did that. I went and got fitted, got these irons. I was – the numbers on the, uh, on the range with, with the s- uh, Trackman was perfect. I’m gaining distance. I go on the course, I’m like, I can’t – I, I played 3 rounds with those clubs – mm-hmm. You know who’s happy about this? – I couldn’t control –

00:45:32:01 – 00:45:43:04
Vernon Miles
My son Liam, who gets all of Craig’s stuff. – That’s right. – And he thinks it’s the best – best equipment ever. So just keep buying clubs every year. Some of those haven’t been hit yet. – No. – Some are like brand new. I didn’t even know what a rescue club was. He used to –

00:45:43:07 – 00:45:48:22
Craig Snell
Everyone used to joke at the club. Be like, “Oh, you need a golf club? Just go in the back of Craig’s trunk.” – Yeah. – He’s probably got a bunch of them sitting there.

00:45:49:02 – 00:45:51:16
Vernon Miles
After like 4 bad shots, it just gets retired into the trunk.

00:45:51:17 – 00:46:14:01
Dean Snell
But that is true. Confidence and, and personal preference is huge – 100% – in golf with clubs, wedges, drivers, irons, golf balls. It’s a personal preference. And you know, when we do golf ball testing, we used to go and hand golf balls to people on the first tee, a sleeve of them, and they meet them on 9.

00:46:14:04 – 00:46:30:23
Dean Snell
And when they come off at 9, we’d have a questionnaire for them. What’d you think about this, this, this? And the first question we asked them was, “How’d you play?” And, “What’d you shoot?” Well, the guy that shot 2 over, “This ball’s great.” The guy that shot 14 over – that also comes into play – “I hit the first one in the water, this ball sucks.” You know?

00:46:30:23 – 00:46:48:02
Dean Snell
So – yeah – it became your personal experience that day, you know, to, to tell you if it’s a good or bad product. But you got, you gotta spend time. If you really wanna test something, you gotta spend time testing them out on the golf course where you play golf. The guidance of the simulators and the Trackman are there for a reference point, but, uh, you as a person, they’re all individual. One best for you is not the best for you or the best for me.

00:46:48:02 – 00:46:49:20
Dean Snell
That’s why there’s so many different options.

00:46:49:21 – 00:46:56:06
Craig Snell
Absolutely. And it can change over time. – It does. – Your ball flight can change, your swing can change. Your age. Yeah.

00:46:56:08 – 00:46:57:17
Dean Snell
Hitting it shorter. – Your age. – Your swing.

00:46:57:17 – 00:47:06:01
Vernon Miles
I’m just gonna use a senior citizen one. I think that’s, that’s what I’ve gotten out of this entire – I’m going super senior pretty soon. Going up to the gray tees pretty soon. Be fun.

00:47:06:02 – 00:47:10:05
Craig Snell
Those tournaments are fun. Yeah, yeah. Anything else you wanna go over?

00:47:10:07 – 00:47:30:09
Dean Snell
No, I think so. I appreciate you guys having me on and, and talking about stuff. It’s great. And hopefully, you know, some people can learn some things and, and, uh, get out there and play. – Absolutely. – I mean, again, our goal was to, to make it affordable and make – with performance and, and help people grow the game and enjoy the game. And maybe you save $20 a dozen, which gets you, you know, 2 Tito’s after the round or – that’s the key –

00:47:30:10 – 00:47:32:21
Dean Snell
whatever it is. The 19th hole is always the best.

00:47:32:21 – 00:47:39:08
Craig Snell
Pretty much when you buy Snell Golf balls, your first 2 drinks are on Dean’s tab. – Yeah, you’re welcome. – That should be the business model. – Yeah.

00:47:39:08 – 00:47:42:19
Dean Snell
That’s a, that’s a good point. We had a new marketing campaign right now. Maybe 3 or 4 dozen –

00:47:42:20 – 00:47:45:24
Craig Snell
Buy one dozen – get 2 free drinks – get 2 expensive club is.

00:47:46:00 – 00:47:56:06
Dean Snell
Yeah, some of those golf balls at $59 a dozen now are 64, $65 – yeah – in pro shops. You know, it’s a lot of money. It’s expensive – it is – and, and – especially when you golf like I do. – Yeah. – You, you’re gonna lose a dozen balls. It’s crazy.

00:47:56:08 – 00:48:03:02
Craig Snell
Even if you’re a good golfer and you don’t lose a lot of golf balls, like, I mean, how many people are gonna play the same golf ball for multiple rounds? Yeah.

00:48:03:02 – 00:48:05:21
Dean Snell
Yeah, they get a – now they get little marks on them. – Yeah, you hit a tree – hit something –

00:48:05:21 – 00:48:06:07
Craig Snell
You hit a cart path.

00:48:06:12 – 00:48:07:09
Dean Snell
I mean – they take them out of play.

00:48:07:11 – 00:48:12:08
Craig Snell
Doesn’t matter how durable the golf ball is, you hit a rock – you’re getting a scuff on that thing. Or you –

00:48:12:08 – 00:48:23:11
Dean Snell
could be like Ernie Els, bro, and he, he – when I worked with him at TaylorMade, he would change the golf ball after he made a birdie. He said, “Every ball only has one birdie in it.” So yours will last a long time.

00:48:23:13 – 00:48:24:14
Craig Snell
Oh. Bad customer. If I –

00:48:24:14 – 00:48:28:01
Vernon Miles
didn’t lose them, I’d be all set. There you go.

00:48:28:03 – 00:48:29:20
Dean Snell
Well, yeah. I definitely don’t have to worry about that. Appreciate you guys having me on. Thank you very much.

00:48:29:23 – 00:48:31:01
Vernon Miles
And, uh – thank you, Dean.

00:48:31:03 – 00:48:32:08
Craig Snell
Awesome, guys. See you next time.

00:48:32:09 – 00:48:32:19
Vernon Miles
Thank you.