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 JEREMY DURAN APRIL 16, 2020

Over the years, the golf bag, and what’s in it, have become essential to how we all personalize the game. It is the focus of every off-season; how can we as players evolve our bag?

We have seen a number of Tour players really deck out their bags for a round of golf. Many avid golfers live by the saying, “look good, play good,” which we all know by now is intended to mean, in order to play good, you must look good doing it.

From the best clubs in the game to all the best looking head covers, you can count on I.T.L to own some of the best looking things.

If you didn’t know already, we at “Inside The Leather” make it our motto to live by the “look good, play good” mentality.

We Recently discovered SunFish Golf, a headcover company that originally started in a garage. We caught up with Alonzo Guess, owner of the company, and he shared an amazing story with us.

“Shortly after the ’08 recession showed how fragile the concept of job security is, my friend David and I decided we wanted to start our own business, and take charge of our future. It was our dream to work for ourselves and this was the perfect opportunity. The company started making wool hats and beanies in a garage, and after a conversation with a PGA Instructor, we started making golf head-covers…. Sunfish was born. 10 years later Sunfish has over 40 employees and we sell quality custom head-covers and a variety of other golf accessories for a great price.”

Alonzo went on to tell me that Sunfish really lives to better their customer service in addition to maintaining quality. 3 years ago Alonzo, David, and their team ran into an issue where they weren’t able to deliver customization that a customer wanted, and long story short, Alonzo and the team made it their mission to develop a new customization technique of permanently adding full color high resolution images and even photographs on their products. The new technique is called Photo-flux.

 

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Sunfish today is now making headcovers of every size, alignment stick covers & valuable pouches, in over 25 different colors and can almost customize anything you want on it.

Recently, SunFish held a customization contest to show the wide variety of what they can really do. The winner of the contest came up with a Pimento Cheese inspired cover. To SunFish, it was no big deal to make! Truly a company that makes anything.

Hey if you don’t believe me, see what the host of Inside The Leather, Ronnie From NJ thinks of it:

For more exclusive giveaways, be sure to subscribe to the SunFish newsletter. And for 10% of your next purchase, use our link here.

If you are searching for even more options, you should check out Sunfish. They have a nice variety of designs available in leather and knit material. Also, you can customize almost all of their headcovers with text and images for reasonable prices.

Thanks for including us Practical Golf!

We last talked with Alonzo Guess of Sunfish in November of 2017 after the Nashville-based company launched a custom headcover and accessory builder on its website.

The company has been producing custom headcovers, yardage books, and other accessories since 2013 when it entered the market with its signature wool headcovers.

We wanted to see what was up, and Guess was kind enough not only to answer a few questions, but to design a pretty incredible GolfWRX driver cover using some raw assets we sent over.

BA: What’s new at Sunfish since we last talked? 

AG: 2018 was a great year for innovation at Sunfish. We worked hard to develop new design and construction techniques, and it has been really exciting combining these new creative elements into one of a kind headcovers and accessories. 2018 was our eighth year in business, but it was probably the most significant in terms of innovation. We’re excited to see where we can go from here!

BA: Looking at your websites, I know one of the new things you developed is something you call Photoflux. What exactly is Photoflux?

AG: Photoflux is our proprietary high-resolution printing process, that gives us the ability to apply to our products anything from photos to complex patterns to intricate logos. The level of resolution and detail is truly unmatched, and can’t be achieved with embroidery. We apply it to our leather and Duraleather products, even our hand-made copper ball markers and divot tools! Those are really exciting, because we can make custom copper ball markers with full color logos, on demand

BA: How the heck did you come up Photoflux?

AG: A customer ordered a scorecard holder with his family photo to be embroidered on each side. We made the piece and weren’t happy at all with the result. The embroidery process couldn’t do justice to the photographs. It was clear that there were certain limitations to embroidery, and we were motivated to overcome them. After months of trial and error, long hours and strenuous testing against sun, rain, and wear, we developed the current process.

BA: Tell me about this headcover you made for GolfWRX. I suggested the use of a graffiti wall, a GolfWRX logo, and skeleton hand holding up one finger to denote one club/driver, and you really went to town!

AG: So for the headcover you have, we used Photoflux to apply the graffiti wall image to the top of the cover (did you notice the ‘GolfWRX’ spraypaint in there? We threw that in there for you as an Easter egg!). On top of that, we embroidered the skeleton hand. For the stripe, we laser cut the outline of a typical urban skyline, and laser engraved the chain-link fence pattern over the top, than sewed that down. The bottom portion is a Photoflux image of GolfWRX that you sent over.

With so many new ways to decorate and manipulate the materials, we’re really excited about combining it all for our fans and customers to create really unique products. We feel the sky is the limit, and we hope this headcover illustrates that.

Custom is coming and golfers want it. From clubs to apparel and everything in between, making things “your own” is something that is sought after in every facet of the game. Headcovers, putter covers and more have been at the forefront of this for years, but full color printing vs embroidery or stitching was lacking at best.

Enter Photoflux, a new custom option from the folks at Sunfish that takes a photo, image or logo and directly prints it on leather products such as headcovers. Similar to the custom grips we have given away from Super Stroke on the THP Forum the image is perfect every time.

Eager to test the service, we sent two images to Sunfish for trial. The first image being the THP Logo and the second our mascot, THP Man, the ultimate internet golfer.  After a quick turnaround of less than a week, a new headcover arrived at the office that was both high quality and one of a kind, since we had not seen a technique like this done in the past to this scale. The printing looks natural and while these have been done with embroidery in the past, the photo transfer is incredibly different.

Is it better? Not sure. As a fan of stitching and the look it creates, the best way to describe this new method is different. What this does however, is open the doors for people to have intricate logos and photographs that could not be stitched previously, done in a way that creates a personal design.

One of the biggest questions that came out on the THP Forum community after initial pictures was durability. It makes sense considering any custom options come with a higher price tag and these are no different being over $100. The only way to test is time, and right now it shows no signs of wear after a month of use in the Florida sun. We will continue to update the forum thread periodically if wear patterns change.

If you are looking for custom options, Sunfish has a lot of flexibility and their quality is top notch. Our previous review of their goods back in 2015 talked about their attention to detail and willingness to go to high levels to please customers. That has not changed, and they have many different designs, options and price points to do so. Photoflux adds to that portfolio in a way that brings a different level of customization to the golfer.

Are you a custom fan? What would you like to see on a headcover?

If you’ve followed me over the years, you know I’m a double alum of the University of Maryland. Loved the place so much I stayed for 5 years. And for the better part of a decade, I’ve had a Maryland Terrapin mascot driver headcover. It’s a conversation starter, but it’s more been a symbol of pride.

However, at this point in my life, I’m a dad more than anything. I have two great kids, and my life pretty much revolves around them and my wife, as well building Golf News Net. So, I was due for a headcover change, and that’s why Sunfish Sales reaching out was a case of perfect timing.

Back in the day, I worked with Sunfish when what’s now the Unpro store was Pargoods, which was designed to be a dropshipping store promoting up-and-coming smaller golf brands. I loved what Sunfish was doing in the headcover space, and, even though Pargoods is no more (maybe it should come back), I’ve watched their growth from afar.

And now they’re offering a new spin on headcovers, which they’re calling Photoflux. This is an emerging technology which gives Sunfish the ability to print photos and graphics directly onto a high-quality leather headcover or their leather yardage books or their leather putter covers.

On their website, you pick a style, and then you go through the design process using their interactive builder, picking colors and stripes and other options, as you would do ordering a standard Sunfish product. Then, you can choose Photoflux, which adds $45 to the cost of the headcover, taking it from $55 or $60 to $100 or $105. You supply the image you want to use, and, of course, the higher the quality, the better the result. It can be a photo, like I picked, or it can be a graphic.

After checking out, you’ll get your headcover in up to 4 weeks. Every headcover is handmade from spec, and the guys at Sunfish make sure your order is done right.

I got mine in much less time than 4 weeks, and the headcover is great. It’s lightweight, and it’s not bulky. The lining helps slip the cover on the driver easily, and the design tightens at the bottom of the driver head to make sure the cover stays on through the round.

Now when I play golf, I’ll have a new conversation starter, and I can always look at one of my favorite photos of my kids together.