Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
It’s like playing a round of golf with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs and listening to the stories behind their success.
Hi, I’m Paul Liberatore, and I love talking to entrepreneurs and the stories behind their brands. I find it intriguing when people are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and successes. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to some of the biggest names and brands in the game of golf.
So come join me on my quest to find the stories Behind the Brand.
Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
#143 - Pins & Aces: Nicklaus Mertz & Liam Johnson
Pins & Aces is a dynamic and innovative golf accessories and apparel brand founded in 2017 by Nicklaus Mertz and Jonathan Major. The company emerged from a shared passion for golf and a desire to revolutionize the game with stylish, functional, and high-quality products. Headquartered in Arvada, Colorado, Pins & Aces has grown rapidly from a small online venture into an international brand known for its bold designs and unique approach to golf gear.
The company initially gained traction by addressing a gap in the market for creative and durable driver headcovers. Their early designs featured state flags and patriotic themes, which resonated with golfers seeking personalized accessories. Since then, Pins & Aces has expanded its offerings to include colorful polo shirts, pullovers, gloves, towels, golf bags, and quirky items like beer sleeves and magnetic speakers. Their products emphasize self-expression on the course while maintaining top-tier craftsmanship and functionality.
Pins & Aces thrives on innovation, regularly launching limited-edition collaborations with popular franchises like SpongeBob SquarePants and South Park. In 2024, they acquired Edel Golf, a renowned custom-fitting golf club company, further diversifying their portfolio to include premium equipment alongside accessories.
The brand’s direct-to-consumer model has been pivotal to its success, with 80% of sales occurring online. However, Pins & Aces also boasts wholesale accounts with major retailers like Golf Galaxy and PGA Tour Superstore. As their popularity grows internationally, particularly in Japan and South Korea, Pins & Aces continues to redefine golf culture for a younger, more diverse audience.
People mentioned
Liam from Pins and Aces If you guys don't know what pins and aces are then you probably don't play golf. Um, they make some of the sickest ball markers head covers in the game. They've taken that world by storm over the last, I would say, like five years, I think I know that but so I'm really excited I'm the show because I've been a fan and I don't know, they're cool dudes.
Paul:So welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks, yeah, thanks for having us Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. And actually I think, you guys, this studio is better than mine. So I don't know, I don't know about that. I'm like I need some tips, like my wall's too bright and I didn't make it darker. I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Paul:How many episodes do you guys have on your podcast now?
Speaker 1:I think we're up to like 34, 34, 35.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's a. We just kind of screw around and talk about whatever we want to talk about. Um, we do have uh, as we were kind of chatting before this got kicked off, there's there are a lot of brand loyalists to pins and aces, so they like listening to it and you get kind of behind the scenes. We throw some easter eggs in there for different deals. You know if you're listening to the podcast, you're loyalists.
Paul:So, um, yeah, it's been fun so smart, like I was talking to a. I was talking to somebody another, a guy in media. I guess what, what's that platform? And I don't look like a dumbass, but like, what's that platform? You guys like had that live show on that. You do a lot of live showing and liam's always in it.
Speaker 1:That's what my friend told me yeah, yeah, so we do it through stream labs that we do it on twitch, instagram, youtube, uh, and our website through stream agency. So we do kind of do it all over. Yeah, but we started that like maybe a month ago and just trying to do like weekly tv show type of thing tuesday nights. We have that simulator in the warehouse since we acquired adele so we were like, hey, after hours you might as well stay, do some sort of fun and stream it. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
Paul:Well, right, because aren't you guys like, hey, you're like what? Because you can ask the audience, right like what do you guys think about this and that? And then they can chime it's actually dude, that's cutting edge shit. Like honestly, because like no one else is doing that and I know other industries do that, but it's like that's how you build a real community, right? Like someone's gonna watch it all the time and like be a smart ass and say funny shit and like whatever and it's cool because we're like.
Speaker 1:You know, our main hq is attached to the warehouse, so we can ask people questions on the live. We can say like, hey, how many shots do you think this is going to take? If they answer it right like, oh, you got it right, man, we're going to throw in an extra polo and it's actually us who are shipping the orders, and that's something we can actually do.
Paul:It's not random people on the live, it's actually I've always thought about doing like live because, like I, I get so much free stuff. Right, I don't want free stuff. I'd rather give that out to somebody else, that you know what I mean. Like I need so much stuff, so it's like I just I don't know pass it on to somebody that could actually use it or appreciate it.
Paul:You know like for sure, yeah, I should talk to you guys about that later. I think I think it's genius dude, seriously, I just heard about that, like last week, from a friend of mine. I was like they do that. I didn't know that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was tuesday, 6 pm, mountain time yeah and we're doing something last night was a taco challenge, so we tried to us, for it was uh, how many tacos could we eat? In nine holes, in a four-man scramble, we ate 71 tacos. Yeah, really.
Paul:It was a lot. You had a lot of tacos for Taco Bell.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Paul:Yeah, you had a lot of tacos. They were like I bet your stomachs are killing tonight. They're like oh Jesus, dude, you want to do it with revenge.
Speaker 1:It was a bit rough last night, for sure, but it was fun, yeah for sure. Um, yeah, those live streams are pretty fun. We'll probably do like six episodes, maybe take a couple week break and then get back into it. But it all kind of started with that hole-in-one challenge I did, um, I was streaming in the simulator room until I hit a hole-in-one. Took only like four hours.
Paul:Everyone here thought it was gonna take. He's like I'm so terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm not. I'm not a good golfer, so I won't hear was like it's gonna take forever, yeah, but I think, like season finale, nick's gonna try it and he's a true scratch golfer.
Paul:So we'll see how long are you really? I'm terrible dude, I'm fucking terrible yeah, I'm not very good like me and liam versus nick and I bet I'd still like you'd still beat us. I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know I used to be the best golfer in the in the shop here, but we had a. We just recently hired a couple division one golfers. One of them, uh, buddy of mine from college. He was the one man at colorado state university where I went to and he is legitimate. He had Corn Fairy status. He's going back for it this year. He's incredibly gifted golfer. I'm not in the top three, I'm in the top three Number three. Who's number two? Peter? He played Division I golf at UNC.
Paul:Number 47? I'm probably like five or six, I guess U3 golf at.
Speaker 4:UNC. What's Liam at Number 47? I'm probably like 87?, 5 or 6?.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess U3, nico's a better golfer. John is debatable. Yeah, it could be close. I'm like 5 or 6, maybe in the office, yeah, okay so what, just before we begin, where are you guys located?
Paul:I know where you're at, but where are you guys located.
Speaker 4:I know you're at, but where are you guys located, in case people don't know yeah, we're in, uh, arvada, colorado, which is just like 10 minutes west of denver, so kind of in the foot yeah.
Paul:So then like how far are you from casa bonita? 10 minutes because I was. I just took my son there, like last month we got. Oh, really yeah, like I was telling liam that, like it was, he turned 15. Like what are you, the 15 year old? It's like, oh, and like he's in that south park. But yeah yeah that was a trip dude, but like the one weekend where it snowed I was like dude, what the hell yeah you can get that.
Speaker 4:Hopefully we're done with it. Now it's april, but, um, yeah, I can. But it's nice. People think it snows all the time. I mean, you caught it on a bad weekend, but you play golf year round here in Colorado, which is nice in December. I'm a little cold, but it's not snowing everywhere, like you see it. Ski, ski towns up in the mountains.
Speaker 1:So we played on Christmas Eve this year. Yeah, that's true, it was fine. It was a little cold, but it it was fine, it was a little cold.
Paul:It was the weather like 50s and 40s or something.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, low 50s. It's just hit or miss Like we can get snow in May, and then we also golfed on Christmas Eve. So yeah. But, super.
Paul:I like here it's getting hot now. It is like 100 today, maybe.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was kind of chilly. Good for golf, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good for golf Just a family trip. Yeah, just kind of a family trip. And then we have that tournament out at Talking Stick in like 40 days. So I met up with those guys and just kind of did a tour of the grounds, saw where everything's going to be laid out. But it was just a quick trip like three days.
Paul:Yeah, it was windy last weekend too. It was days yeah it was windy last weekend too it was nice. There's windy shit, it's snowed up mountains, I know that, but yeah, yeah, so what year? Okay, so did you guys start? Did you guys grow up playing golf? Like were you good? You know what I mean. Like did your dad teach you guys? Or like what's the story with your golf before we get to brand?
Speaker 4:yeah, um, yeah, we can get into that. Um, I definitely did. You know, I I say I say that I'm a failed college golfer. I was a pretty good high school player, but not really the best college golfer. I'd say my scoring average would be between well in high school it was like 73. Kind of bottom tier division one golf. Tried playing golf there, did that for a couple of years but knew I wasn't ever good enough to go pro. But I loved golf and, yeah, grew up playing around. It Played ever since I was a little kid, played all the time. And then Liam and I mean not so much you got into it later, after college. Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't know you. Yeah, well, I played golf probably like once a year growing up, like I'd always do with my dad once a year when he had business guys in town or something and just wasn't that into it, partly because I was so bad. Um, but we're a big soccer family and I played soccer in college, so I kind of picked it up during covid, when our season shut down and we couldn't play um. But yeah, I've only been playing for like four years now, probably yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So crazy thing is is Liam's third month ever playing golf. He broke 80. So, yeah, pretty good, pretty quickly yeah.
Paul:Holy crap, yeah, that's pretty good. I didn't broken 80, dude yeah, that's nuts. So what year did Pins and Aces start?
Speaker 4:So kind of backstory on Pins and Aces. I've been an entrepreneur basically my whole life. I've had a couple of different businesses and in a business that we were involved in another e-commerce business, both myself and my other brother-in-law. So I'm married to Liam's sister. My business partner, john, is married to his other sister, um, and so, uh, we were working in the.
Speaker 4:The other business it was called adam's polishes. It was a car care company, um, and we were involved in that business and direct consumer and we're like, hey, we could start a golf brand, we can make head covers. And I bought a callaway epic driver and it had this neon ugly not even neon green, it was like an ugly. Um, yeah, terrible stock head cover Somewhere in there. Yeah, it was like 2018. Um, and I'm I was looking at other head covers and they were just really expensive and the designs weren't that great and I'm like I think we could make a better head cover, and so we did that.
Speaker 4:We had some relationships with different manufacturers overseas and we made it and we just kind of put it up on. Amazon had a little website and pins and aces was like a meme page on Instagram and so I mean, that's kind of how it got started and then kind of ran that it was doing okay, we were starting to add some more head covers, but it was like a side gig. And then in 2020, luckily, um, at the end of before, kind of the beginning of 2020, end of 19, we brought in a general manager who we worked with in another business to kind of run it because we were still, you know, had a full-time day job, um, and he had significant experience with, you know, apparel manufacturing and we started making some polos. And then COVID hit and everyone was playing golf, e-commerce was blown up and, you know, we were lucky to kind of ride that wave um in COVID and get ahead of it early um, before everyone else tried to make, you know, head covers and polos and different things. So, um, kind of got lucky in that sense.
Paul:I mean, I remember first seeing you guys guys, I remember seeing the memes page, but I also remember seeing you all like on instagram and you had like so many head like the ball markers and stuff wasn't like that, like I've never seen. I'm like who are these guys? You know? Like no one's being cool, shit, that was the thing.
Speaker 4:It was like the same old, same old yeah, it was definitely different, for sure, you know it wasn't stuffy, it was kind of like your anti-country club brand. Um making funny ball markers, stuff that we knew people would you know think were funny and uh would purchase, and so definitely started with head covers, ball markers. Then apparel really took off. Um expanded that line and now it's, you know, a legitimate golf brand.
Paul:Oh oh 100 so I mean, like I think it's cool how much you guys have grown too. It's even the last five years, like you're just I mean in 2020 there were so many golf brands. You remember that there's like a million of them, like everyone was starting something and like oh, I can buy something on timu or not even I bother or whatever and like.
Paul:But it's like you guys have grown significantly and I think one of the reasons why, too, is like you have a very loyal fan base. Right like that, you have a real community. Like you create a community, which I think brands don't do that anymore. Like you can't sell shit or tchotchkes and be like oh yeah, whatever. It's like.
Speaker 4:No, you have like diehards too, and they are actually part of the brand yeah, I think that's's really important to have when you're growing a business is especially in this day and age when advertising is really expensive. You know cost of goods is gone up. You got to have a loyal fan base for sure, and that that definitely helps having that, and we want to make sure that we're supporting the people who support us.
Paul:What I love is you guys have thought outside the box too, like like what's the story with? Like the beer sleeve. But did you guys like what? How'd you come up with that stuff? Like dude, that some of this shit's like so smart.
Speaker 4:You're like that no one like I mean you gotta be making a fortune yeah, those are, uh, two inventions of yours, truly Really, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I'm not sure here it is. Yeah, the beer sleeve was funny. I remember skiing and I saw a guy with like a sling with a cooler in Burton, I think made them in the 90s and it was like a long, skinny koozie to hold beer when you went skiing. And I got one and I'm like man, I wonder if this would fit in the golf bag. And it didn't. It was too thick, um, and I'm like, well, if we really get the perfect size just to fit a can, it might be tight enough to, you know, fit in a golf bag. And sure enough it did. Um, and we wanted it to hold seven cans that, so it wouldn't stick out above your bag. Um, and we came out with that product and that was crazy. That was kind of like the first viral moment. That product went absolutely viral.
Paul:It went viral right Like literally went viral.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it went crazy. We were selling 50,000 beer sleeves a month at one point, holy crap, dude. So it was a lot of beer sleeves for sure. I think it was 2022 in November. It went over Black Friday, it went, it went absolutely berserk, and so we were fortunate enough to have inventory and have those and really move them. So that was great. And then the liquor stick was like OK, we have beer, how can we get hard alcohol? And the problem with the beer sleeve is, if you have a 14-way bag ours, our 14-way bag, we we designed it to fit a beer sleeve, obviously. But, um, some 14 ways, don't. So we're like, hey, we gotta have a product that's does hard alcohol and would fit every bag. And then that was the idea of the liquor stick. Um, remember, back in the day you'd see the sharper image magazine and it was like a fake golf club that you know, yeah, you like yeah, and I was like how can we make this better?
Speaker 4:um and uh, you know. So I built the first one out of pvc pipe. Hey, conceptually would it work. We put a little pump on top of there and um, and then we, we made that product and the beer sleeve kind of sucked because everyone knocked it off. And now there's a million chinese.
Paul:Yeah, the chinese companies are like oh, I can make that for off and now there's a million. Chinese. Yeah, the Chinese companies are like, oh, I can make that for nothing.
Speaker 4:And then it's like a bad knockoff, even, even like Callaway OGO was making a beer sleeve and, uh, our loyalists ripped Callaway for making that and, um, they like, had to delete posts.
Speaker 1:Everyone commented on it.
Paul:Yeah, but that's the power of community, right, but that's the power of community, right. If not, you're just. You're just fighting it yourself like that's bullshit, you know. But then it's like or I'm gonna go legal on you. But then it's like your community jumps on that stuff, dude, they're pissed yeah, there's nothing to like protect the beer sleeve, unfortunately.
Speaker 4:But yeah, the community came and was like hey, you guys ripped off pins and aces, like you guys are and there was probably like 40 right or something something crazy. But then the liquor stick. We did, uh, you know, do a design and utility patent on that and, um, luckily that hasn't been an issue right now, but, um, that's a fun liquor stick come out. Uh, what did it come out? It came out when we were still at the old building, probably 2023.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very early on.
Paul:Yeah, You're on 3.0, it says so how are you making it better with each version?
Speaker 4:The first version was kind of rudimentary. We used like an existing pump that went on top of like a five gallon jug. You know that people water in it and pump it from there. And then version two we um redid the whole pump head assembly, made it a better fit, made it waterproof or leak proof, and then, um, but metal, the whole, the whole liquor stick is, uh, food grade stainless steel. So, um, metal to metal threading is always difficult, and you need to have gaskets in it. So the 2.0, you really had to be make sure it wasn't over tightened, because there's a rubber gasket. If you over tighten they could break and leak. The 3.0, though, has, um, these teflon gaskets built in so you can crank it down. You don't have to worry about being finicky, and it'll, uh, it'll, it'll remain, uh, totally genius, dude, I didn't even know that.
Paul:I didn't know you invented all this. I mean, I knew you guys invented it, but like I find that that's awesome, like yeah, gotta differentiate, you know well, yeah, how else do you stand out in the crowd of market? Right, yeah, yeah, exactly when did? When I'm going through all your products, I don't see different so many of them, but I just think they're so smart. When did you guys first come out with your bag?
Speaker 4:the bag. So, um, yeah, last year in 24, the bag came out at the beginning of the year. Um, previously to that, uh, like two years ago, in 2021 and 2022, we did have a bag and it wasn't great. Um, it didn't stand flat, it was, uh, you know, not the best, and I'm like we got to come out with another bag and everyone here was like we're not doing another bag. It was terrible the last time. I'm like we can do it right. Um, so I took some features that I like on a bunch of different bags and said I think we could do it a little bit better. Um, and so we came out with our bag and it really is a fantastic bag. It's got a travel cover included, which I don't think anybody else offers, which is great. If you got a dirty truck or dirty car, your bag got dirty in a rainy day you don't have to worry about getting your car dirty yeah, that comes with it.
Speaker 4:A lot of fun colors the Zinn pocket is great Color matching rain hood. So a lot of different features. I mean, there's only so many things you can do with a bag to make it, you know, totally unique and different. There's a certain shape and style to it, but we did put a lot of effort into the bag that I think a lot of people really like and it's our best selling product right now.
Speaker 1:Is it really? Yeah, and I think the cool thing about the bags is white, black and gray is in stock year-round, as much as we can, at least, even though they're selling sister colors and, yeah, like the unique colors come in, we'll sell them out and then it's kind of retired and then a new color will come out a couple months later.
Speaker 1:So we have a lot of like crazy brand loyalists who try to collect all the limited colors and then they send us pictures of the six bags they have and you know, 500 in the kitchen. So that's pretty cool to see as well, mm-hmm so that, wow, I had no idea.
Paul:So then, how many bags have you released then since then, like in two years? That's a lot of like eight bags there's probably been like 10 different colors 12 by now yeah, oh, wow, well, it's cool, you have a 14 way and a five way, right, so like yes how's the price the same?
Speaker 4:oh, that's cool, yep, so, and then you can personalize your bag as well, so you could get your name on it. Embroider, we do that here in-house, but yeah, it's a really cool. That's a travel cup.
Paul:right, that's a major bonus, because I mean, these are like, no one does that, no.
Speaker 4:I would recommend, like taking it on an airplane although I've seen people put like a trash bag over their clubs and they do it or the rain hood.
Paul:Yeah, this is more technical throwing it back in your truck right or your car. You don't want to rub people white bag. You don't want to get rub marks all over it because your kids shit back.
Speaker 4:Exactly so. Or if you're storing it for the winter or whatever. So color matching rain hood as well. So so yeah, just some like thoughtful features in a bag. And you know it's it's priced 70 to a hundred dollars less than you know our competitors. So it's a it's a really, really high quality bag and you know we're super proud of it.
Paul:And you're always making it. You're always upgrading it too right. If you find something you want to do different, you can have that flexibility.
Speaker 4:Yeah, little features it's been. It stayed the same for about six months. I think it's got all the features that you know we wanted in it. We upgraded the towel clip to be removable and it's also a bottle opener. You know small things like that. We added that Zin pocket, the, the travel cover which is in every bag now. But, yeah, the pimento bag that obviously sold out as part of our Augusta collection Seconds probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it goes quick, pretty quick. That one was cool because on the inside you might even be able to see it in one of the pictures it says what one of 250 limited edition. Really, it's like built into the velour line. Oh, that's badass, dude, you can't built into the velour line, see it. But it's like tone on tone. It's just like a little easter egg.
Paul:that's kind of cool, yeah is this what this, uh this right here? Is that magnetic or is that just a rubber?
Speaker 4:uh logo where is it? Uh I think on the handle. If you click on a picture with the the handle, I think if you scroll down on the detail pages, uh, detail images um might be there. If you scroll down on the detail pages, uh, detail images um might be there if you keep scrolling yeah, there is a.
Speaker 1:There is a magnetic plate in the handle. That's good for right there.
Paul:Oh, I see it right there.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's cool yeah, yeah, I think there's a detail image of that but yeah, yeah, it's right here on the handle.
Paul:Let's say yeah, that's pretty cool yep, so it's like you, it's like you just make. You're making a the bag you would want right exactly like for the player yeah, it's like you that wants that. Like you know what I mean. Like that's what's so cool, what you guys are doing. Yeah, so I didn't know the bags were. I mean, they're popular, but I didn't know they were like your.
Speaker 4:I thought your head covers probably were yeah, no, uh, we're selling um a couple thousand bags a month right now, so um it's definitely pretty popular now, when it comes like I love that, that's cool.
Paul:That's a thought like are you guys who does the design ideas, like they actually do, like in-house, like you're, or is it you or you guys? Like you know? I mean, like this is smart, like it's a cool design. You know that takes a lot of work to figure out what it's going to look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we have a. I guess we have three full-time designers Yep, really three full-time designers in-house who work on all these ideas. Some of them, you know, we give them ideas and they run with it, but they're the ones who really make it all come to life.
Speaker 1:But it's nice having guys in house, cause you know we can bounce ideas off each other. We can give them ideas, they mock it up, go back and forth. You know we're not outsourcing that to anyone, so it doesn't take an extensive amount of time or anything like that.
Paul:When, like what are your most popular head covers?
Speaker 1:Would you say Most popular head covers. It's say Most popular head covers. It's hard to say. I mean, honestly, it changes all the time. I think when we come out with a collab those are super popular, like the Yellowstones.
Paul:Yeah, trump, I think he was a trillion of these things, dude, yeah, those do pretty well, yeah, for sure, I mean we have so many designs.
Speaker 1:I mean really all of them sell pretty well. Yeah, for sure, um, I mean we have so many designs. It's like I mean really all of them sell pretty well. I bet he loved that head cover?
Paul:I bet he had that on his bag. Uh, he does yeah, yeah, yeah I mean water too.
Speaker 4:That's cool yeah, they're all a little bit different. You know, south park stuff does well, turtle stuff does well, turtle stuff does well. You know, and, like Liam said, when we do limited editions or releases, the Highland Cow is actually probably our best seller, the Highland Cow on that last page was just kind of like.
Speaker 1:Not a random idea, I guess, but our whole family is from Scotland. Nick married into the Scottish family. Oh, really. So we were trying to buy a Highland cow and then it just popped off, went crazy yeah, and now it almost seems like Highland cows like trendy I know, like I've seen other I've got it on my hat now, you know people are copying you again.
Paul:They're going to be like oh, highland cow cow is going to be like oh, we need to do Highland cow Like right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, the Highland Cow goes crazy. Super popular.
Paul:When did you guys start doing collabs with like motion pictures you know what I mean, like what you're doing now with like Paramount and crap like that? When did that start and what gave you that?
Speaker 4:idea it actually started. I remember the day when we did our first collab. This was a side business and now it was starting to grow but we had full time job business. At the time he was still in college he's a lot younger than me, but we were in the warehouse. We now we had bought a building and we had this side business and we had like like maybe 10, 20 000 followers on instagram and I got a dm from bud light and bud light was like hey, we want to do a collab. You guys can do whatever you want. We want to be in golf.
Speaker 4:And so we did a collab with bud light and it went crazy. They were seating post malone and um george kittle and all these guys that they had, and so that was pretty cool and I'm like shit, we've got like something here with collaborations, and so we just expanded it. And you know, there's sometimes they're true collabs, sometimes it's licensing deal, you know something like that. And then I think Paramount reached out to us at the PGA show a couple years ago and the South Park guys were like these guys are in Colorado, we should do South Park.
Paul:And so we did Really Trey and and Trey and Matt, yeah, and. Matt that's cool as hell, dude.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And so then we did the South Park stuff and then they're like this is great, you can have all Paramount.
Paul:I like Randy's big balls, yeah yeah. I like Randy's big balls, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:That's our probably best-selling ball marker. It's so good, yeah, it's like, oh my gosh. And then it just went from there. You know, it just kind of took off from there, you're doing it with Paramount.
Paul:Right now, for sure, but who else?
Speaker 4:We just did one with hey Dude. So hey Dude was awesome. We did that at the Waste Management. They launched their first ever golf shoe and they collab, collaborated with us. We sold that out in like six hours. Uh, it was crazy. They're for hey dude's first ever shoe, uh, in golf golf shoe, so that was really fun to do. Um, there's some other ones uh, you want to stay tuned for? Uh, that are coming out. We've kind of teased them before. Top Gun is one of them that we're going to be doing. So there's a couple more, though.
Paul:You forget, Like Paramount's done a million movies, dude, Like their licensing is pretty big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess we got a tease in this poster over Nick's shoulder as well. I forgot that was up there, but that's a teaser, I guess as well. Yeah, that's cool. I like the collabs. They're a lot of fun.
Paul:What's coming out this year that you guys are excited about, or what you've already announced, that you're like you can't wait, or you've already not done that you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've talked about player preferred, right? That's probably what I'm most excited for.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's coming out next. That should be here shortly and that's kind of our take on a more premium line of polos. So our polos retail apparel retails polos at $69.95, outerwear is at $79.95. Player preferred will be a little bit higher end. It'll be $99.95 for polos and $130 for outerwear. But really, really thoughtful, really nice, more subtle. Our tagline for that is from bunker to boardroom so you could wear it on the course.
Paul:You could wear it. Is that what Liam's?
Speaker 1:wearing right now. No, this one's not actually, but it is kind of like a lot of navies, a lot of lights, kind of those type of colors, Because you know we have so many people who own 20 of our polos but they can't necessarily wear all of them to work, because they're kind of crazy.
Paul:Yeah, it's for conservative America.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So I think this line, people will be able to wear it to work.
Paul:We have like Randy's balls all over it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you wouldn't be able to wear that polo to work. So this is kind of our take on, a line that you can kind of wear anywhere um what, where'd it go?
Paul:who had the idea for the head cover rack?
Speaker 1:I think that was you right head cover rack, because nick's a big I mean you're a big golf guy, he's like die hard, he collects stuff, and I think he probably had a head cover rack of some sort or a take on jerome like that's.
Paul:I saw it. I was like that is so smart because you don't want to display their toys right like yeah, everyone wants to do.
Speaker 4:I remember seeing a scotty, and scotty cameron made one and it's like five grand. You know it's like hand welded and they show their uh uh, it's just for putters. But we make a lot more than just putter covers. So I'm like we want to do this, make it more economical. Um, and it's pretty popular in like head cover collecting groups. Even if they're not a pins and aces fan, they're like, hey, these guys have great cost of cost, uh, uh, head cover rack, so, um, so yeah, that's kind of why.
Paul:Did you ever think like you would be like one of the biggest inventors in golf?
Speaker 4:I'm not a big inventor.
Paul:That like actually makes sense, Like seriously, that actually makes sense Seriously dude, you tell me.
Speaker 1:I'm like dude. He's freaking smart.
Paul:I've talked to a lot of smart people You're a level kind of smart dude, Like straight up, I mean the beer and the liquor. I don't know, you guys think so far outside the box, but it's stuff that people actually want. You know what I mean. It's not like oh, I invented this thing. Like. It's not like oh, I invented this thing and it's like well, nobody wants that, so who cares? Right, exactly right, are you guys still doing a lot on amazon, or?
Speaker 4:yeah, um, amazon's more, uh, accessible? Yeah, it's. It's limited products that we want to have on there, but it's not our full collection of products. We have have a select amount of accessories available on Amazon.
Paul:It's a ball marker. Do you guys sell the head covers on there? Not really.
Speaker 4:Some of them Not all of them, but some of them for sure.
Paul:Yeah yeah, amazon's perfect for that, but it's also hard. You know what I mean, because it's Amazon.
Speaker 4:For sure.
Paul:They make more money than you do, probably half the time. Yeah, money and you do probably have the time on. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. So when did what tell me about the, the adele, like what did that whole thing come about, or how that come about? Because that was kind of like, didn't that kind of shake? That shook the industry? I thought people were like whoa, like you know what I mean. They were like how did that all go?
Speaker 4:down. Yeah, I mean, adele was a colorado company, so we definitely knew who they were. They're in our backyard.
Speaker 1:Um, we were friends with the previous owner and uh, you know so, uh, and we'd been playing Adele's for a couple years, yeah they got us some clubs yeah they got us clubs like two years ago and we played them for a while just for kind of buddies with them, played a couple rounds, would see him at the local shows, stuff like that. So we just had a good friendship for a while.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think, like anything, it just, you know, if the deal's right and kind of came up in passing, kind of in summer of last year, you know, hey, I'm looking to take Adele to market and would you guys be interested? And we said, sure, we'll take a look at it. And you know it made sense. We always said we don't do any balls, clubs or shoes, we make everything else. Um, but here was an opportunity to make clubs and so, uh, you know, with kind of a warm entry into the market, uh, very, very legacy heritage brand. I'm actually flying to austin tomorrow. We maintained our manufacturing facility in austin te, so, um, and we've got, I think it dropped today, the uh tomorrow tomorrow, yeah, um, a putter that we made.
Speaker 4:Adele had a great heritage and a great legacy of of making putters right here in the USA, and so we wanted to get back to that, and so a putter we're dropping tomorrow on Adele um is a hundred percent made in in America, so, um, it's, so it's a really fun brand. I think there's a lot of opportunity with it, and so, yeah, it just came to fruition. We bought the business January 6th of this year.
Paul:I remember seeing that I was like oh, that's cool, I mean it makes sense, all of it makes sense and I think it's a good like you guys are doing so well on accessories and everything else. It's like, like. Why not right, like. But what, what like inspires you the most when it comes to your designs, would you say when you have an idea for it? Is it color or is it? I don't know what I mean, because you guys did a lot of cool stuff no man, maybe you take that one yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't. It's a lot of our designers who come up with that stuff. But I mean, it's just so hard. Our designers are just so good at like kind of seeing stuff in pop culture what's trendy, like the Highland Cow, I think they kind of spotted that coming from and then some of the owners Scottish background just kind of fuse the two things together. But they're really the ones who come, uh, with a lot of the ideas and then we do like a collab. You know, it's kind of easy to make a funny randy balls ball marker because all of us are south park fans and we're like that's an ultimate classic episode we have you should do a casa bonita ball marker, because like yeah I mean, we're working on a south park 2.0 and it was so fun just to like scroll through their brand book.
Speaker 1:See all the cool.
Paul:I can imagine dude all the characters. If you did a ball market for every one of the characters they made fun of back in the day, that'd be some cool shit.
Speaker 1:I mean it's crazy. I think we were talking about like a man Like Michael Johnson?
Paul:Yeah, yeah, michael Johnson All those kind of like hidden. Or the other.
Speaker 1:Kanye. Yeah, the fish kanye. That'd be a good one too. The fish sticks joke, yeah exactly. So I bet people I don't know what's gonna be funny, oh yeah it's hard to find the line between like something that everyone thinks is funny but then also like if you're a true south park fan, you know you appreciate like us also being south park fans yeah, yeah.
Paul:Well, I'm a huge fan what you guys are doing. I know like you guys. You guys are crushing it and it's really cool. I'm really glad I got to know you guys too and meet you guys and like, where can people find you? I guess a good way of saying it I know your website, so yeah pins and acescom.
Speaker 4:and then all the socials at Pins and Aces from TikTok, facebook, instagram, youtube, twitch everything at Pins and Aces. So check us out there. And you know, we'd love to have you come play in our Cactus Classic Tournament. The tournament series is so fun. We do tournaments, so we've got four tournaments this year. The winner of those tournaments gets entry into the sin city shootout, which we're giving away ten thousand dollars cash.
Paul:um so, uh, it's may 17th in uh, scottsdale at talking stick, so is that the first one for the season, then is that your first tournament? That's really other I mean I'd definitely go, but where are the other three? As people know, they're not out west uh, one's in denver july 25th.
Speaker 1:Uh, that's a big one. Uh, raccoon creek in denver, and then every year we do a children's hospital nicu fundraiser, so that one's not technically a part of the tournament series but it's just something we do every year. One of nick's kids was in the nicu, so that's more just like a fun family and friends. Yeah, uh, the brand kind of tournament, and then the $10,000 giveaways down in Vegas at Chimera October 25th. So that'll be fun. We're going to get a big treasure chest filled up with 10 grand cash and we'll we're Wednesday gets to walk away with 10 K. Yep.
Paul:That's fricking so smart. Uh, you guys did an awesome job for like a million different reasons and I'm just did an awesome job for like a million different reasons and I'm just, I'm just excited. I don't know. I didn't know half those stories and I think that's so cool. Is that what you've done? And not that much time. You know, if you think about the overall picture of the brand but like even to come out with new products that are yours that you actually made. You know what I mean? It's like. Oh, there are so many brands that come out in the twenties that, like they were just making t-shirts.
Speaker 4:You know, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, we appreciate it and uh, you know, thanks for having us on. Yeah for sure.
Paul:Well, you guys, I hope you got to check out pins and aces. They make six, six, six accessories, um, so check them out and I'll see you guys in the next episode appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Thanks, man thanks for listening to another episode of behind the golf brand podcast. You're gonna beat me. Let's go stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfersauthoritycom. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the green.
