Equipment

Talking with Cut Golf, purveyors of the “best damn golf balls” under 20 bucks

Published

8 years ago

Mar 8, 2018

“The best damn golf balls under 20 bucks.” That’s the tagline that accompanies direct-to-consumer upstart Cut Golf’s wares.

What seems at first like an extremely bold claim really isn’t, as co-founder and CEO, Sam Uisprapassorn explains, the company produces the only 4-piece urethane ball that retails for under $20/dozen–in addition to three-piece and two-piece offerings, which technically fall under the “best damn” umbrella.

Thus, in bringing to market a four-piece urethane ball for markedly less than competitors, they are assuredly selling the highest quality and most sophisticated golf ball for under 20 bucks per dozen.

Founded out of Uisprapassorn’s frustration at losing pricey golf balls, Cut Golf is built on the principle that top-quality golf balls don’t have to be expensive.

I spoke with Uisprapassorn and Dennis Chang (co-founder and COO) about the company’s journey, unique value proposition, product offerings, and what’s ahead.

Uisprapassorn and Chang (Photo: JROJAS MEDIA)

BA: So take me back to the beginning. What’s inspired you to get into the golf ball business?

SU: Well. we’re avid golfers, so golf was a passion first. Other manufacturers have done a great job marketing their great products, but I thought there was room to do something different…to take a simpler approach to how we message our product benefits. But we got started right about the time Nike was exiting the golf equipment market. I was very loyal to Nike golf equipment, maybe to a fault, but I had to start looking for another golf ball. I eventually started looking at the folks in the direct-to-consumer space, and I didn’t see a value proposition in their pricing.

I was actually in the process of learning to hit a cut, and I was losing so many golf balls, that I thought, “There’s no point in this, there has to be a more cost efficient way to get the ball to the consumer.” So we started looking around for the right manufacturing partner, we found one, and then our business was born.

BA: Tell me about R&D and getting from concept to reality…

SU: To start with, we looked at multiple manufacturing options. And it was a process of looking at what the product was…understanding how the product would perform on the course and for a variety of different players.

There were a lot of designs we threw out and a lot of factories that didn’t work for us. We developed a ball that performed very well against “the other guys.” We got a baseline of what it was doing on the TrackMan and what it was doing on the course, so it was something we were confident in taking to market.

BA: Can you talk a little at selling your four-piece ball at the $19.99/dozen price point and how you’re able to do that…

Dennis Chang: Sam and I scrubbed the business model of everything we could in getting the ball from Point A to Point B. We don’t do big dollar spend at the PGA Show or pay tour pros. Ultimately the consumer pays for all of that. We manage our overhead efficiently, and we’ve grown a lot faster than expected.

(Photo: JROJAS MEDIA)

BA: Can you talk about demand and what the response has been like?

DC: I think the biggest way we’ve been able to drive sustainable growth without spending more money is awesome customer service and a great product. Word of mouth is obviously big for us. We get a lot of referrals. So we think that means that golfers are looking for a high-quality product at a very good value.

BA: How does your value proposition relate to competitors in the direct-to-consumer space?

SU: You can lump all of the competitors together. We have a four-piece urethane ball for $19.95 per dozen. The closest competitor offers a four-piece ball for $24.95, and I think that’s only with a bulk order of five dozen. With us, you don’t need to do a bulk buy to feel the savings.

BA: OK. Run through the golf ball lineup for us.

SU: We have Cut Blue and Cut Gray, which are both on the premium, urethane ball side. Cut Blue is a 90 compression 4-piece construction performance ball. Cut Grey is the softer compression performance ball with a 3-piece construction. Cut White is a 3-piece ball with a Surlyn cover ($14.95/dozen). 2-piece Cut Red is the lowest-compression ball. You can call it a “distance ball.” We’ve been asked to release some matte colors like you’re seeing in the market right now, so we’re deciding on colors. That’ll be $14.95/dozen with a 3-piece Surlyn cover. We’re leaning toward yellow and orange, and those will be out end of spring.

But we stay away from a lot of the golfballspeak. Look at how golf balls are communicated, everyone has some sort of value proposition. We have a no-nonsense approach: It’s core, mantle, urethane cover. If you want to get into dimple counts, we can get into dimple counts…but we don’t claim our golf ball is more dynamic than anyone else’s or that it’s going to fly farther than anyone else’s.

DC: Because there are so many options right now, golf ball preferences are pretty subjective among consumers. And one of the reason we’ve had such great adoption rates is we push for trial sleeves with our sample packs. So at a very low barrier to entry, without making a $20 or $40 investment, you can try our product.

(Photo: JROJAS MEDIA)

BA: Cool. Anything in the immediate future you’d like the readership to know about?

SU: We have the Cut Golf Club, which will be a middle-spring to end-of-spring launch. Back when we launched, we thought this would be a subscription service, but I knew that we needed some adoption before we could gain traction with any subscription service. We made that decision early on, but we never lost sight of the idea. So, April-or-May timeframe, folks will be able to set up a subscription/auto-ship to say, “I need golf balls every month,” or “I need them every other month.”

BA: So that’ll all be based on customer preference, not on tiers or plans?

SU: Right. We want to make sure we’re still offering top-notch service. We don’t want to be sending a monthly golf ball order to a guy in Fargo, North Dakota, in the middle of winter.

Check out Cut Golf on the web at cutgolf.co.

Whats in the Bag

Christiaan Maas WITB 2026 (June)

Published

3 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

Driver: TaylorMade Qi4D LS (8 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6 X

3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9 TX

Irons: TaylorMade P770 (3), TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7TW (5-PW)
Shafts: Fujikura Ventus Black HB 10 X, True Temper Dynamic Gold X100

Wedges: TaylorMade Prototype (50-SB09), TaylorMade MG5 (56-HB12, 60-LV07)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold S400

Putter: TaylorMade TP Juno

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord

Check out more in-hand photos of Christiaan Maas’ clubs here.

Equipment

TaylorMade MySpider Tour and Tour X: More customizable build options now available

Published

4 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

TaylorMade Golf’s MySpider program underwent a substantial overhaul over the last month. Firstly, the company launched the option to customize the Spider ZT model, and now the program has returned with the MySpider Tour and MySpider Tour X.

The revamped page now gives golfers complete control over every visual and functional detail of their putter on the popular Tour and Tour X head, with every cosmetic idea thought of. In MySpider Tour, golfers can choose from four head finishes, 16 paint fill colors, nine Surlyn face insert colors, three aluminum insert options, six sightline configurations, and four hosel options — L-neck, small slant, double bend, center shaft. Six sightline options are available in MySpider Tour, including the optically engineered True Path alignment system. MySpider Tour X gives builders the option of four head finishes, four hosel configurations, and five sightline options, also including True Path alignment.

One of the more interesting features of the new MySpider program is the availability of three distinct face insert options. Along with the usual Surlyn Pure Roll insert trusted by Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, which can be customized from nine colors, golfers can now also select firmer options. Two are offered with the black aluminum Pure Roll insert, slightly firmer than the traditional insert, or for the firmest feel, golfers can choose from two colors of milled aluminum inserts.

Another fun addition to the MySpider Tour is the ability to use the “Tommy Sightline.” The custom alignment aid design, which was first drawn onto Tommy Fleetwood’s putter by PGA Tour Rep James Holley, is based on the milled sightline on his Spider ZT head. There are five shorter lines on the left and right of a longer central line serving as the traditional short line alignment aid.

See below for the full specifications sheet for MySpider Tour and Tour X:

MySpider Tour

MySpider Tour X

Equipment

Then and now: Comparing Rory McIlroy’s current setup to his record-breaking 2019 Canadian Open victory

Published

6 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

In Rory McIlroy’s first appearance at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open, he crushed the record books to earn his 16th PGA Tour title in dominating fashion, winning by seven shots over Shane Lowry and Webb Simpson.

McIlroy’s score of 22-under-par 258 is the lowest 72-hole score to date at the Canadian Open, and his closing 61 is also the best final-round score in the history of one of golf’s oldest tournaments. Finally, with his win in 2019, McIlroy became only the sixth player to win the career Triple Crown, adding to his victories at the U.S. Open in 2011 and The Open Championship in 2014, joining Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Tiger Woods in a coveted list.

So, with that, why not compare his current setup to the clubs he used to break all the records?

Driver

2019: TaylorMade M5 (9 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D (9 degrees @8), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7X (45 5/8 inches)

McIroy led the Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee in 2019; he’s doing the same in 2026. Between now and then, McIlroy has switched from the Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX (a shaft with slightly more feeling in the tip) to the original Fujikura Ventus Black 7X, having just made the change to the heavier version from playing the 60X.

What’s interesting about McIlroy’s 2019 setup is that the weighting on his driver is actually set in the high-draw setting, using the T-Track weighting system, whereas in the Qi4D, he’s currently using a heavily rear-weighted setup. (Two 13-gram weights in the rear and only two 4-gram front weights.)

The TaylorMade M5 driver he played in during his Canadian Open win was the company’s first head that they claimed to design to initially exceed the USGA’s COR limit, and then injected with tuning resin to bring it back in bounds.

Fairway woods

2019: TaylorMade M6 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 80 TX; TaylorMade M5 5-wood (19 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 90 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8X; TaylorMade Qi4D 5-wood (18 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9X

The TaylorMade M6 fairway wood that McIlroy was using during the 2019 season is still in the bag of some of the best golfers on Tour in 2026. Just check out Justin Rose’s winning setup from the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year. This year, though, McIlroy has still been searching for his top-end-of-the-bag setup, having played both the new Qi4D and the Qi10, which he won the Masters with.

The same shaft swap can be seen in the fairway woods as the driver, along with slightly less loft on the 5-wood.

Irons

2019: TaylorMade P750 (4) Buy here, TaylorMade P730 (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0
2026: TaylorMade P760 (4), TaylorMade Rors Proto (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0

The biggest difference between McIlroy’s custom set and the stock P730s is the groove design. While the P730s were constructed with 14 MX-9 grooves on their milled faces, McIlroy’s proto heads instead use the higher-spinning, 16-groove layout of the TW2 grooves. Other big differences between the sets are that McIlroy’s 7- and 8-irons have thinner toplines, are 1 degree stronger in loft, and are 1/4 inch longer than the original P730 builds.

With McIlroy’s 4-iron, the switch from P750 to P760 sees a transition to a two-piece construction with Speed Foam in it, which allows McIlroy to launch the ball slightly higher, with more workability.

Wedges

2019: TaylorMade Milled Grind (48-09SB), TaylorMade MG Hi-Toe (52-09SB, 56-09SB, 60-LB09), Shafts: Project X Rifle 6.5
2026: TaylorMade MG5 (46-09SB, 50-09SB, 54-11SB, 60-08LB @61), Shafts: Project X 6.5 (46-54), Project X 6.5 Wedge (60)

Between 2019 and 2026, McIlroy’s focus on his short game has been much more apparent. It was the reason why he switched back to the TP5 golf ball, to help with launch, spin and control with his wedges leading up to his career Grand Slam victory in 2025. The most apparent changes to McIlroy’s wedge setup are his lofts and bounce. He’s slowly delofted his pitching to a sand wedge, but has increased the loft on the lob wedge, bending his current 60-degree to 61. With that, adding more loft to his lob wedge also slightly increases the bounce and leading-edge sit point, so, as a result, he plays a lower-bounce lob wedge compared to 2019. The MG5 wedges are also softer than the first Milled Grind option from 2019. McIlroy also no longer plays the full-face grooves found on the Hi-Toe.

Putter

2019: TaylorMade Spider X
2026: TaylorMade Spider Tour X

Notice anything similar. Yes, the copper finish on Rory McIlroy’s Spider X putter in 2019 is a slightly more reflective finish than the recently released torched PVD finish. McIlroy was using the True Path alignment system, but now uses only a single white sightline.

Ball

2019: 2019 TaylorMade TP5 (#22)
2026: 2025 TaylorMade TP5 (RORS)

As mentioned above, McIlroy had transitioned from the TP5 to TP5x golf ball since his victory in Canada in 2019, but now is black with the same style of golf ball as his victory at Hamilton Golf & Country Club.

Grips

2019: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord
2026: Golf Pride MCC

Interesting, McIlroy actually used Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet Cord grips during his victory in 2019 (it was during a 2+ year switch to the corded TV) as opposed to his usual MCC grips, which he has played for most of his career.