Launched in 2017 with the goal of bringing some much-needed color and character to the then-boring golf apparel industry, Bad Birdie was beamed into millions of homes when Founder and CEO Jason Richardson appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank in April 2020 as the COVID 19 pandemic spread and golf’s popularity started to surge.
Today, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company struck its biggest deal since Robert Herjavec missed a putt that cost him an extra five percent equity stake by signing PGA Tour players Si Woo Kim, Harrison Endycott and Callum Tarren that will ensure the brand will be seen on even more screens week in and week out.
“We’re trying to find players that are going to kind of continue to grow in the game and have a lot more trajectory so we’re trying to get players earlier on (in their careers) versus someone who is already super, super established,” Richardson said. “Our whole approach when we went into it was like, we don’t just want to sign guys that are like billboards, we want to sign guys who are part of what our brand represents.”
Kim, a 28-year-old from South Korea, has four PGA Tour victories on his resume including the 2017 Players Championship and the 2023 Sony Open. Endycott, a 27-year-old from Australia, won the 2023 PGA Tour Q School. Tarren, a 33-year-old from England who gained PGA Tour status beginning in the 2021-22 season, had his best finish of T2 at the 2022 RSM Classic.
Richardson said sponsoring professional players has always been on the company’s roadmap but Bad Birdie needed to expand its product offerings enough to outfit a Tour player while also having enough team bandwidth to support such sponsorship endeavors.
Confident both boxes were checked, approximately six months ago Bad Birdie jumped into the PGA Tour world by attending events and meeting players in the hopes of securing sponsorship opportunities.
“I like to think about growing this business as running a marathon so we have been working over the last seven years to get the brand where it’s at today,” Richardson said. “I think this year is a year we really hopefully get to have a breakout year and hopefully pull some marketing levers that a lot of brands do that we’ve been kind of planning for and thinking of really carefully.”
Bad Birdie isn’t stopping here. The brand is expanding its partnerships across all levels of golf, from supporting 10 high school programs, including seven-time Florida state champion Ponte Vedra High School, to collegiate programs and individual players like Oklahoma’s Drew Goodman as well as Korn Ferry and LPGA players including Isaiah Salinda.
While Bad Birdie will be making its professional golf debut, it joins a list of newer golf apparel brands inking deals with PGA Tour and LPGA Tour players as the game continues to grow, evolve and diversify.
Greyson Clothiers, which signed Justin Thomas in March 2022, also sponsors Luke List, Luke Donald, Akshay Bhatia, Erik van Rooyen and Dylan Wu. Malbon lured Jason Day away from NIKE as its first PGA Tour ambassador on Jan. 2 and has since welcomed Charley Hull, Jeongeun Lee and Jesper Parnevik to the family which also includes Yealimi Noh. Meanwhile, Min Woo Lee made his statement on Jan. 16 by becoming lululemon’s first golf ambassador.
“The old way of golf is done and with this new generation of golf, the train has left the station,” Richardson said. “There’s brands who have been on that train since the beginning and there’s others that are having to catch up and are kind of stuck in their old ways, so you see a lot of success with these next-generation brands or these brands that look at the sport in a new way, which I think is where the culture is going. It doesn’t surprise me that these brands like us, Malbon and lulu that are taking a new look at the game are able to have success.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for new brands to come in and take market share and continue to innovate the sport. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about for me. There’s this group of brands and this whole community that’s trying to reshape the culture around golf in a more positive way, a more inclusive way and a more creative way and, fortunately enough, that’s actually happening. Things are changing and moving in a good direction.”
Michael LoRé 