April 21, 2025 • 43 mins
Swag Golf is a dynamic company that has been transforming the golf industry since its inception in 2018. Founded by Nick Venson, along with three friends, in Northbrook, Illinois, the company initially focused on creating unique putters and headcovers. Their bold approach to golf accessories quickly gained attention, leading to rapid growth and expansion into various product lines.
Swag Golf's success can be attributed to its innovative designs, combining high-quality craftsmanship with limited-edition releases that resonate with a passionate community of golf enthusiasts. The company's headcovers, in particular, have become highly sought after, often selling out quickly due to their creative and pop culture-inspired themes.
Beyond headcovers, Swag Golf is renowned for its precision-milled putters, which have been used by professionals on the PGA, Korn Ferry, and LPGA tours. Notably, Anna Nordqvist won the Women's British Open using a Swag putter, further solidifying the brand's reputation.
Swag Golf has also ventured into licensing partnerships with major brands like MLB, WWE, and the NFL, expanding its reach beyond golf. This strategic approach has allowed the company to tap into collector psychology, leveraging limited-edition drops to drive sales and create a buzz around its products.
With a strong online presence and strategic marketing, Swag Golf has managed to maintain its unique identity while challenging traditional golf industry norms. The company's growth is evident in its expansion from a small team to over 150 employees nationwide, with plans for a new headquarters. Swag Golf continues to innovate, offering golfers a fresh perspective on the game through its expressive and functional products.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nick (01:12):
Appreciate it.
Paul, you're making my headblow up a little bit here, so
thanks, appreciate it, that'sall right, dude, that's cool.
Paul (01:18):
I don't mind that.
Nick (01:28):
We all have to get that sometimes.
Um, so where are you from?
From chicago, born and raised.
What part of chicago, uh, northof the city, up in lake forest,
is where, uh, where, I grew up?
Paul (01:36):
um.
Are you good at golf?
Are you shitty?
I'm good really are you reallyyeah, zero handicap zero scratch
are you really?
Yeah, you're honorable almost15, so that makes that choke my
buddies hate it.
Nick (01:51):
You know it's uh.
I don't know why I don't playas much as I should, but somehow
, uh, the duct tape and superglue keeps the, uh, the game,
together.
Is your dad?
Paul (01:58):
like who taught you how to golf?
Like your dad, or what?
Nick (02:01):
your grandpa, uh no, you know my, my dad dabbled golfing
growing up, but um, actually, agood buddy of mine kind of
convinced me to go play with himone day and I just kind of fell
in love with the game.
I was 13 years old.
How old were you?
Paul (02:13):
13.
Wow, and then did you starttaking lessons.
Nick (02:17):
You play in high school, or yeah, I played through high
school um no, I didn't take anylessons um kind of really just
self-taught um, you know, justplaying 36 holes a day at junior
golf, carrying my own bag allsummer, working at the golf
course parking carts when I waslike 14, 15 and getting free
golf out of it.
So I played like 200 right yeah, it was awesome, it was the
(02:40):
best so that was like your firsttaste.
Paul (02:44):
Like into golf, though right, it's like just playing as
a kid and like really gettinginto it and getting good.
Like did you do like all likethe agca, whatever tournaments
and all that?
Nick (02:54):
no, I didn't do any like the ajga or anything like that.
I played some of those ijga,like local events, you know,
cdga, local events, um, but uh,honestly, like the, it was a lot
of playing golf with like a lotof the older guys that at the
club who were, uh, you know, inhigh school or whatever and
honestly, you know, they took mymoney in the early days and
they taught me how to gamble onthe golf course the good, the
(03:15):
good, the real parts of golf.
Yeah right, I mean that's whereI really learned how to play
what's the most amount of moneyyou ever won as a kid gambling
um, actually, I mean, I wouldn'tsay it was amount of money I.
I remember a time I won a ti-83calculator no way, yeah, yeah, I
want a calculator off.
Somebody, uh, who wanted, whowanted to double down, didn't
(03:37):
have the money, and so yeah yeah, I got.
Yeah, hey, what was the gameused to play on TI-83s, like
Drug Wars and some of thosegames?
(03:44):
Oh, yeah, drug Wars.
Oh my God dude.
Nick (03:46):
Yeah, one of those really crappy games you could play.
Oh my God.
Paul (03:49):
Yeah, and you'd be like you could buy stuff.
It was very like this is whatit is Hit, yes or no?
Nick (03:56):
It was like GTA way before GTA.
Paul (04:05):
It was like yeah, it was like the four guys version of
gta.
Yes, yeah, exactly, it was socool.
Nick (04:07):
So when you're high school , you're not trying to pay
attention.
Paul (04:09):
You're like, hold on, you guys saw some crack.
Um, oh my god, dude, that'scrazy.
I heard a story once about aguy who lost 60 grand, uh, at
one round, one round of golf.
I was like I believe it, I'veseen, I've seen some crazy stuff
, crazy stuff, like crazy.
Um, what else have you won?
Nick (04:28):
is that when you?
Paul (04:28):
want your star tack phone, or is that?
Nick (04:30):
like no, no, no, you know, I don't know.
We, honestly, as kids, we werealways playing for, like you
know, lunch or something likethat.
We were playing eight pointscotch for you know a nickel or
something it was.
It was nothing, it was, it was.
They were cheap games.
Um, I've gotten to some biggergames lately, you know, in the
past years, but it's uh, it'smore for fun and pride.
Paul (04:48):
I just want to win, I don't really care.
Yeah.
So I know your story becauseyou told me it, but I love your
story.
So, like, how did you get intoputters?
Initially?
Because he's like the og ofputters.
Nick (05:03):
You guys like initially because he's like the og of
putters you guys like you know Igot, I got into it like
honestly I was, you know, like Isaid, 13, 14, 15 years old,
playing at deer path golf courseup in lake forest and um, for
whatever reason, like one of mybuddies needed a putter to be
refinished.
Um, he dinged it or dented itand I like had in my head that I
could fix it for him somehow.
(05:23):
So, um, I was like in mybasement with sandpaper and
doing the whole thing and likemade it look nice for him and at
the time I was just superinterested in in, uh, buying a
scotty cameron, my first scottycameron.
I was 15 years old.
I was like I got, I gotta havea scotty cameron, you know how
did you hear?
about scotty cameron.
Back then you just thought onthe tour honestly because I was
watching Tiger, right, I mean, Iwas watching Tiger and he had
the Scotty Cameron Terrelliumand it was just super cool and
(05:47):
different copper insert.
Nobody had anything like that.
I thought the putter was sexyas hell and I wanted one and
they were expensive and it wasone of those things where it's
like I had to have it.
So I was like the first guy inmy group to get a Scotty Cameron
.
I had to borrow money from mydad to get it and uh, I remember
him telling me like it wascrazy how expensive it was.
Kind of thought he was going toteach me a lesson.
(06:07):
You know like you shouldn't bebuying a putter that's this
expensive and um, it just tookme down a rabbit hole of
learning about collectibleputters and high-end putters
because back then, like itwasn't really a thing yet, right
, like, like it just it had juststarted.
but I mean, don't't forget whatyear was this?
End of 97.
Tiger won the Masters in 97.
End of 97 or 98.
(06:29):
And maybe eBay was around, butI don't think anybody was using
it as we are today.
There was, like golf webclassified ads and there was the
Yahoo golf forums and all thesejust weird old archaic websites
where people were buying andselling golf products, but just
nothing like you know, nothinglike we have today with you know
(06:51):
, the golf works and theFacebook groups and all that
sort of stuff.
I mean there's, there's nothinglike.
There was nothing like that.
And I found myself in this golfwide classifieds where people
were looking for like rareScotty Cameron's and I was like
man I, I think Scotty Cameronsand I was like man I, I think
Scotty Camerons are cool.
I think I could.
I think I could.
You know, maybe I can find someof these.
And I ended up becoming friendswith a guy in Japan who was
(07:12):
looking for some Scotty Cameronnew Scotty Camerons from the
United States and we made a deal.
I had no idea who he was at thetime.
It was honestly like ahandshake agreement over the
internet.
And I got handshake agreementover the internet and I got him
putters he wanted from the usand he got me old scotty cameron
(07:33):
stuff from japan.
Paul (07:33):
that was handmade and I became like, yeah, I became like
a dealer at 15 years old umbuying and selling 83 dude and
you learned how to do that.
Nick (07:37):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So I had all these packagesshowing up my house and, you
know, I think my dad was, youknow, probably not 100 sure what
I was up to, but, um, I got thejob done and I was making money
selling putters, so it was fun.
Paul (07:47):
You were making pretty good money.
How old were you?
Nick (07:49):
like 16, 17 or something.
Yeah like 15, 16, 17.
I was making more money buyingand selling putters than I was
working at the golf course,that's for sure.
Paul (07:58):
So that was the initial everything was.
You were just buying andselling scotty camerons.
Yeah, like I don't, like I knowwhen, like what's the oldest
scotty cameras back then?
Like when, like when you don'tthink of an original ogs of that
from the 80s?
Nick (08:13):
me I don't know early, early, early 90s, um, like some
of this handmade stuff that was,yeah, you know, true handmade
putters that were, um, justreally special, super cool stuff
.
That, um, you know it was itwas, it was um stuff that it was
impossible to find them.
Back then it was really hard tofind them because people
coveted them.
Paul (08:31):
So then did you start amassing a collection then?
Nick (08:39):
Yeah, I built up a collection.
I was buying and selling but atthe same time I was amassing a
collection of them.
Then there was a Yahoo ScottyCameron collectors group that
started and then there wasanother Scotty Cameron fan page
that started and I just kind ofbecame known as somebody who-.
Paul (08:56):
What was your name on there?
Nick (08:57):
Nick Benson, scotty, cameron, number nine no, no, no,
it was like my nickname from asa kid.
People called me venno,v-e-n-n-o was my nickname, so,
um, that's just what.
I went by on there and uh, um,yeah, it's got known as a guy
that could get stuff and I wasjust intrigued at the idea of
making money off anything Icould at the time, just because
(09:18):
I was an entrepreneur.
Um, I was into trading cardsand all that other good stuff
too that kids were into.
But but putters was a, was awas a much higher profit margin.
Paul (09:27):
Like what, like back then, like what would it sell for?
I have no idea.
Like I mean, not crazy.
Nick (09:32):
I mean honestly, even back then it was all over the place.
I mean, some of the, some ofthe high end stuff was already
going for a rare scotty backthen crap, yeah, I mean, that's
playing fine, how much.
Thing that that is worth.
Now I don't even know.
Paul (09:48):
I mean, the prices have gone up dramatically, yeah so
you were venno, you were the bigvenno, um, and everybody knew
that you were like the man.
And then what happened?
So, like you.
This is so cool.
Nick (10:04):
I love this story so I, um , I get, I get um.
You know I could I'll fastforward like a little bit into
it, but I I basically get knownas this guy that's really into
it.
No, I know my stuff, I know the, you know, I know the nuances
of uh the putters and um as theyears go on.
I'm in college and um, this guy, rand, who unfortunately passed
away a few years ago, wanted touh open up a new scotty cameron
(10:28):
distributorship in uh, la andum, I was on a short list, um of
like three people, but I wasnumber one on his list for
somebody he thought could reallydo this.
I had met scotty at a at acameron collectors convention a
few years earlier and uh, I justthink that you're in high
school, though.
Right, I was in high school.
(10:48):
Yeah, I can't believe it waslike I was, like I was like 17
or 18 years old it was my end ofmy junior year, I think and, um
, I had an eye for it and, uh,this guy ran, knew I had an eye
for it and uh, they wanted me torun the art of putters, which
was this um, they wanted me torun the Art of Putters, which
was this new high-enddistributor in LA, and deal with
all the collectors and do someof the high-end collectors
putters and really be like aconcierge to those guys, because
(11:14):
I knew them all already,because I was Veno right, I was
the guy on the board thateverybody talked to.
Paul (11:20):
Yeah, you knew you could get it, or you could try to find
it, or you know I might havehad one, or whatever.
Yeah, so then it's so crazy.
So then you're in, we're,you're in.
You're you of iowa, weren't you?
I was at.
Nick (11:33):
I was at iowa, I was at iowa I was at iowa dropped,
dropped out of school, wtf yeah,you shouldn't got that scotty
cameron for me five years ago.
No, he was, he was prettysupportive.
You know I was.
I was the one that was kind ofuh, you know, a little
tongue-in-cheek.
I was like, yeah, hey, dad, Itold you I didn't need to go to
college, like for this, I wasgoing to figure it out on my own
(11:54):
.
I was always like I said, I wasalways an entrepreneur, but um
dropped dropped out of collegeum halfway through my junior
year and um moved out to LA onmy own and just started my life
in the putter world.
(12:08):
How old were you?
Nick (12:10):
I was 20 when I moved out to LA, did you?
Paul (12:14):
like LA Couldn't even drink that Pardon, did you like
it?
Or you're like oh man, this isnot, you know what.
Nick (12:21):
I fell in love with the idea of LA but, being a Midwest
guy born and raised, no offenseto Los Angeles who are listening
right?
(12:31):
now yeah, Midwest guy.
Nick (12:33):
It wasn't my place.
It wasn't my place.
It wasn't my place.
I love to visit, but I like theMidwest, I like Chicago.
It's my home.
Paul (12:39):
So then, what happened to that company?
What were you doing there?
Nick (12:45):
So, yeah, we were running the Argo Putters, it was going
great, but, honestly, it was oneof those things where I just
realized it wasn't for me, la ingeneral.
I had bigger aspirations to domy own thing, um, so I moved
back to chicago.
Uh, three and a half yearslater, almost four years later,
and um was about to go back toschool actually, which I hated
(13:06):
the idea of and someone goes youshould, you should go talk to,
uh, bob bentonardi.
Um, he makes awesome putters.
He's in chicago.
I think you guys they're in newOrleans, aren't they?
Paul (13:16):
We're in New.
Nick (13:16):
Orleans Park, I think you guys would hit it off and I said
, okay, great.
And I got introduced to him.
We had a great talk.
I explained to him I wanted todo more than just sell.
I had my own ideas for designand I thought I could be an
asset to grow in his brand.
And we made a deal and I spentnine years, you know, growing
(13:37):
the market.
Yeah, really, honestly, startoff, you know, just kind of
dabbling it, but by the time Iwas done, I was designing and
and polishing, painting, doing,you know, doing, doing a lot of
everything, doing everything.
But I was in love with putters.
I mean, that's, that's been my,it's been my jam.
I'm a putter nerd at heart and,yeah, again, kind of same thing
(13:59):
.
Paul (14:01):
Like that.
I think putters are a work ofart that are functional.
Nick (14:05):
Yeah, oh, definitely it's, it's, it's art for sure.
I mean, I dabbled in 3dmodeling and AutoCAD and all
these things and I I think Iknew enough about um engine, not
engineering but like I knewenough about machining that I
had my own thoughts on how Iwanted to make a putter um, and
I had, you know, been fortunateenough to work with, you know,
basically two of the greatestputter makers of all time, and
all time like seriously, yeah,and and those guys, um are are
(14:29):
awesome at what they do and Ithink that it was one of those
things where I was like how do Iput my own, my own spin on this
?
Because I had a bunch of ideas.
Honestly, even since the daysof the Scotty Cameron stuff,
where I'd always been working onlike I'll call it my little
black book of ideas, I was toldit's too loud or it's too crazy,
or you know, we can't do itthat way because of X, Y, Z, or
(14:52):
no one can, nobody can machineit that way, or nobody would
ever stitch that many stitcheson a head cover.
And I just it was like why, Idon't know why, what, what's the
what's the reason?
I keep hearing no, but no one'sreally telling me why.
Paul (15:05):
And I decided that I didn't want to, didn't want to,
or didn't have to.
I don't know you know, didn'thave to, I don't know, didn't
have to.
It comes down to dollar andcents.
It's not like when you're young.
Nick (15:17):
I had a couple of buddies who had really honestly been
telling me man, you're so goodat this stuff, why are you not
going out on your own doing this?
And so I said, screw it, I'mgoing to do this on my own.
I had had it with being told no, and so I decided that I was
going to start my own company.
So I, um, I started swag and,uh, basically, I had, I had the
(15:38):
idea for swag for a while thedon't give a pot.
I had that like the trademark,the whole idea of it, like I had
already had it in my head, butI hadn't known how to execute it
.
So I went to a couple buddies.
I said, hey, guys, I need to.
I need to do my own thing now.
Um, are you interested in this?
Um, this is middle of 2017 andI go, I'm gonna start this thing
(16:00):
tomorrow.
Basically, are you, are you inor out?
Here's my five-year plan.
And, uh, all the three guysthat I went to um, and then I
had, uh, you know, a few other,like just friends and family
that wanted to invest, justbecause they thought it'd be,
you know, fun to have a piece ofit and help you and yeah, um,
they just wanted to say theywere part of it and um it it was
awesome I had.
I had four you know four buddiesand myself.
(16:21):
We started that.
We started the business.
Um.
The other three of them reallyknew nothing about golf.
Um, I was the only golfer, um,only one in the golf business
and the only goal and but theywere.
They were talented in their ownright.
Uh, one of them was, uh, one ofthem was an engineer, um.
Another one was an amazing, uh,artist, um, who invested, and a
graphic designer.
(16:42):
And um, the other one wassomeone I had met more recently
who just was, um, you know, uh,just a good guy basically.
And then another buddy of minethat I'd had for like 35 years,
um, who had dabbled in a wholebunch of other stuff, um, in
sales and whatever.
And I just said, guys, if youtrust me, we're going to, we're
going to create a cool business.
And, uh, they did so.
(17:02):
Um, we sat in a room together ina 2000 square foot building and
, uh, I did most of the heavylifting when it came to like the
uh, you know, getting theputters built, getting them
ready, getting figuring out howwe were going to sell this stuff
.
Really, all the originaldesigns were all my own on day
one, um, and then I startedletting you know the rest of the
group kind of put their theirspin on it and, um, it was very
(17:24):
successful, um, when we launchedit in april 1 2018 I remember
you guys first came out I waslike, oh, this is cool, you know
, we te know, we teased it.
We teased it, the PGA show.
We I hired two models to run torun a booth the PGA show with a
pedestal that had one headcover and one putter in it, and
(17:46):
it was.
I told them we had the big swagDon't give a pot.
It was a little 10 by 10 booth,really cool putter with this
amazing like 170,000, 125,000stitch head cover on it.
And they said well, what do youwant us to tell people?
I told them, just tell people.
You have no idea who's behindthe business.
You have no idea anything otherthan show up to swag golf on
April one at midnight Don't be afool, april fool's day, right,
(18:08):
and it worked.
And we had a bunch of peopleshow up to the website.
We teased a few things online.
Um, we basically sold out ofeverything the first night.
Um, you know, and that firstnight was, you know, it wasn't
like we had a million productsup there, you know, we maybe had
200 like that products, but, um, it was just a.
It was a.
It was an awesome launch, funexperience for us to uh see
people that were attracted tothese ideas that I'd had for a
(18:30):
long time well, you knew, I meanyou knew that people wanted
that right.
Like like you, I felt yeah, Imean I felt that they wanted it.
I mean it felt like there was a, there was a void.
You wanted it.
Right, you probably wanted it,I wanted it.
Paul (18:45):
Yeah, people out there like oh, I want that.
Nick (18:46):
And putter people like you knew it was, just no one was
was willing to try it right orlike, yeah, and you know
honestly the the crazy part is Ireally started to be a putter
company, but the head coverskind of overshadowed it, just
because they were so cool andthey came out so awesome and um,
the quality was amazing beingmade here in the us and really
just um, I think that we justran with it because we realized
(19:10):
how, how much demand there wasfor badass head covers super
badass head covers.
Paul (19:16):
Super badass head covers.
Nick (19:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean again, putters being my passion.
I still love putters.
We make an unbelievable putter,but the head covers have always
been the star of the show forsure.
Paul (19:28):
So was that part of the initial drop when you did it in
the beginning?
Was the head cover or that wasjust part of it?
Nick (19:33):
No, no, no, we had like six different head covers up
there one putter, a hat, maybe acouple t-shirts, um yeah, a few
other accessories, nothingcrazy.
Paul (19:44):
And then so that first that first drop happened, it
blew up and you're like holycrap, I knew it's gonna happen.
So then what did you do?
Did you start like, okay, nowwe're gonna come up with new
designs, you know?
(19:55):
how did you grow it?
Paul (19:56):
You grew it really fast, dude.
It's only been like seven years, but that's not a long time,
right?
No?
Nick (20:02):
I had my little black book of ideas, so I just started
executing all these ideas that Ithought were good and Tommy,
who was our head of he, he wasamazing at taking my ideas and,
um, really like making them cometo life.
Um, that was that was.
It was huge.
Uh, it was it.
It allowed us to move quicklyand make really cool stuff at a
(20:26):
quick pace.
Uh, we were working with, uh,this company, ep, out of Georgia
, who was making all the headcovers, and they were like, you
know, maybe they had been inbusiness for five or six years
at most, maybe five years at thetime but they made a really
high quality head cover and Iquickly realized in our first
year that we were going to be introuble if we didn't start
(20:49):
making our own head covers.
So we acquired EP then in early2020, because I still needed to
own that manufacturing of thehead covers, just like we were
making our own potter's head.
Yeah, then you'd be hostage,right like then you're like oh
crap.
Yeah, honestly, I thoughtsomebody else was gonna buy them
.
That's, that's really your hose, yeah yeah, such a forward
thinker bro so yeah, so, um, butyeah, I mean it's, it's been
(21:12):
amazing.
I mean, uh, we have an, we havean amazing facility in georgia.
Now I mean it's been amazing.
I mean we have an amazingfacility in Georgia.
Now it's humming, it's making Idon't even know how many head
covers a day right now a lot,and it's been a great
opportunity to be able toleverage, be able to turn things
quickly without having to worryabout trying to make everything
(21:33):
overseas.
Paul (21:37):
So what percentage is made in the United States?
Nick (21:39):
and most of it things quickly um without having to
worry about, you know, trying tomake everything overseas.
So what percentage?
is made in the united states andmost of it, yeah, I mean I'd
say 90 percent.
Yeah, honestly, there's certainthings we can't do here, just
like there's materials we can'tsource the united states.
There's certain um likeplutonium, and it's just it.
Just in the golf industry ingeneral though right, I mean
like grips, like nobody's makingreally there's very few grip
(22:01):
opportunities here in the unitedstates.
Um, all the shafts are madeoverseas, outside of you know,
maybe dynamic gold for a smallbatch of what they do.
Um, golf pride, I still think,makes some of the grips here in
the us.
I don't think they make themall.
Um, I could be wrong on that,but it's just again, it's, it's,
it's.
The options are are tough, sosome things are sourced I have
no idea that did that much.
Paul (22:20):
Honestly, I didn't know those that you had that much in
the united states.
Nick (22:23):
That's amazing yeah, I think, honestly, you know, the
fine thing is, I think that Ithink overseas kind of gets a
bad rap.
Um, they're very good at whatthey do, but um, you know,
honestly, with everything that'sgoing on in the world right now
, it's nice to have domesticmanufacturing oh yeah, dude with
tariffs and shit that happensyeah it's great and you're like
we're the same price as we werebefore.
Paul (22:42):
Yeah, um, american made um .
So how do you come up with allthese ideas, like, because
you've come up with like somelike just I don't know cool
stuff, like is it in your blackbook or you just think you
something and going you knowwhat that'd be kind of cool.
Are you an artist when it comesdown to it?
Nick (23:00):
I mean, yeah, I am Honestly, graphic design was
what I enjoyed most growing up,through high school and college.
That's something I always did.
Adobe Illustrator, adobePhotoshop, all that sort of
stuff yeah, I have an eye for it.
I don't know.
I always tell people it's likeit's one of those weird things
where I could like be watching amovie or I see something
somewhere else in anotherindustry it could be fly,
(23:21):
fishing, you know whatever it isand I go, man, it gives me an
idea.
What if we did this with a golfhead cover?
What if we did this with aputter?
We know what?
What do I like that otherpeople you know might be
attracted to, right, you know?
Uh, I'm, I'm not.
I always tell this one all thetime like I'm not a wwe
wrestling fan.
It's just something I never gotinto.
Yeah, right, but I got friendswho love it.
(23:42):
Why isn't anybody made cool wwehead covers?
Well, why don't we do it first?
Let's just do it.
I mean, why not?
Let's bring people into thebrand by making things that
people, um, who golf, likeoutside of golf?
Um, that's really kind of how Ithought about everything with a
lot of the designs we do.
It's just what could you beinto that?
Paul (24:00):
um is is unique and different that maybe nobody else
in the golf space is thinkingabout I mean, you need some like
even with all your, even whenit comes to like your ball
markers, like like, for example,you have that one that's like a
it looks like the old schoolnintendo cartridge, right?
Yeah, like, that's so smart,you know?
Nick (24:19):
yeah, just like yeah, I mean we made, we've made little
patrone bottles for, uh, youknow, for for um markers.
We've done, god, I mean so manythings candy hearts like, like,
like, like sweethearts with alllike the little yeah, I
remember that bottle caps, um, Imean just a ton of stuff we've
done and to me it was alwaysabout making them the right way,
(24:40):
like not getting a cheapstamped version of it, making
like a realistic yeah like oh,it's the knockoff of whatever,
like a realistic, milled versionof what that would be if it was
miniature and it took a lot oftime to make that stuff.
But it's, it's fun.
I think it's different, youknow, so does somebody?
Is somebody gonna mark theirball with a sombrero ball marker
(25:02):
?
And, uh, you know, is that agood idea?
Probably not.
Or the mini solo cups?
Like no, it's a bad idea, right?
Um, it's gonna.
It's gonna block someone's putt, but at the same time, you know
, don't give a putt, don't givea putt attitude, hey, hit the
ball closer to the hole and mymark won't be in your way how
big is that ball marker, the onewith the solo cups?
Paul (25:19):
it's like, only like that big.
It's like it's like yeah, maybe,maybe, uh, I don't know three
quarters of an inch tall, halfinch tall I think what's cool
too, before we go into like thehead covers and like the putters
, is like the forward thinkingyou have when it comes to
licensing and working with othervery large brands, like you
(25:44):
said, with WWE and MLB.
It's like bringing in othersports so that it's not like, as
include the golf's not aninclusive sport anymore.
Right, people have otherinterests.
Yeah, like I mean, why dancearound the issue to say like I'm
going to work with them?
You know?
Nick (26:01):
like well, yeah, but I also.
I also think it's like aboutworking with, working with
people, um, or working withbrands and people who understand
that golf can be fun.
Golf can be different, right, Imean, it was, golf was a's not,
it's not my grandfather's golf,you know anymore right, it's
it's.
It's a new age in the in thegolf industry, and being able to
(26:23):
express yourself, I think, isimportant on the golf course,
because everything was kind ofstodgy and old.
It just was.
It was the old guard of makingthings the same way.
And now you see all thesecompanies, um, that are, I think
, bringing some life back intothe game, which is why golf's
kind of in this big revival.
Right, it should be fun to golf.
I don't care if you're a 25handicap or a zero, right, you
(26:46):
want to crush six beers, listento some music and go have fun
for four hours I'm in, I don'treally care, right, at the same
time and still have high qualitystuff, yeah, but why not have
something on your bag?
You're a Cubs fan, right?
Why not have the Wrigley Fieldscoreboard on your bag?
If you want it?
Why not have?
Yeah, right, you want CoachDicka on your head cover, why
(27:11):
not.
It should be fun.
You should be able to expressyourself and have what your
other passions are, bereflective of it on the golf
course.
And I think that you know,historically, when you look at
things like like MLB in the NFL,it's a lot of, it was a lot of
slapping, you know, like pastinglogos right, taking team logo,
throwing on a head cover.
For me it was like, well, whycan't we just do something
(27:35):
really cool and different?
Why do why do we have to logoslap?
Um, let's, let's, let's make itfun.
Um, let's, let's tie into thecore fan.
What, what do they remember?
What do they know?
Um, what's the?
What's the inside?
Paul (27:48):
joke on this, like that they would understand that this
is about not.
Oh, it's a 49ers helmet.
Oh, you know like, yeah, howdoes that work though?
Because I don't really knowlike.
So, like, if you do a collab oryou do a head cover for the
cubs, like you said, right, didyou get like approval from them
before?
Nick (28:08):
I would assume so right, like you gotta get full approval
by by you know, uh, mlb, thecubs, everybody, uh, yeah, all
parties, yeah, and honestly, youknow it's not an easy process.
Um, as we've gone into movielicensing and some of these
other things, um, it's typicallypretty difficult to to really
have full creativity.
So we gotta, we gotta, walk afine line a lot of time.
(28:29):
But usually, as time goes on,the the, the more we do, the the
line goes a little further outand they let us do a little bit
more so uh more, and they know,like they're not, the leash gets
longer because they're not like, listen, we're trying to be
respective respectful toeverybody that we work with.
We're never gonna do somethingthat we think is disrespectful
to them.
But you know, it's, it's gonna,it's gonna be.
(28:50):
It's also the same time it'sgonna be hard to uh convince.
You know, let's say I'm tryingto think of an example of one,
but oh, I have a great one.
So we made the winningscorecard from Cubs game seven
world series from Pat Hughes ashe was writing it, as he was
announcing right, and at thetime when we submitted this idea
(29:12):
to make a head cover out ofthat, one of the worries was
that we were somehow going to behurting the Cleveland Indians
players because they were thelosers on the head cover and it
was going to not be seen as arespectful head cover to them,
and had to explain to MLB that,hey, this is the real scorecard
from the game.
(29:32):
Nothing is, it's just we're notmaking it up.
And thankfully the cubs came tobat for us and um and the and
the indians also signed off onit, which was awesome because it
was a historic moment.
It was a cool thing to be ableto memorialize on a head cover
so how big is the team when itcomes to doing the designs?
Paul (29:52):
I mean, there's probably obviously you, but you have a
team that helps you also.
Nick (29:55):
Come, you got like 10 10 people on our design team right
now.
Paul (29:59):
Dude I love your head covers brothers, like like
seriously, they're so freakingcool.
Let me, I'm gonna share thescreen, like seriously how like
here this is.
Nick (30:08):
I'll show you my favorite right now.
This is one of my favorites.
Oh my god, you look so badass.
You remember when he waswalking across the field?
Paul (30:16):
yeah, I just wanted that's all I used to do, man, did I
have?
Like I still have my bearsjacket.
I do look so badass.
You remember when he waswalking across the field?
Yeah, that's all I used to do,man, I still have my Bears
jacket from 1985.
Yeah, starter jacket, that wasawesome.
No, if I got it for Christmas,I'd get my son to wear it and it
was like, oh my God, I rememberI got it for Christmas morning.
I got that and the Jim McMahonsunglasses.
Nick (30:32):
I thought it was cool.
Oh, we worked with Jim on some.
We made some punky QB headcovers.
They were awesome.
Paul (30:38):
So you like I don't know Like I, when I go to your like
what's so cool about your stuff?
It's nostalgic but modern, ifthat makes sense.
Nick (30:48):
Like you know.
Paul (30:48):
I may get brought back to that moment.
Nick (30:50):
You're like oh yeah, that's that's how we, that's how
we look at kind of everythingwe do.
Right it, that's how we look ateverything we do.
I don't care if you're 42 yearsold or 32 years old or 52 years
old or 62 years old.
There's something from yourchildhood that calls out to you
and you remember.
You can tell us right away whatthat was.
It's fun to do stuff like thatand give people something that
(31:15):
they can um, you know, rememberand make they feel a little bit
younger again.
Right, I mean I'm I don't thinkI'm old at 42, but there's
things I remember from when Iwas 15 that are fun to remember
and I want to.
I want to.
Paul (31:26):
Maybe I want that on my golf bag like this I remember
this game wasn't it called likecruising or something?
Yeah, say like, like that's it,like you see it and you know
right away, like I don't knowthis thing.
It's so cool, man.
Like honestly, um, it blows meaway.
Uh, when like so what's comingout right now or this year that
(31:51):
you guys are really excitedabout, like what's the latest
drop?
Nick (31:54):
well, the big, the big thing now is, uh, april 1, so
it's our seven year anniversary.
So on midnight on april one,we're gonna be dropping, uh, new
products, like we always doevery year, and usually all of
our hardcore ogs plus, you know,new fans of the brand show up
at midnight central time and, uh, we do a drop and then we drop
other stuff throughout the dayon april one, but, um, it's
usually where we bring back somesome of our most iconic stuff,
(32:16):
as well as any new stuff that wewant to show off.
Paul (32:20):
That's like the big ramp-up period right now, a week
and a half.
Nick (32:26):
That staff bag.
Right there is the cool thingwe just dropped yesterday.
Paul (32:32):
That's cool, and this is for the April 1,?
Nick (32:39):
I'm assuming no this is just something that we dropped
this week just because we wantedto drop something cool that's
so freaking cool dude.
Paul (32:49):
What I love is the baseball stuff, personally,
Especially with the LA Dodgersand the Cubs.
The series Scroll down one more.
Nick (32:59):
I like, I like the.
Uh, the bobbleheads are thosedown?
There's one line below, I think.
Yeah, I love those, the bot,the king bobbleheads I go is
that my hair yeah, that's it.
Paul (33:13):
I mean, it's like so innovative, like honestly, man,
I mean like I have mine righthere, I'll show you guys.
Nick (33:22):
You got the King of Diamonds right.
Yeah, king of Diamonds, dodgers.
Paul (33:26):
I've got that one too, so freaking sick and the.
Nick (33:29):
Cherry Blossom yeah.
Paul (33:31):
It's like, and you know it's going to sell out Like you
know it will, and you know thatit's going to out like I, you
know it will, and you know thatit's gonna be like something
people are gonna remember,especially if you're a fan of
that team or that time or Idon't know.
It's.
It's awesome, what.
So right now you have licensingdeals with who?
Nick (33:52):
kool-aid.
Huh, wow, wwe garbage bill,kids, ml, mlb, nfl, ncaa.
I'm sure there's ones I'mforgetting, but yeah a lot.
Paul (34:03):
Do you have to do individual deals with each
college?
Don't you have to do that withNCAA?
Nick (34:09):
Yeah, yeah, every college.
Paul (34:10):
Yeah yeah, I remember reading that somewhere.
What, let's talk about theputters.
What is your most popularputter?
Nick (34:21):
you would say Probably that one that you're looking at
right there in the middle, theBoss 2.0, yeah.
Paul (34:28):
Now where are?
Nick (34:28):
these.
Boss 2.0 or the Handsome one.
It's a standard original PingAnser Scotty Cameron Newport
style head.
You know a standard likeoriginal ping answer scotty
cameron newport style head.
Boss is a.
Is a like a mid uh or a largersize mallet, um face balance
mallet and um I mean they're all.
Paul (34:52):
I mean that all of them do pretty well, but those two by
far are the best and what's cool.
Nick (34:55):
Then you have, like the head cover to go with it, right,
like anybody can choose it,whatever.
Yeah, they can choose like oneof the one of the crazy covers
to go with it, which is which isfun is this?
Paul (35:01):
is this putter right here?
What was it from last year?
When was this one?
Nick (35:04):
no, those are all from like, oh man, I don't know,
overall that's so cool, likefive years ago maybe.
Um, I love that wrigley fieldputter.
Or this, the, that's so cooltoo.
Or the swagatha, the don't givea putt.
Paul (35:17):
Um, I love that one too I bet your office are pretty sick
with like.
Do you have all, like, at leastall the originals of everything
too?
Nick (35:24):
you know what we um so I kept one of everything we've
ever made, um, as far as puttersgo, and almost two of every
head cover we ever made.
And we just moved to a newoffice back in december and
we're in the process of gettingour uh, our putter studio up and
going.
So we're gonna have like alittle over three, three and a
half thousand, three and a halfthousand square foot, uh, putter
studio.
It's gonna have one of everyhead cover we've made on the
(35:45):
wall, all the putters, everyball marker we've ever made,
just like almost like a museumof everything which is really
it's gonna be like pop artalmost too.
Paul (35:52):
You know, over time you're just going to see like all
these cool designs and stuffthat are just going to be like
that's really cool yeah, I mean,honestly, a lot of a lot of
people kind of consider it art.
Nick (36:01):
To be honest with you, um, we have a lot.
We have a lot of believe it ornot, we have a lot of collectors
who will never use itlegitimately, have never played
golf, um, or they, they have theaspirations to play golf and
they have bought our productsand hung them in their offices
or their homes because theythink it's cool.
They treat it like artwork andthey value it.
(36:22):
And it's pretty cool to seethat when you have somebody
who's not a golfer, who's gotlike 100 head covers behind them
just because they dig it, it,looks cool.
Paul (36:31):
I bet that.
I mean even, yeah, you get awhole wall of just head, of your
head covers, like that would besick dude, that's like I don't
know.
I think that'd be cool.
You gotta do like a gi joe oneor something dude, or like stuff
from when we were kids, like Ithink other stuff like we've
talked about getting to toylicensing.
Nick (36:48):
Yeah, like, like mattel and hasbro and those kind of
yeah, for sure, um let's talkabout your bags.
Paul (36:54):
Your bags are super sick too.
What inspires you to make thoselook like that?
Nick (37:01):
um, honestly, just like, if you click on those, that
yellow bag right there, that uh,uh, to be loud, um, that you
have to scroll down to get thatyellow one.
Yeah, there it is.
That's, that's like.
That's just.
To me it screams like, hey,let's, let's party, let's, let's
party.
It's fun.
It's different, uh, when, whenour pga tour guys or lpga um
(37:27):
players have used a neon yellowbag like that in the past, um,
it's very hard to miss on thegolf course, very hard to miss
on tv.
You know, you know, they're aswag ambassador.
That's so sad.
Is that your favorite bag?
Um, your bag?
Yeah, no, that's, that's thatone, or that purple one right
there.
I think that one's cool too.
It's like the defaced, uh, thedefaced, uh, joker, um, like
(37:51):
hundred dollar bill.
Looks like it.
Looks like ben franklin, lookslike, uh, the joker from the,
from the batman movies.
That's hilarious.
Paul (37:57):
This looks like the one from the Batman movies.
That's hilarious.
Nick (37:57):
This looks like the one from oh, that's funny.
I love that one too.
Yeah, mutt's Putts, it's kindof like a little dumb and dumber
.
Paul (38:03):
Yeah, exactly right, that's not, it's like so cool,
and I'm not just saying like, oh, you make cool stuff, like it's
just so innovative, but it'salso like it just brings you
back, like you get the joke oryou get the reference or
whatever it is.
It's not like you know, I don'tknow.
(38:24):
I think it's amazing.
Nick (38:27):
We try to touch back on nostalgia all the time.
I think it's part of what makesyou feel good, right, and I
think there's something aboutshowing up with you know a new
head cover or a new bag, uh, youknow, to your saturday foursome
or whatever, and some guy looksat your bag and goes like what
the hell is that?
That thing's amazing.
Um, and you feel good about Imean it's I I joked when I
(38:48):
started swag, like it's kind oflike being the first kid to get
nintendo or the first kid to getthe new jordans.
Like Like if you were, if youwere, you know, in grade school
or you're, you know, 13 yearsold or 14 years old, and your
buddy gets you know his, his,his pair of whatever it is, you
know Jordan 11s and you're like,damn, like I wish, I wish I had
those right, like I want to geta pair of those.
(39:09):
If you show up to your foursomeand you're the only guy that's
got this ridiculously cool headcover or putter or bag.
Everybody likes that feeling.
It's a cool feeling and I thinkthat making cool products in
limited amounts and not havingthe whole world be able to have
it is fun.
Paul (39:26):
So is all of Swag's stuff.
Is any of that sold in stores,or is it mainly just D2C?
Nick (39:37):
We've basically been 100% D2C for the first six years.
This last year we startedgetting some of our putters,
like in Club Champion and GolfGalaxy.
You'll find some of our headcovers, some of our licensed
head covers.
In Golf Galaxy we actuallylaunched two new business lines
this Rewind Golf, which is allthe movie licensing, and
Hometown, which is all the movielicensing, and hometown, which
(39:57):
is all the sports licensing.
So you'll see those in golfgalaxy and dicks and like golf
town, canada and some of theseother places.
But, um, swag is is basicallymostly on the website.
Still, um, we just we do.
We do do some corporate andgreen grass stuff though.
Paul (40:13):
Yeah, I mean I.
Yeah, I mean I, it's like coolto have it in retail.
Right, it's called retail, butthen it's like a lot of stuff is
kind of one of a kind you knowwhat I mean not one.
Nick (40:24):
Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, the main reason for
even putting it in retail is, um, to attract people who don't
know about us, right, becausenot everybody's on instagram,
not everybody's, you know, aslave to the algorithm and uh,
you know they want to go buysomething cool for their mom or
their dad or whatever it is, andI think if we can offer some
cool stuff to them it's worth it.
But the super limited dropstuff just all lives on
(40:48):
swaggolfcom.
Paul (40:51):
So what are you most excited about?
It's coming out on April 1st.
Are you super excited aboutthat?
Nick (40:57):
The thing I'm most excited about I can't talk about
because it's coming out in April1st.
I think super excited aboutthat.
The thing I'm most excitedabout I can't talk about cause
it's a surprise.
Paul (41:02):
It's and it's really cool.
Nick (41:04):
It's really cool, we got some.
We got some cool stuff coming.
Let's see what, what, what canI talk about that's coming out.
Paul (41:11):
I saw some cool stuff the PGA cool stuff, the pga show you
guys have coming out and I waslike that's cool.
Nick (41:15):
Yeah, I mean you know, we got some big projects in store
this year.
So, um, it's, it's going to bea busy year, as it always is,
but we got some really bigprojects coming out.
Paul (41:25):
Another big growth year could let new cool stuff yeah,
another, another big growth year.
Nick (41:29):
We um, you know, we, we've been.
We've been fortunate enough tobeen asked to do um head covers
for the rider cup the lastcouple years and for the team as
the captain's gifts.
This year, we're actually theofficial bag of the Ryder Cup,
which is awesome and we'rereally excited about that.
Yeah, so that'll be unveiled ina month or so.
Paul (41:48):
Well, I just want to tell you guys, swag.
Golf makes some cool stuff, andif you like cool head covers or
cool bags or cool putters oryou want to have really, really
cool, that's like I don't know.
I feel it's like the kind offorefront of what's happening
right now in golf, especially inaccessories and putters.
You guys have to check out swag.
(42:09):
I mean, like where where canpeople find swag if they don't
know where swag is, if theydon't have the internet, I guess
?
Nick (42:15):
Swag if they don't know where swag is, if they don't
have the internet, I guessSwaggolf is the number one place
you can go.
Also, you can check Golf Galaxyand Club Champion.
They have our putters in thereand a few head covers as well.
That's cool.
Paul (42:27):
Well, guys.
Thank you, nick for being onthe show today.
I really appreciate it.
Like I said, swag is awesome.
We're to find them and I willsee you guys on the next episode
.
(42:39):
Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the
golf brand podcast.
You're gonna beat me.
Stay connected on and off theshow by visiting
golfersauthoritycom.
Don't forget to like, subscribeand leave a comment.
Golf is always more fun whenyou win.
Stay out of the beach and seeyou on the green.
Appreciate it.
Paul, you're making my headblow up a little bit here, so
thanks, appreciate it, that'sall right, dude, that's cool.
Paul (01:18):
I don't mind that.
Nick (01:28):
We all have to get that sometimes.
Um, so where are you from?
From chicago, born and raised.
What part of chicago, uh, northof the city, up in lake forest,
is where, uh, where, I grew up?
Paul (01:36):
um.
Are you good at golf?
Are you shitty?
I'm good really are you reallyyeah, zero handicap zero scratch
are you really?
Yeah, you're honorable almost15, so that makes that choke my
buddies hate it.
Nick (01:51):
You know it's uh.
I don't know why I don't playas much as I should, but somehow
, uh, the duct tape and superglue keeps the, uh, the game,
together.
Is your dad?
Paul (01:58):
like who taught you how to golf?
Like your dad, or what?
Nick (02:01):
your grandpa, uh no, you know my, my dad dabbled golfing
growing up, but um, actually, agood buddy of mine kind of
convinced me to go play with himone day and I just kind of fell
in love with the game.
I was 13 years old.
How old were you?
Paul (02:13):
13.
Wow, and then did you starttaking lessons.
Nick (02:17):
You play in high school, or yeah, I played through high
school um no, I didn't take anylessons um kind of really just
self-taught um, you know, justplaying 36 holes a day at junior
golf, carrying my own bag allsummer, working at the golf
course parking carts when I waslike 14, 15 and getting free
golf out of it.
So I played like 200 right yeah, it was awesome, it was the
(02:40):
best so that was like your firsttaste.
Paul (02:44):
Like into golf, though right, it's like just playing as
a kid and like really gettinginto it and getting good.
Like did you do like all likethe agca, whatever tournaments
and all that?
Nick (02:54):
no, I didn't do any like the ajga or anything like that.
I played some of those ijga,like local events, you know,
cdga, local events, um, but uh,honestly, like the, it was a lot
of playing golf with like a lotof the older guys that at the
club who were, uh, you know, inhigh school or whatever and
honestly, you know, they took mymoney in the early days and
they taught me how to gamble onthe golf course the good, the
(03:15):
good, the real parts of golf.
Yeah right, I mean that's whereI really learned how to play
what's the most amount of moneyyou ever won as a kid gambling
um, actually, I mean, I wouldn'tsay it was amount of money I.
I remember a time I won a ti-83calculator no way, yeah, yeah, I
want a calculator off.
Somebody, uh, who wanted, whowanted to double down, didn't
(03:37):
have the money, and so yeah yeah, I got.
Yeah, hey, what was the gameused to play on TI-83s, like
Drug Wars and some of thosegames?
(03:44):
Oh, yeah, drug Wars.
Oh my God dude.
Nick (03:46):
Yeah, one of those really crappy games you could play.
Oh my God.
Paul (03:49):
Yeah, and you'd be like you could buy stuff.
It was very like this is whatit is Hit, yes or no?
Nick (03:56):
It was like GTA way before GTA.
Paul (04:05):
It was like yeah, it was like the four guys version of
gta.
Yes, yeah, exactly, it was socool.
Nick (04:07):
So when you're high school , you're not trying to pay
attention.
Paul (04:09):
You're like, hold on, you guys saw some crack.
Um, oh my god, dude, that'scrazy.
I heard a story once about aguy who lost 60 grand, uh, at
one round, one round of golf.
I was like I believe it, I'veseen, I've seen some crazy stuff
, crazy stuff, like crazy.
Um, what else have you won?
Nick (04:28):
is that when you?
Paul (04:28):
want your star tack phone, or is that?
Nick (04:30):
like no, no, no, you know, I don't know.
We, honestly, as kids, we werealways playing for, like you
know, lunch or something likethat.
We were playing eight pointscotch for you know a nickel or
something it was.
It was nothing, it was, it was.
They were cheap games.
Um, I've gotten to some biggergames lately, you know, in the
past years, but it's uh, it'smore for fun and pride.
Paul (04:48):
I just want to win, I don't really care.
Yeah.
So I know your story becauseyou told me it, but I love your
story.
So, like, how did you get intoputters?
Initially?
Because he's like the og ofputters.
Nick (05:03):
You guys like initially because he's like the og of
putters you guys like you know Igot, I got into it like
honestly I was, you know, like Isaid, 13, 14, 15 years old,
playing at deer path golf courseup in lake forest and um, for
whatever reason, like one of mybuddies needed a putter to be
refinished.
Um, he dinged it or dented itand I like had in my head that I
could fix it for him somehow.
(05:23):
So, um, I was like in mybasement with sandpaper and
doing the whole thing and likemade it look nice for him and at
the time I was just superinterested in in, uh, buying a
scotty cameron, my first scottycameron.
I was 15 years old.
I was like I got, I gotta havea scotty cameron, you know how
did you hear?
about scotty cameron.
Back then you just thought onthe tour honestly because I was
watching Tiger, right, I mean, Iwas watching Tiger and he had
the Scotty Cameron Terrelliumand it was just super cool and
(05:47):
different copper insert.
Nobody had anything like that.
I thought the putter was sexyas hell and I wanted one and
they were expensive and it wasone of those things where it's
like I had to have it.
So I was like the first guy inmy group to get a Scotty Cameron
.
I had to borrow money from mydad to get it and uh, I remember
him telling me like it wascrazy how expensive it was.
Kind of thought he was going toteach me a lesson.
(06:07):
You know like you shouldn't bebuying a putter that's this
expensive and um, it just tookme down a rabbit hole of
learning about collectibleputters and high-end putters
because back then, like itwasn't really a thing yet, right
, like, like it just it had juststarted.
but I mean, don't't forget whatyear was this?
End of 97.
Tiger won the Masters in 97.
End of 97 or 98.
(06:29):
And maybe eBay was around, butI don't think anybody was using
it as we are today.
There was, like golf webclassified ads and there was the
Yahoo golf forums and all thesejust weird old archaic websites
where people were buying andselling golf products, but just
nothing like you know, nothinglike we have today with you know
(06:51):
, the golf works and theFacebook groups and all that
sort of stuff.
I mean there's, there's nothinglike.
There was nothing like that.
And I found myself in this golfwide classifieds where people
were looking for like rareScotty Cameron's and I was like
man I, I think Scotty Cameronsand I was like man I, I think
Scotty Camerons are cool.
I think I could.
I think I could.
You know, maybe I can find someof these.
And I ended up becoming friendswith a guy in Japan who was
(07:12):
looking for some Scotty Cameronnew Scotty Camerons from the
United States and we made a deal.
I had no idea who he was at thetime.
It was honestly like ahandshake agreement over the
internet.
And I got handshake agreementover the internet and I got him
putters he wanted from the usand he got me old scotty cameron
(07:33):
stuff from japan.
Paul (07:33):
that was handmade and I became like, yeah, I became like
a dealer at 15 years old umbuying and selling 83 dude and
you learned how to do that.
Nick (07:37):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So I had all these packagesshowing up my house and, you
know, I think my dad was, youknow, probably not 100 sure what
I was up to, but, um, I got thejob done and I was making money
selling putters, so it was fun.
Paul (07:47):
You were making pretty good money.
How old were you?
Nick (07:49):
like 16, 17 or something.
Yeah like 15, 16, 17.
I was making more money buyingand selling putters than I was
working at the golf course,that's for sure.
Paul (07:58):
So that was the initial everything was.
You were just buying andselling scotty camerons.
Yeah, like I don't, like I knowwhen, like what's the oldest
scotty cameras back then?
Like when, like when you don'tthink of an original ogs of that
from the 80s?
Nick (08:13):
me I don't know early, early, early 90s, um, like some
of this handmade stuff that was,yeah, you know, true handmade
putters that were, um, justreally special, super cool stuff
.
That, um, you know it was itwas, it was um stuff that it was
impossible to find them.
Back then it was really hard tofind them because people
coveted them.
Paul (08:31):
So then did you start amassing a collection then?
Nick (08:39):
Yeah, I built up a collection.
I was buying and selling but atthe same time I was amassing a
collection of them.
Then there was a Yahoo ScottyCameron collectors group that
started and then there wasanother Scotty Cameron fan page
that started and I just kind ofbecame known as somebody who-.
Paul (08:56):
What was your name on there?
Nick (08:57):
Nick Benson, scotty, cameron, number nine no, no, no,
it was like my nickname from asa kid.
People called me venno,v-e-n-n-o was my nickname, so,
um, that's just what.
I went by on there and uh, um,yeah, it's got known as a guy
that could get stuff and I wasjust intrigued at the idea of
making money off anything Icould at the time, just because
(09:18):
I was an entrepreneur.
Um, I was into trading cardsand all that other good stuff
too that kids were into.
But but putters was a, was awas a much higher profit margin.
Paul (09:27):
Like what, like back then, like what would it sell for?
I have no idea.
Like I mean, not crazy.
Nick (09:32):
I mean honestly, even back then it was all over the place.
I mean, some of the, some ofthe high end stuff was already
going for a rare scotty backthen crap, yeah, I mean, that's
playing fine, how much.
Thing that that is worth.
Now I don't even know.
Paul (09:48):
I mean, the prices have gone up dramatically, yeah so
you were venno, you were the bigvenno, um, and everybody knew
that you were like the man.
And then what happened?
So, like you.
This is so cool.
Nick (10:04):
I love this story so I, um , I get, I get um.
You know I could I'll fastforward like a little bit into
it, but I I basically get knownas this guy that's really into
it.
No, I know my stuff, I know the, you know, I know the nuances
of uh the putters and um as theyears go on.
I'm in college and um, this guy, rand, who unfortunately passed
away a few years ago, wanted touh open up a new scotty cameron
(10:28):
distributorship in uh, la andum, I was on a short list, um of
like three people, but I wasnumber one on his list for
somebody he thought could reallydo this.
I had met scotty at a at acameron collectors convention a
few years earlier and uh, I justthink that you're in high
school, though.
Right, I was in high school.
(10:48):
Yeah, I can't believe it waslike I was, like I was like 17
or 18 years old it was my end ofmy junior year, I think and, um
, I had an eye for it and, uh,this guy ran, knew I had an eye
for it and uh, they wanted me torun the art of putters, which
was this um, they wanted me torun the Art of Putters, which
was this new high-enddistributor in LA, and deal with
all the collectors and do someof the high-end collectors
putters and really be like aconcierge to those guys, because
(11:14):
I knew them all already,because I was Veno right, I was
the guy on the board thateverybody talked to.
Paul (11:20):
Yeah, you knew you could get it, or you could try to find
it, or you know I might havehad one, or whatever.
Yeah, so then it's so crazy.
So then you're in, we're,you're in.
You're you of iowa, weren't you?
I was at.
Nick (11:33):
I was at iowa, I was at iowa I was at iowa dropped,
dropped out of school, wtf yeah,you shouldn't got that scotty
cameron for me five years ago.
No, he was, he was prettysupportive.
You know I was.
I was the one that was kind ofuh, you know, a little
tongue-in-cheek.
I was like, yeah, hey, dad, Itold you I didn't need to go to
college, like for this, I wasgoing to figure it out on my own
(11:54):
.
I was always like I said, I wasalways an entrepreneur, but um
dropped dropped out of collegeum halfway through my junior
year and um moved out to LA onmy own and just started my life
in the putter world.
(12:08):
How old were you?
Nick (12:10):
I was 20 when I moved out to LA, did you?
Paul (12:14):
like LA Couldn't even drink that Pardon, did you like
it?
Or you're like oh man, this isnot, you know what.
Nick (12:21):
I fell in love with the idea of LA but, being a Midwest
guy born and raised, no offenseto Los Angeles who are listening
right?
(12:31):
now yeah, Midwest guy.
Nick (12:33):
It wasn't my place.
It wasn't my place.
It wasn't my place.
I love to visit, but I like theMidwest, I like Chicago.
It's my home.
Paul (12:39):
So then, what happened to that company?
What were you doing there?
Nick (12:45):
So, yeah, we were running the Argo Putters, it was going
great, but, honestly, it was oneof those things where I just
realized it wasn't for me, la ingeneral.
I had bigger aspirations to domy own thing, um, so I moved
back to chicago.
Uh, three and a half yearslater, almost four years later,
and um was about to go back toschool actually, which I hated
(13:06):
the idea of and someone goes youshould, you should go talk to,
uh, bob bentonardi.
Um, he makes awesome putters.
He's in chicago.
I think you guys they're in newOrleans, aren't they?
Paul (13:16):
We're in New.
Nick (13:16):
Orleans Park, I think you guys would hit it off and I said
, okay, great.
And I got introduced to him.
We had a great talk.
I explained to him I wanted todo more than just sell.
I had my own ideas for designand I thought I could be an
asset to grow in his brand.
And we made a deal and I spentnine years, you know, growing
(13:37):
the market.
Yeah, really, honestly, startoff, you know, just kind of
dabbling it, but by the time Iwas done, I was designing and
and polishing, painting, doing,you know, doing, doing a lot of
everything, doing everything.
But I was in love with putters.
I mean, that's, that's been my,it's been my jam.
I'm a putter nerd at heart and,yeah, again, kind of same thing
(13:59):
.
Paul (14:01):
Like that.
I think putters are a work ofart that are functional.
Nick (14:05):
Yeah, oh, definitely it's, it's, it's art for sure.
I mean, I dabbled in 3dmodeling and AutoCAD and all
these things and I I think Iknew enough about um engine, not
engineering but like I knewenough about machining that I
had my own thoughts on how Iwanted to make a putter um, and
I had, you know, been fortunateenough to work with, you know,
basically two of the greatestputter makers of all time, and
all time like seriously, yeah,and and those guys, um are are
(14:29):
awesome at what they do and Ithink that it was one of those
things where I was like how do Iput my own, my own spin on this
?
Because I had a bunch of ideas.
Honestly, even since the daysof the Scotty Cameron stuff,
where I'd always been working onlike I'll call it my little
black book of ideas, I was toldit's too loud or it's too crazy,
or you know, we can't do itthat way because of X, Y, Z, or
(14:52):
no one can, nobody can machineit that way, or nobody would
ever stitch that many stitcheson a head cover.
And I just it was like why, Idon't know why, what, what's the
what's the reason?
I keep hearing no, but no one'sreally telling me why.
Paul (15:05):
And I decided that I didn't want to, didn't want to,
or didn't have to.
I don't know you know, didn'thave to, I don't know, didn't
have to.
It comes down to dollar andcents.
It's not like when you're young.
Nick (15:17):
I had a couple of buddies who had really honestly been
telling me man, you're so goodat this stuff, why are you not
going out on your own doing this?
And so I said, screw it, I'mgoing to do this on my own.
I had had it with being told no, and so I decided that I was
going to start my own company.
So I, um, I started swag and,uh, basically, I had, I had the
(15:38):
idea for swag for a while thedon't give a pot.
I had that like the trademark,the whole idea of it, like I had
already had it in my head, butI hadn't known how to execute it
.
So I went to a couple buddies.
I said, hey, guys, I need to.
I need to do my own thing now.
Um, are you interested in this?
Um, this is middle of 2017 andI go, I'm gonna start this thing
(16:00):
tomorrow.
Basically, are you, are you inor out?
Here's my five-year plan.
And, uh, all the three guysthat I went to um, and then I
had, uh, you know, a few other,like just friends and family
that wanted to invest, justbecause they thought it'd be,
you know, fun to have a piece ofit and help you and yeah, um,
they just wanted to say theywere part of it and um it it was
awesome I had.
I had four you know four buddiesand myself.
(16:21):
We started that.
We started the business.
Um.
The other three of them reallyknew nothing about golf.
Um, I was the only golfer, um,only one in the golf business
and the only goal and but theywere.
They were talented in their ownright.
Uh, one of them was, uh, one ofthem was an engineer, um.
Another one was an amazing, uh,artist, um, who invested, and a
graphic designer.
(16:42):
And um, the other one wassomeone I had met more recently
who just was, um, you know, uh,just a good guy basically.
And then another buddy of minethat I'd had for like 35 years,
um, who had dabbled in a wholebunch of other stuff, um, in
sales and whatever.
And I just said, guys, if youtrust me, we're going to, we're
going to create a cool business.
And, uh, they did so.
(17:02):
Um, we sat in a room together ina 2000 square foot building and
, uh, I did most of the heavylifting when it came to like the
uh, you know, getting theputters built, getting them
ready, getting figuring out howwe were going to sell this stuff
.
Really, all the originaldesigns were all my own on day
one, um, and then I startedletting you know the rest of the
group kind of put their theirspin on it and, um, it was very
(17:24):
successful, um, when we launchedit in april 1 2018 I remember
you guys first came out I waslike, oh, this is cool, you know
, we te know, we teased it.
We teased it, the PGA show.
We I hired two models to run torun a booth the PGA show with a
pedestal that had one headcover and one putter in it, and
(17:46):
it was.
I told them we had the big swagDon't give a pot.
It was a little 10 by 10 booth,really cool putter with this
amazing like 170,000, 125,000stitch head cover on it.
And they said well, what do youwant us to tell people?
I told them, just tell people.
You have no idea who's behindthe business.
You have no idea anything otherthan show up to swag golf on
April one at midnight Don't be afool, april fool's day, right,
(18:08):
and it worked.
And we had a bunch of peopleshow up to the website.
We teased a few things online.
Um, we basically sold out ofeverything the first night.
Um, you know, and that firstnight was, you know, it wasn't
like we had a million productsup there, you know, we maybe had
200 like that products, but, um, it was just a.
It was a.
It was an awesome launch, funexperience for us to uh see
people that were attracted tothese ideas that I'd had for a
(18:30):
long time well, you knew, I meanyou knew that people wanted
that right.
Like like you, I felt yeah, Imean I felt that they wanted it.
I mean it felt like there was a, there was a void.
You wanted it.
Right, you probably wanted it,I wanted it.
Paul (18:45):
Yeah, people out there like oh, I want that.
Nick (18:46):
And putter people like you knew it was, just no one was
was willing to try it right orlike, yeah, and you know
honestly the the crazy part is Ireally started to be a putter
company, but the head coverskind of overshadowed it, just
because they were so cool andthey came out so awesome and um,
the quality was amazing beingmade here in the us and really
just um, I think that we justran with it because we realized
(19:10):
how, how much demand there wasfor badass head covers super
badass head covers.
Paul (19:16):
Super badass head covers.
Nick (19:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean again, putters being my passion.
I still love putters.
We make an unbelievable putter,but the head covers have always
been the star of the show forsure.
Paul (19:28):
So was that part of the initial drop when you did it in
the beginning?
Was the head cover or that wasjust part of it?
Nick (19:33):
No, no, no, we had like six different head covers up
there one putter, a hat, maybe acouple t-shirts, um yeah, a few
other accessories, nothingcrazy.
Paul (19:44):
And then so that first that first drop happened, it
blew up and you're like holycrap, I knew it's gonna happen.
So then what did you do?
Did you start like, okay, nowwe're gonna come up with new
designs, you know?
(19:55):
how did you grow it?
Paul (19:56):
You grew it really fast, dude.
It's only been like seven years, but that's not a long time,
right?
No?
Nick (20:02):
I had my little black book of ideas, so I just started
executing all these ideas that Ithought were good and Tommy,
who was our head of he, he wasamazing at taking my ideas and,
um, really like making them cometo life.
Um, that was that was.
It was huge.
Uh, it was it.
It allowed us to move quicklyand make really cool stuff at a
(20:26):
quick pace.
Uh, we were working with, uh,this company, ep, out of Georgia
, who was making all the headcovers, and they were like, you
know, maybe they had been inbusiness for five or six years
at most, maybe five years at thetime but they made a really
high quality head cover and Iquickly realized in our first
year that we were going to be introuble if we didn't start
(20:49):
making our own head covers.
So we acquired EP then in early2020, because I still needed to
own that manufacturing of thehead covers, just like we were
making our own potter's head.
Yeah, then you'd be hostage,right like then you're like oh
crap.
Yeah, honestly, I thoughtsomebody else was gonna buy them
.
That's, that's really your hose, yeah yeah, such a forward
thinker bro so yeah, so, um, butyeah, I mean it's, it's been
(21:12):
amazing.
I mean, uh, we have an, we havean amazing facility in georgia.
Now I mean it's been amazing.
I mean we have an amazingfacility in Georgia.
Now it's humming, it's making Idon't even know how many head
covers a day right now a lot,and it's been a great
opportunity to be able toleverage, be able to turn things
quickly without having to worryabout trying to make everything
(21:33):
overseas.
Paul (21:37):
So what percentage is made in the United States?
Nick (21:39):
and most of it things quickly um without having to
worry about, you know, trying tomake everything overseas.
So what percentage?
is made in the united states andmost of it, yeah, I mean I'd
say 90 percent.
Yeah, honestly, there's certainthings we can't do here, just
like there's materials we can'tsource the united states.
There's certain um likeplutonium, and it's just it.
Just in the golf industry ingeneral though right, I mean
like grips, like nobody's makingreally there's very few grip
(22:01):
opportunities here in the unitedstates.
Um, all the shafts are madeoverseas, outside of you know,
maybe dynamic gold for a smallbatch of what they do.
Um, golf pride, I still think,makes some of the grips here in
the us.
I don't think they make themall.
Um, I could be wrong on that,but it's just again, it's, it's,
it's.
The options are are tough, sosome things are sourced I have
no idea that did that much.
Paul (22:20):
Honestly, I didn't know those that you had that much in
the united states.
Nick (22:23):
That's amazing yeah, I think, honestly, you know, the
fine thing is, I think that Ithink overseas kind of gets a
bad rap.
Um, they're very good at whatthey do, but um, you know,
honestly, with everything that'sgoing on in the world right now
, it's nice to have domesticmanufacturing oh yeah, dude with
tariffs and shit that happensyeah it's great and you're like
we're the same price as we werebefore.
Paul (22:42):
Yeah, um, american made um .
So how do you come up with allthese ideas, like, because
you've come up with like somelike just I don't know cool
stuff, like is it in your blackbook or you just think you
something and going you knowwhat that'd be kind of cool.
Are you an artist when it comesdown to it?
Nick (23:00):
I mean, yeah, I am Honestly, graphic design was
what I enjoyed most growing up,through high school and college.
That's something I always did.
Adobe Illustrator, adobePhotoshop, all that sort of
stuff yeah, I have an eye for it.
I don't know.
I always tell people it's likeit's one of those weird things
where I could like be watching amovie or I see something
somewhere else in anotherindustry it could be fly,
(23:21):
fishing, you know whatever it isand I go, man, it gives me an
idea.
What if we did this with a golfhead cover?
What if we did this with aputter?
We know what?
What do I like that otherpeople you know might be
attracted to, right, you know?
Uh, I'm, I'm not.
I always tell this one all thetime like I'm not a wwe
wrestling fan.
It's just something I never gotinto.
Yeah, right, but I got friendswho love it.
(23:42):
Why isn't anybody made cool wwehead covers?
Well, why don't we do it first?
Let's just do it.
I mean, why not?
Let's bring people into thebrand by making things that
people, um, who golf, likeoutside of golf?
Um, that's really kind of how Ithought about everything with a
lot of the designs we do.
It's just what could you beinto that?
Paul (24:00):
um is is unique and different that maybe nobody else
in the golf space is thinkingabout I mean, you need some like
even with all your, even whenit comes to like your ball
markers, like like, for example,you have that one that's like a
it looks like the old schoolnintendo cartridge, right?
Yeah, like, that's so smart,you know?
Nick (24:19):
yeah, just like yeah, I mean we made, we've made little
patrone bottles for, uh, youknow, for for um markers.
We've done, god, I mean so manythings candy hearts like, like,
like, like sweethearts with alllike the little yeah, I
remember that bottle caps, um, Imean just a ton of stuff we've
done and to me it was alwaysabout making them the right way,
(24:40):
like not getting a cheapstamped version of it, making
like a realistic yeah like oh,it's the knockoff of whatever,
like a realistic, milled versionof what that would be if it was
miniature and it took a lot oftime to make that stuff.
But it's, it's fun.
I think it's different, youknow, so does somebody?
Is somebody gonna mark theirball with a sombrero ball marker
(25:02):
?
And, uh, you know, is that agood idea?
Probably not.
Or the mini solo cups?
Like no, it's a bad idea, right?
Um, it's gonna.
It's gonna block someone's putt, but at the same time, you know
, don't give a putt, don't givea putt attitude, hey, hit the
ball closer to the hole and mymark won't be in your way how
big is that ball marker, the onewith the solo cups?
Paul (25:19):
it's like, only like that big.
It's like it's like yeah, maybe,maybe, uh, I don't know three
quarters of an inch tall, halfinch tall I think what's cool
too, before we go into like thehead covers and like the putters
, is like the forward thinkingyou have when it comes to
licensing and working with othervery large brands, like you
(25:44):
said, with WWE and MLB.
It's like bringing in othersports so that it's not like, as
include the golf's not aninclusive sport anymore.
Right, people have otherinterests.
Yeah, like I mean, why dancearound the issue to say like I'm
going to work with them?
You know?
Nick (26:01):
like well, yeah, but I also.
I also think it's like aboutworking with, working with
people, um, or working withbrands and people who understand
that golf can be fun.
Golf can be different, right, Imean, it was, golf was a's not,
it's not my grandfather's golf,you know anymore right, it's
it's.
It's a new age in the in thegolf industry, and being able to
(26:23):
express yourself, I think, isimportant on the golf course,
because everything was kind ofstodgy and old.
It just was.
It was the old guard of makingthings the same way.
And now you see all thesecompanies, um, that are, I think
, bringing some life back intothe game, which is why golf's
kind of in this big revival.
Right, it should be fun to golf.
I don't care if you're a 25handicap or a zero, right, you
(26:46):
want to crush six beers, listento some music and go have fun
for four hours I'm in, I don'treally care, right, at the same
time and still have high qualitystuff, yeah, but why not have
something on your bag?
You're a Cubs fan, right?
Why not have the Wrigley Fieldscoreboard on your bag?
If you want it?
Why not have?
Yeah, right, you want CoachDicka on your head cover, why
(27:11):
not.
It should be fun.
You should be able to expressyourself and have what your
other passions are, bereflective of it on the golf
course.
And I think that you know,historically, when you look at
things like like MLB in the NFL,it's a lot of, it was a lot of
slapping, you know, like pastinglogos right, taking team logo,
throwing on a head cover.
For me it was like, well, whycan't we just do something
(27:35):
really cool and different?
Why do why do we have to logoslap?
Um, let's, let's, let's make itfun.
Um, let's, let's tie into thecore fan.
What, what do they remember?
What do they know?
Um, what's the?
What's the inside?
Paul (27:48):
joke on this, like that they would understand that this
is about not.
Oh, it's a 49ers helmet.
Oh, you know like, yeah, howdoes that work though?
Because I don't really knowlike.
So, like, if you do a collab oryou do a head cover for the
cubs, like you said, right, didyou get like approval from them
before?
Nick (28:08):
I would assume so right, like you gotta get full approval
by by you know, uh, mlb, thecubs, everybody, uh, yeah, all
parties, yeah, and honestly, youknow it's not an easy process.
Um, as we've gone into movielicensing and some of these
other things, um, it's typicallypretty difficult to to really
have full creativity.
So we gotta, we gotta, walk afine line a lot of time.
(28:29):
But usually, as time goes on,the the, the more we do, the the
line goes a little further outand they let us do a little bit
more so uh more, and they know,like they're not, the leash gets
longer because they're not like, listen, we're trying to be
respective respectful toeverybody that we work with.
We're never gonna do somethingthat we think is disrespectful
to them.
But you know, it's, it's gonna,it's gonna be.
(28:50):
It's also the same time it'sgonna be hard to uh convince.
You know, let's say I'm tryingto think of an example of one,
but oh, I have a great one.
So we made the winningscorecard from Cubs game seven
world series from Pat Hughes ashe was writing it, as he was
announcing right, and at thetime when we submitted this idea
(29:12):
to make a head cover out ofthat, one of the worries was
that we were somehow going to behurting the Cleveland Indians
players because they were thelosers on the head cover and it
was going to not be seen as arespectful head cover to them,
and had to explain to MLB that,hey, this is the real scorecard
from the game.
(29:32):
Nothing is, it's just we're notmaking it up.
And thankfully the cubs came tobat for us and um and the and
the indians also signed off onit, which was awesome because it
was a historic moment.
It was a cool thing to be ableto memorialize on a head cover
so how big is the team when itcomes to doing the designs?
Paul (29:52):
I mean, there's probably obviously you, but you have a
team that helps you also.
Nick (29:55):
Come, you got like 10 10 people on our design team right
now.
Paul (29:59):
Dude I love your head covers brothers, like like
seriously, they're so freakingcool.
Let me, I'm gonna share thescreen, like seriously how like
here this is.
Nick (30:08):
I'll show you my favorite right now.
This is one of my favorites.
Oh my god, you look so badass.
You remember when he waswalking across the field?
Paul (30:16):
yeah, I just wanted that's all I used to do, man, did I
have?
Like I still have my bearsjacket.
I do look so badass.
You remember when he waswalking across the field?
Yeah, that's all I used to do,man, I still have my Bears
jacket from 1985.
Yeah, starter jacket, that wasawesome.
No, if I got it for Christmas,I'd get my son to wear it and it
was like, oh my God, I rememberI got it for Christmas morning.
I got that and the Jim McMahonsunglasses.
Nick (30:32):
I thought it was cool.
Oh, we worked with Jim on some.
We made some punky QB headcovers.
They were awesome.
Paul (30:38):
So you like I don't know Like I, when I go to your like
what's so cool about your stuff?
It's nostalgic but modern, ifthat makes sense.
Nick (30:48):
Like you know.
Paul (30:48):
I may get brought back to that moment.
Nick (30:50):
You're like oh yeah, that's that's how we, that's how
we look at kind of everythingwe do.
Right it, that's how we look ateverything we do.
I don't care if you're 42 yearsold or 32 years old or 52 years
old or 62 years old.
There's something from yourchildhood that calls out to you
and you remember.
You can tell us right away whatthat was.
It's fun to do stuff like thatand give people something that
(31:15):
they can um, you know, rememberand make they feel a little bit
younger again.
Right, I mean I'm I don't thinkI'm old at 42, but there's
things I remember from when Iwas 15 that are fun to remember
and I want to.
I want to.
Paul (31:26):
Maybe I want that on my golf bag like this I remember
this game wasn't it called likecruising or something?
Yeah, say like, like that's it,like you see it and you know
right away, like I don't knowthis thing.
It's so cool, man.
Like honestly, um, it blows meaway.
Uh, when like so what's comingout right now or this year that
(31:51):
you guys are really excitedabout, like what's the latest
drop?
Nick (31:54):
well, the big, the big thing now is, uh, april 1, so
it's our seven year anniversary.
So on midnight on april one,we're gonna be dropping, uh, new
products, like we always doevery year, and usually all of
our hardcore ogs plus, you know,new fans of the brand show up
at midnight central time and, uh, we do a drop and then we drop
other stuff throughout the dayon april one, but, um, it's
usually where we bring back somesome of our most iconic stuff,
(32:16):
as well as any new stuff that wewant to show off.
Paul (32:20):
That's like the big ramp-up period right now, a week
and a half.
Nick (32:26):
That staff bag.
Right there is the cool thingwe just dropped yesterday.
Paul (32:32):
That's cool, and this is for the April 1,?
Nick (32:39):
I'm assuming no this is just something that we dropped
this week just because we wantedto drop something cool that's
so freaking cool dude.
Paul (32:49):
What I love is the baseball stuff, personally,
Especially with the LA Dodgersand the Cubs.
The series Scroll down one more.
Nick (32:59):
I like, I like the.
Uh, the bobbleheads are thosedown?
There's one line below, I think.
Yeah, I love those, the bot,the king bobbleheads I go is
that my hair yeah, that's it.
Paul (33:13):
I mean, it's like so innovative, like honestly, man,
I mean like I have mine righthere, I'll show you guys.
Nick (33:22):
You got the King of Diamonds right.
Yeah, king of Diamonds, dodgers.
Paul (33:26):
I've got that one too, so freaking sick and the.
Nick (33:29):
Cherry Blossom yeah.
Paul (33:31):
It's like, and you know it's going to sell out Like you
know it will, and you know thatit's going to out like I, you
know it will, and you know thatit's gonna be like something
people are gonna remember,especially if you're a fan of
that team or that time or Idon't know.
It's.
It's awesome, what.
So right now you have licensingdeals with who?
Nick (33:52):
kool-aid.
Huh, wow, wwe garbage bill,kids, ml, mlb, nfl, ncaa.
I'm sure there's ones I'mforgetting, but yeah a lot.
Paul (34:03):
Do you have to do individual deals with each
college?
Don't you have to do that withNCAA?
Nick (34:09):
Yeah, yeah, every college.
Paul (34:10):
Yeah yeah, I remember reading that somewhere.
What, let's talk about theputters.
What is your most popularputter?
Nick (34:21):
you would say Probably that one that you're looking at
right there in the middle, theBoss 2.0, yeah.
Paul (34:28):
Now where are?
Nick (34:28):
these.
Boss 2.0 or the Handsome one.
It's a standard original PingAnser Scotty Cameron Newport
style head.
You know a standard likeoriginal ping answer scotty
cameron newport style head.
Boss is a.
Is a like a mid uh or a largersize mallet, um face balance
mallet and um I mean they're all.
Paul (34:52):
I mean that all of them do pretty well, but those two by
far are the best and what's cool.
Nick (34:55):
Then you have, like the head cover to go with it, right,
like anybody can choose it,whatever.
Yeah, they can choose like oneof the one of the crazy covers
to go with it, which is which isfun is this?
Paul (35:01):
is this putter right here?
What was it from last year?
When was this one?
Nick (35:04):
no, those are all from like, oh man, I don't know,
overall that's so cool, likefive years ago maybe.
Um, I love that wrigley fieldputter.
Or this, the, that's so cooltoo.
Or the swagatha, the don't givea putt.
Paul (35:17):
Um, I love that one too I bet your office are pretty sick
with like.
Do you have all, like, at leastall the originals of everything
too?
Nick (35:24):
you know what we um so I kept one of everything we've
ever made, um, as far as puttersgo, and almost two of every
head cover we ever made.
And we just moved to a newoffice back in december and
we're in the process of gettingour uh, our putter studio up and
going.
So we're gonna have like alittle over three, three and a
half thousand, three and a halfthousand square foot, uh, putter
studio.
It's gonna have one of everyhead cover we've made on the
(35:45):
wall, all the putters, everyball marker we've ever made,
just like almost like a museumof everything which is really
it's gonna be like pop artalmost too.
Paul (35:52):
You know, over time you're just going to see like all
these cool designs and stuffthat are just going to be like
that's really cool yeah, I mean,honestly, a lot of a lot of
people kind of consider it art.
Nick (36:01):
To be honest with you, um, we have a lot.
We have a lot of believe it ornot, we have a lot of collectors
who will never use itlegitimately, have never played
golf, um, or they, they have theaspirations to play golf and
they have bought our productsand hung them in their offices
or their homes because theythink it's cool.
They treat it like artwork andthey value it.
(36:22):
And it's pretty cool to seethat when you have somebody
who's not a golfer, who's gotlike 100 head covers behind them
just because they dig it, it,looks cool.
Paul (36:31):
I bet that.
I mean even, yeah, you get awhole wall of just head, of your
head covers, like that would besick dude, that's like I don't
know.
I think that'd be cool.
You gotta do like a gi joe oneor something dude, or like stuff
from when we were kids, like Ithink other stuff like we've
talked about getting to toylicensing.
Nick (36:48):
Yeah, like, like mattel and hasbro and those kind of
yeah, for sure, um let's talkabout your bags.
Paul (36:54):
Your bags are super sick too.
What inspires you to make thoselook like that?
Nick (37:01):
um, honestly, just like, if you click on those, that
yellow bag right there, that uh,uh, to be loud, um, that you
have to scroll down to get thatyellow one.
Yeah, there it is.
That's, that's like.
That's just.
To me it screams like, hey,let's, let's party, let's, let's
party.
It's fun.
It's different, uh, when, whenour pga tour guys or lpga um
(37:27):
players have used a neon yellowbag like that in the past, um,
it's very hard to miss on thegolf course, very hard to miss
on tv.
You know, you know, they're aswag ambassador.
That's so sad.
Is that your favorite bag?
Um, your bag?
Yeah, no, that's, that's thatone, or that purple one right
there.
I think that one's cool too.
It's like the defaced, uh, thedefaced, uh, joker, um, like
(37:51):
hundred dollar bill.
Looks like it.
Looks like ben franklin, lookslike, uh, the joker from the,
from the batman movies.
That's hilarious.
Paul (37:57):
This looks like the one from the Batman movies.
That's hilarious.
Nick (37:57):
This looks like the one from oh, that's funny.
I love that one too.
Yeah, mutt's Putts, it's kindof like a little dumb and dumber
.
Paul (38:03):
Yeah, exactly right, that's not, it's like so cool,
and I'm not just saying like, oh, you make cool stuff, like it's
just so innovative, but it'salso like it just brings you
back, like you get the joke oryou get the reference or
whatever it is.
It's not like you know, I don'tknow.
(38:24):
I think it's amazing.
Nick (38:27):
We try to touch back on nostalgia all the time.
I think it's part of what makesyou feel good, right, and I
think there's something aboutshowing up with you know a new
head cover or a new bag, uh, youknow, to your saturday foursome
or whatever, and some guy looksat your bag and goes like what
the hell is that?
That thing's amazing.
Um, and you feel good about Imean it's I I joked when I
(38:48):
started swag, like it's kind oflike being the first kid to get
nintendo or the first kid to getthe new jordans.
Like Like if you were, if youwere, you know, in grade school
or you're, you know, 13 yearsold or 14 years old, and your
buddy gets you know his, his,his pair of whatever it is, you
know Jordan 11s and you're like,damn, like I wish, I wish I had
those right, like I want to geta pair of those.
(39:09):
If you show up to your foursomeand you're the only guy that's
got this ridiculously cool headcover or putter or bag.
Everybody likes that feeling.
It's a cool feeling and I thinkthat making cool products in
limited amounts and not havingthe whole world be able to have
it is fun.
Paul (39:26):
So is all of Swag's stuff.
Is any of that sold in stores,or is it mainly just D2C?
Nick (39:37):
We've basically been 100% D2C for the first six years.
This last year we startedgetting some of our putters,
like in Club Champion and GolfGalaxy.
You'll find some of our headcovers, some of our licensed
head covers.
In Golf Galaxy we actuallylaunched two new business lines
this Rewind Golf, which is allthe movie licensing, and
Hometown, which is all the movielicensing, and hometown, which
(39:57):
is all the sports licensing.
So you'll see those in golfgalaxy and dicks and like golf
town, canada and some of theseother places.
But, um, swag is is basicallymostly on the website.
Still, um, we just we do.
We do do some corporate andgreen grass stuff though.
Paul (40:13):
Yeah, I mean I.
Yeah, I mean I, it's like coolto have it in retail.
Right, it's called retail, butthen it's like a lot of stuff is
kind of one of a kind you knowwhat I mean not one.
Nick (40:24):
Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, the main reason for
even putting it in retail is, um, to attract people who don't
know about us, right, becausenot everybody's on instagram,
not everybody's, you know, aslave to the algorithm and uh,
you know they want to go buysomething cool for their mom or
their dad or whatever it is, andI think if we can offer some
cool stuff to them it's worth it.
But the super limited dropstuff just all lives on
(40:48):
swaggolfcom.
Paul (40:51):
So what are you most excited about?
It's coming out on April 1st.
Are you super excited aboutthat?
Nick (40:57):
The thing I'm most excited about I can't talk about
because it's coming out in April1st.
I think super excited aboutthat.
The thing I'm most excitedabout I can't talk about cause
it's a surprise.
Paul (41:02):
It's and it's really cool.
Nick (41:04):
It's really cool, we got some.
We got some cool stuff coming.
Let's see what, what, what canI talk about that's coming out.
Paul (41:11):
I saw some cool stuff the PGA cool stuff, the pga show you
guys have coming out and I waslike that's cool.
Nick (41:15):
Yeah, I mean you know, we got some big projects in store
this year.
So, um, it's, it's going to bea busy year, as it always is,
but we got some really bigprojects coming out.
Paul (41:25):
Another big growth year could let new cool stuff yeah,
another, another big growth year.
Nick (41:29):
We um, you know, we, we've been.
We've been fortunate enough tobeen asked to do um head covers
for the rider cup the lastcouple years and for the team as
the captain's gifts.
This year, we're actually theofficial bag of the Ryder Cup,
which is awesome and we'rereally excited about that.
Yeah, so that'll be unveiled ina month or so.
Paul (41:48):
Well, I just want to tell you guys, swag.
Golf makes some cool stuff, andif you like cool head covers or
cool bags or cool putters oryou want to have really, really
cool, that's like I don't know.
I feel it's like the kind offorefront of what's happening
right now in golf, especially inaccessories and putters.
You guys have to check out swag.
(42:09):
I mean, like where where canpeople find swag if they don't
know where swag is, if theydon't have the internet, I guess
?
Nick (42:15):
Swag if they don't know where swag is, if they don't
have the internet, I guessSwaggolf is the number one place
you can go.
Also, you can check Golf Galaxyand Club Champion.
They have our putters in thereand a few head covers as well.
That's cool.
Paul (42:27):
Well, guys.
Thank you, nick for being onthe show today.
I really appreciate it.
Like I said, swag is awesome.
We're to find them and I willsee you guys on the next episode
.
(42:39):
Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the
golf brand podcast.
You're gonna beat me.
Stay connected on and off theshow by visiting
golfersauthoritycom.
Don't forget to like, subscribeand leave a comment.
Golf is always more fun whenyou win.
Stay out of the beach and seeyou on the green.
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