The Disruption of the Golf Ball Market Is in Full Swing

Unless you’re developing a fertilizer, you probably don’t expect to disrupt the golf industry from the spare room of a sewage company. But that’s where Dean Snell found himself four years ago, holed up in an office with a single computer. “In the mornings, we were walking past the trucks that pump out the port-a-johns,” he says with a laugh.

It wasn’t what Snell envisioned when he decided to start his own company. He’d been an engineer in the golf-ball business for 25 years—first with Titleist and then with TaylorMade Golf Co., where he worked with such pros as Dustin Johnson and Jason Day and was instrumental in developing the Tour Preferred line. His name is on dozens of patents, including one for the original Titleist Pro V1, the most popular ball on the tour. (Gary Woodland played with it for his U.S. Open victory in June; Brooks Koepka used the Pro V1x when he won this year’s PGA Championship.)