Welcome to the Two Down Press golf newsletter!

We’re back! 2 weeks off has us feeling fresh and energized here at 2DP. We have a lot of news to catch up on and a ton of golf to look forward to this weekend, including a big amateur tournament and a local PGA TOUR event, so we’ll cut the fluff and jump right into it. Enjoy!

PRESENTED BY

THIS WEEK’S HEADLINE

North Carolina Mid-Amateur Heads to Raleigh’s North Ridge Country Club

Photo Credit: Carolinas Golf Association, defending champion Cyrus Stewart, who won last year’s tournament in a playoff at Southern Pines Golf Club

Tee Times | Live Scoring

The 33rd North Carolina Mid-Amateur kicks off this morning at North Ridge Country Club, a 36-hole facility in Raleigh featuring 2 original designs by George Cobb. The tournament will be contested on the Lakes Course, which is set to play just over 6,800 yards to a par of 72.

Raleigh local Cyrus Stewart is your defending champion after a dramatic win at Southern Pines in the 2025 edition. He’s off tomorrow at 11:15 with fellow CGA champions Nic Brown and Brett McLamb, a group that is sure to feature on the leaderboard come Saturday.

Elsewhere on the tee sheet are a bevy of names likely familiar to 2DP readers, including 3 of the top 6 finishers from the recent Charlotte City Amateur (Scott Hamel, Sam Jenkins, and Chad Fultz). If you’re looking for some side-action, I’m keeping my eye on the battle for low influencer between Jacob Golliday and Jerell Fields.

PRESENTED BY TWILIGHT GOLF CLUB

The Twilight Golf Club tournament calendar culminates each fall with the Club Championship at Holly Ridge Golf Links. This 27-hole event starts with a series of flighted 9-hole matches before flight winners square off in a 3-hole aggregate playoff for all the marbles.

Defending champion Andrew Furr and 63 other members are set to compete for the title on October 15th. We can’t wait for another amazing day of fall golf!

Want to learn more about TGC events? Visit the website for more details.

2025 Champion Andrew Furr showing off his haul, which included a custom trophy designed by Ryan Thomas of Five Wood Furniture Company

GOLF BIZ

Utility Industry Sales Executive Launches Golf Glove Side-Hustle

When buying a golf glove, consumers are often forced to pick their poison: pay a premium for a name-brand or save some money and end up with something that looks and feels budget. Ken Hyde kept running into that trade-off and started asking a simple question - why can’t a glove be stylish, high quality, and affordable?

Hyde, a Charlotte resident and key accounts manager in the utility industry, has spent the last several months building Carolina Golf Gear around that idea - a competitively priced glove that doesn't look or feel discount.

Photo Credit: Carolina Golf Gear, the AccuFeel glove

The Aha Moment

Hyde grew up in Atlanta and joined Carolina Golf Club a couple years after moving to Charlotte in 1999. Golf has always been part of his life, and when he got the urge to pursue a side project outside of his traditional 9-5, he quickly turned to the game he loved as his preferred focus area. After some research and analysis, he settled on building a better glove as a problem worth tackling. "There's kind of an untouched market," Hyde said. “I wanted to create something that serious golfers, those who play multiple times a week, would enjoy wearing and not look down on. I believe that if they can do that while enjoying some cost savings, they’d be willing to make the switch."

Finding a Manufacturer

Hyde describes the search for a manufacturing partner as "a lot of nights on the internet," diving down rabbit holes. A conversation would start over WhatsApp, move to email, and eventually turn into an actual relationship. Manufacturers would send samples or photos of work they’d done for other clients, and Hyde quickly recognized some other notable brands. The manufacturer he eventually settled on makes gloves for Bridgestone's Asian market and for J. Lindeberg in Europe, but neither had real distribution in the United States. As Hyde put it, landing the right partners was "nothing more than continuously searching and reaching out" with a little luck mixed in.

The Logo

Hyde has a unique connection to the "C" that ultimately became the brand’s logo. Hyde grew up playing at the Atlanta Athletic Club, whose logo pairs a C with 2 stacked A's. For the club's 125th anniversary, they released a variation with the A's arranged horizontally instead, and Hyde loved the look of that C. He screenshotted it, dropped it into ChatGPT, and asked it to strip out the A's and solidify the C, getting him "about 80% there." Tweaking it further pushed it to around 90% before Hyde’s cousin, who works as a graphic designer, sharpened the proportions and added shading to finish the mark. Before launch, Hyde checked it against everything from the Cincinnati Reds to Charlotte Country Club to make sure it was original. "I was very happy when I could not find it anywhere else," he said.

Photo Credit: Carolina Golf Gear, the DuraSoft glove

Product and Pricing

Carolina Golf Gear will launch with 2 glove options. The DuraSoft is the standard offering, a slightly thicker, more durable glove priced at $11.99. The AccuFeel is a thinner glove for golfers who prefer a bit more feel and will be priced at $13.99. Hyde landed on offering multiple options after recognizing there's no single "perfect" glove for every golfer - some players want thickness and durability while others want a more tactile feel.

Where Things Stand

Hyde has already run an informal test phase, handing gloves to friends at the club and following up with a survey. "Every time I'm out at the club, they're like, when are you going to make [more] gloves? I'm ready to buy," he said. Before gloves even hit the site, Hyde designed and sold a custom towel clip that he used to work out the kinks of running the business itself: setting up Shopify, printing labels, and fulfilling orders. The DuraSoft glove is live on the site today, while the AccuFeel will be hitting the shelves shortly.

Visit carolinagolfgear.com if you want to try one of the gloves yourself and use code “first” for free shipping on your first order! You can also follow along on Instagram for the latest news and updates on the brand.

STORIES TO TRACK

PGA TOUR’s Biltmore Championship Asheville Gets Going Today: The TOUR is back in Asheville for the first time since 1942! The event is the 3rd of the calendar year held in North Carolina and is taking place at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove. Notables in the field include Carolinians J.T. Poston and Jacob Bridgeman, youngsters Jackson Koivun and Blades Brown, and big-name veterans like Billy Horschel and Webb Simpson. Follow live scoring.

Preview Play at Candyroot Lodge Sells Out in ~75 Minutes: As shared in last week’s Tiny Money newsletter, all of the spots for much-anticipated preview play access at Candyroot sold out in just over an hour. Wow! The resort generated over $300K of revenue from preview play passes, which sold for $175 each for a full day of golf.

Masterclass: I feel like Candyroot has absolutely nailed the marketing so far. They’ve released a slow drip of information for what feels like year, slowly building interest and anticipation without oversaturating the market. It’s no wonder that consumers were ready to pounce on something that finally made the new resort feel real!

Brian Garrett Runs Away with Club Championship at Pine Island: Garrett, who finished T7 in the recent Charlotte City Am, fired an opening round 64 and kept the gas pedal down all weekend to cruise to an 8-shot victory. View full scoring (GGID EWUQU7).

Pine Lake Country Club Prevails in Annual Meggs Cup Over Piper Glen: Cool event alert! Playing at home in this year’s event, Pine Lake rolled in the annual team match play competition by a final score of 12.5-7.5. The Meggs Cup, which is held annually in honor of Daniel and Doug Meggs, features 36-holes of gross four-ball competition between the top players from each club.

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