Five Years of Dimple & Divot

Two brothers, one idea, and zero idea what we were getting into.

Five years ago we started Dimple & Divot with a simple idea: make a better golf brush, built in the United States, built to last. We were not trying to disrupt anything. We just thought a better version existed and we wanted to be the ones to make it. Two brothers, 12 hours apart, a lot of help from our wives, and 25,000 brushes later — here is what we actually learned.

01. Making something quality in the U.S. is harder than it looks

We knew it would not be easy. We did not fully understand what that meant until we were living it.

Every material decision, every domestic supplier, every small improvement to the product adds cost. And that cost shows up in the price, which means you are constantly having to earn the sale. We have watched other companies take a version of what we built, mass produce it overseas, and sell it for a fraction of what we charge.

What we keep coming back to is this: we have customers who bought a brush on day one and still write to us years later to say it is holding up perfectly. That is the whole point. That is what we are building toward. You cannot get there by cutting corners, and we were never interested in trying.

02. Never stop improving the product

Here is something we are genuinely proud of. In five years we made dozens of improvements to our core product. Not dramatic overhauls, mostly small, intentional changes. Bristle strength, hardware profile, new options like hybrid bristles and retractable tethers. A brush from day one looks noticeably different from what we are shipping today.

About a year into business, we noticed the first of many copycats. We quickly found out they were made overseas by a manufacturer who took our product images from our website, photoshopped our logo off, and advertised their ability to make it. It was a gut punch. The finished product was a caricature of ours but we knew it was only a matter of time before they closed the gap.

What we took from that experience was a powerful mindset shift. An extreme focus on iteration and constant innovation. By the time someone copies what you made, you should already be two or three versions ahead of it. That has been our answer. We just keep going.

The brands we have collaborated with, Jones, Cleveland, Municipal, to name a few, have all shown us what a real partnership looks like. People who respect the work and want to build something together. That matters a lot to us and it is the only kind of collaboration we are interested in.

03. There will be a point where you question everything

Running a business will test you in ways you don’t see coming. Not just work ethic or strategy, but your relationships, your self-worth, your reason for doing this in the first place. You spend a lot of time learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

We’ve come close to packing it in more than once. Quietly shifting focus with the changing priorities and reality of life. In the formative years, we were putting everything back into the business, not paying ourselves, and that catches up with you.

What kept us in it was setting a goal that felt almost too big and deciding we were going to hit it regardless. We stopped treating our salary as something that would happen eventually and made it non-negotiable. It took time to get there. But we got there. And looking back, that period of grinding through it is a big part of why we feel the way we do about this brand now.

04. Going into business with family is complicated 

We were warned. A lot of people in our lives told us that mixing family and business was a bad idea. And honestly, there have been moments where we understood exactly what they meant.

Running a company from two different states, with two different daily realities, through different seasons of life means that staying aligned takes real effort. We have had hard conversations. We have had to figure out how to be business partners on top of being brothers, and those are not always the same skill set. Truthfully, it is something that still requires a lot of effort.

What has worked for us is being clear about who owns what, trusting each other to handle their side, and communicating early when something feels off.

We have also had an enormous amount of support from our wives, who have been part of this in ways that go way beyond what anyone would expect. We could not have built this without them.

Five years in, the relationship isn’t perfect. But it’s real, it’s ours, and we’re better off having done this together. We think that says something.

05. The definition of success keeps changing and that is a good thing

When we started, success was just having something real to point to while having a creative outlet in an industry we wanted to be a part of. A product we made, customers who wanted it, a reason to keep going.

By year three the conversation had shifted. We were asking ourselves why we were doing this if we could not pay our own bills. That question sounds discouraging but it was actually clarifying. It forced us to get serious about the business side of things, not just the creative side.

Right now, in year five, we feel like we have the most clarity we have ever had. We want to build the best golf accessories brand out there. We want to keep developing new products because we are, at our core, people who like to make things. We want to work with brands that share our values. And we want to keep earning the trust of the people who buy from us.

That feels like enough. And it also feels like just the beginning.

Thank you.

To everyone who has bought a brush, left a review, sent us a message, or told a friend about us: we notice all of it and we are grateful for every bit of it. Every order that goes out the door gets packed with real care, from the product to the packaging to the little extras we throw in. That part is never going to change.

Here’s to the next five.

Chris and Nick, Dimple & Divot