A 17-Year Overnight Sensation: The Birdieball Putting Mat

Posted On Jul 19, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

“Luck is what happens when preparation gratifies opportunity.”

That grand old saying has been ascribed to everyone from Seneca the Younger( 4 BC-6 5 AD) to Oprah Winfrey and, as sayings become, it’s as axiomatic as they come. It’s likewise an accurate descriptor of Birdieball, its award-winning Birdieball putting mat and the company’s 17-year journey to overnight success.

The Colorado-based Birdieball copped top reputations in MyGolfSpy’s Putting Mat Buyer’s Guide for 2020. In this article, we’re going to share with you the story of Birdieball and its two signature concoctions: the odd-looking but surprisingly fun-to-hit Birdieball and the award-winning Birdieball putting mat.

But to really understand this 11 -person family business, let’s jump into the WABAC Machine and set the dial for April 1999.

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Running Down a Dream

“What I’ve learned in life is nobody buys your dreams, ” says Birdieball founder, president, owner and founder John Breaker. “You have to show them the dream in concrete.”

Golf is filled with crazy ideas. And the original Birdieball is a crazy, napkin ring-looking golf ball. According to Breaker, it feels and flies just like a real golf ball.

“Not simply a little like, but precisely like a golf ball, ” he says. “The difference is it simply extends about 40 yards.”

One can certainly discuss the relative deserves of a nappy ring-looking golf ball that only extends 40 grounds. The real question, nonetheless, is how the blaze did Breaker even think of a nappy ring-looking golf ball that merely vanishes 40 gardens?

“My dad and I were watching the Masters back in 1999, ” says Breaker. “One of the TV announcers said they’re will be necessary to increase Augusta because of Tiger.”

Amy

That came Breaker, who has a background in plastics and polymers, thinking about limited-flight projectiles and shorter, less expensive-to-maintain routes. So, he taught gaps into bullets to learn how they were made and how they fly. That led to an aha moment.

“I had this container of clods that had excavations in their own homes, ” says Breaker. “I had a huge backyard, so what does any golfer do with a pail of balls and a huge backyard? You gotta hit’ em.

“So I fell one down and almost punched my neighbor’s house. I threw another one down and it flew perfectly, high right-to-left with a newborn proceed. I’m like’ Oh, my God, I simply pured that thing.’ I thought it flew out into my study but it fell precisely short of my barricade. So, I’m like’ what the hell just happened? ’”

What The Hell Did Happen?

Clearly, the hole was doing something. Several months and examples last-minute, Breaker learned what.

“The hole countenanced the ball to compress more than you’d ever be able to compress a golf dance, ” he says. “It too organized an aerodynamic airflow that was literally making the lump fly and not fly at the same time.”

Breaker rapidly recognized his Birdieball wasn’t going to change golf but it might make an interesting training aid or a just-for-the-hell-of-it outdoor game.

“We tried to limit the flight as much as possible to keep it in the backyard, ” he says. “That’s why the straight surfaces became straight and the hole went bigger it is therefore would filch faster. To this day, if you threw that thing on the anchor and query someone to stumbled it, they croak’ what? ’ And when they reached it, you can literally count to three and hear them say,’ wow.’”

Colorado Mills Mall

Breaker started the Birdieball company in 2003 but soon realise people needed to give them a smack or two to truly get it. He opened a store at the Colorado Mills Mall in 2004 with three punching bays, selling more than $ 300,000 importance of Birdieballs that first year.

“In 2005, we triumphed brand-new make of its first year at the PGA Show, ” says Breaker. “And seven million Birdieballs last-minute, we’re having a resurgence. During this COVID crisis, our auctions was an increase 600 percent. We’ve leveled out a bit but we’re still racing at about 300 percent over previous years. March and April are completely insane.”

“We’ve been doing’ dwelling golf’ since we started, ” says Breaker’s daughter Katie who, along with her friend Jack, cures led Birdieball. “It’s perfect for the quarantine situation. Not merely can beings practise at home and abide sharp-witted but they can also have some fun.”

The Rising Cost of Clicks

After an early dalliance in the retail macrocosm, Birdieball has been alone direct to shopper. Breaker was an early adopter with Google and Pay Per Click and was compensating about a nickel per clink in the golf grooming succours opening. He figures at that time he was paying approximately$ 5 for every $19 per dozen marketing. And he was making money.

Then, in 2010, things changed.

“Pay Per Click got a lot more expensive and our transition frequencies stayed the same, ” he says. “Pretty soon I was spending $20 to sell a $19 per dozen package of Birdieballs.”

Denver

You don’t need to be Elon Musk to figure out that kind of opportunity cost isn’t sustainable. But the inventor in Breaker understood that crisis and opportunity often wear the same clothes.

“We needed to find a $200 produce, ” he says. “And, kind of simultaneously, I was starting to get the yips, to the point where I couldn’t pull the putter back. So I started looking for a put mat.”

Unfortunately- or fortunately, depending on your point of view- Breaker couldn’t find one he liked.

“Everything had a ramp. To make it go into the hole, you had to hit it uphill. I really didn’t understand that.” So, Breaker channeled his inner Caractacus Potts and started messing around with what he knows: polymers.

“I know about polymers and I know how to realize them do certain things so I started looking at aerated polymers, ” he says. “Not only sud but engineered polymer foam. Foam created in order to do something.”

That started Breaker down a new course, which eventually preceded him to develop what MyGolfSpy calls “a unique foam material that ensures a excellent go each time.”

evergreen

The Art of the Roll

There’s no shortage of cheap putting matteds. And in a tinge, we’ve all applied the living room carpet. To cure his yips, Breaker demanded something that rolled like a real dark-green. And when you’re a polymer expert, you tend to look in places where others don’t.

“My son and I bought a piece of light blue-blooded sud. I thought it would be fun, ” he says. “It wreaked, except it was so slippery and fast that it precisely didn’t replicate a real dark-green at all.”

Father and son knocked around some other ideas, including feel or some sort of turf but those became bulky and costly. The best approach, conceived Breaker, was to find a way to alter the existing foam and turn it into grass.

Katie Breaker

“We started playing with chemistry and abrasion and we came up with a combination of both, ” he says. “First, we ruptured the cell on the surface, elongated the hole and turned it into a linear grass-like fibril. Then we figured out how to tilt it to give it a grain.”

Also, Breaker figured out how to randomize the fibrils- roughly 10,000 of them in a two cubic-inch country. That, he says, is the key to going a true-life, green-like roll.

“The problem with woven synthetics, carpet, felt or any other manmade textile is they have a pattern, ” shows Breaker. “When the pellet slows down, it follows the pattern. Ours has a spongy sub base, like a real green. It tracks perfectly and is deep enough so the missile falls into a real hole instead of having to go uphill.”

The Birdieball arrange rug comes in a bunch of different sizes and in three velocities: Pro( fast ), Country Club( medium) and Municipal( gradual ). The difference is in the length and thickness of the fibrils.

Mo Bamba

Practice for the Adept

Breaker was swamped with line-ups for the Birdieball putting mat during the COVID quarantine. Some of those seeks came from some high-profile kinfolks, such as NBA adepts Jayson Tatum and Mo Bamba. Actor Mark Wahlberg has a Birdieball putting matted on his private jet. The busines regularly comes fiats from tour pros and average Joes alike.

“Our makes are great for low-handicap golfers looking to improve, ” says Katie Breaker. “And for apprentices looking to get into the game and for people who’ve never represented golf before. It’s literally for any person who wants to have fun.”

“If you have a Birdieball putting matted in your living room, it’s entertainment, ” says John. “It’s like having a pool table. And we sell them to colleges, high school golf crews, putter fitters, truly anybody.”

National Basketball Association

Although Birdieball set rugs are able to obtain relatively huge( 4’ x 18 ’ ), they can be easily rolled up and placed. “If you roll our matted fluffy back up and make it round when you place it, it’ll roll out flat again, ” says Breaker. “Its own value builds it flat.”

And while your putter fitter might have a Birdieball place mat, you won’t verify a retailer exerting it in their putter corral. “You need to treat these greens properly, ” says Breaker. “You can’t let anyone with stilettos or golf spikes saunter on them. If you put one in a retail place, it’ll time get junked within a month or two.”

Just this year, Birdieball introduced an outdoor putting green. The aerated polymer concoction that transcended our Buyer’s Guide is for indoor use only. The outdoor mat is for use on patios or other solid surfaces. They’re accessible either in three or 6 1/2 hoofs extents and up to 18 paws long.

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It’s a Family Affair

Breaker describes himself as a serial inventor. He’s started, built and sold various companies in his 62 times. With Birdieball, he’s able to work every day with son Jack and daughters Katie and Amy.

“It’s the single best blessing in my life, ” he says. “They’ve all chosen to be here, which forms it recreation. They’re all smart, college-educated and could all be doing other things. But they’ve chosen to be here.”

RFI chip

Breaker says the family takes care of the stymie and tackling of the business, which presents him the freedom to be creative.

“They’re my governors, ” says Breaker. “There are so many thoughts I’ve come up with they’ve just said’ no’ to. But every once in a while, they let me out of the box and say’ run with that one.’ That’s kind of what happened with the putting green.

“My wife is our bookkeeper. Katie is focused on the customer side, Jack’s our sell guy and Amy[ on maternity benefits] is on the production back ,” he says. “We have 11 employees and are looking to add more. People like being here and we like stimulating it a happy locate for everyone.”

Birdieball putting rugs are made at the company’s factory in Evergreen, Colo ., about 30 miles west of Denver in the Rocky Mountain foothills. Like most everything else about Birdieball, even the factory is a little different.

“It’s a 12,000 -square-foot Swiss chalet in the mountains, ” says Breaker. “When people come up, they think they’re at a monstrous house.”

So What’s Next?

Often the distinctions between a fruitcake discoverer and a serious innovator is the ability to articulate dreams. Breaker has several new ideas up his sleeve refined enough that his teenagers are letting him run with them.

“We have Birdieballs that can go every distance, ” he says. “You could play the game with 14 birdie bullets and exactly one club.”

He’s too working on a mid-range ball designed for playing on short-lived golf course as well as a Birdieball retrofit package for disc golf courses. Breaker’s most ambitious idea, nonetheless, might just be the Birdieball Entertainment Lounge: a TopGolf-type facility consuming Birdieballs on a much smaller footprint.

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“We won’t have an RFI chip in the ball, it’ll all be line of sight, ” says Breaker. “We’ll have plays you can score on touchpads and there will be food and liquor. We can do 15 bays of Birdieball with a diner and parking on three acres.”

The pandemic has slow-going that activity but Breaker says that’s actually been a blessing since no one actually knows what dining out and presentation will be like once this is all over.

“I do investigate an opportunity to have two or three facilities in each metropoli, ” he says. “But I need a partner to be able to do that.”

“At this quality, it’s not about the money with me anymore. I have a finite sum of era left. I have more crazy ideas in my mentality and I’m remain concerned about the time I have left to execute them.”

The post A 17 -Year Overnight Sensation: The Birdieball Putting Mat showed first on MyGolfSpy.