Golf businesses come in many forms, but few are dug out of the dirt like Stacked Golf.
The premise of Stacked is simple: they find interesting golf equipment and you buy it at online auction. Included in that are all sorts of hidden-gem clubs—vintage, limited-issue, modern, nostalgic—that are being discarded far below their value.
The man realizing that value? Jon Armstrong, a rare-find club hunter, who alongside his thrifty wife Ashley, has turned this speciality into a thriving golf club resale community that generates $175,000 a week through live auctions, making Stacked a destination for club collectors. And his YouTube channel, which has surpassed 325,000 subscribers, takes the audience through the exciting-yet-unpredictable club discovery process.
For many MGS readers, Armstrong is living your dream.
Getting to that dream? It was no easy find.
The secret is in the dirt (literally)
Armstrong grew up in Connecticut and moved down to Florida during high school. He and Ashley now live in Ocala, a little more than an hour’s drive north of Orlando.
Always obsessed with clubs from a young age, Armstrong found himself rummaging through online forums and reading “what’s in the bag” articles while he was in class.
“I would literally spend hours writing out my dream what’s in the bag,” Armstrong told MyGolfSpy. “I always wanted the Scotty Cameron Teryllium that Tiger used (to win the 1997 Masters) but my favorite nostalgic club I had was the PING Anser 2x. It doesn’t sound rare but it’s the one with the extra-long hosel and it’s kind of hard to find.”
Armstrong has never had a golf lesson. His “babysitter” growing up was being dropped off at the course and playing until sunset. On that journey of continually getting better, clubs were always a part of the obsession.
Fast-forward to six years ago when, just before getting married, Armstrong had moved near a course and wanted to become a member. As a fellow golfer, Ashley agreed—if they could figure out how to pay for the membership without cutting into their budget.
Armstrong enjoyed watching fishing channels on YouTube so he thought a golf channel could be a good side hustle to pay for the membership.
Their Stacked channel—the name is a reference to fishing when your catches are stacked on top of each other—started off with Armstrong reviewing golf balls that Ashley found in the woods. They would pretend they had bought them and would do head-to-head reviews between brands.
“The video would go as long as I didn’t lose that golf ball,” Armstrong said. “Sometimes, we may or may not have finished the video with a different golf ball.”
Ashley’s love of thrifting and Armstrong’s love of rare clubs eventually made for a natural extension into club thrifting videos which made an impression. One of their first efforts garnered more than 100,000 views.
“YouTube at that time was more the old influencer style stuff where it was, ‘Look at how much money I have and how expensive my clubs are,’” Armstrong said. “And I was like, ‘Look how far I can hit this $2.99 Goodwill club.’”
The growth of the channel came organically. There’s very little strategy that goes into each video, Armstrong says. Every thrift opportunity is an unknown. And, no, there are not paid actors at the garage sales.
The audience (which comments by the hundreds on each video) appreciates that kind of authenticity as Stacked has carved out a niche for itself.
Cue Sublime because we’re heading to the pawn shop
If you enjoy talking about interesting golf clubs and like to see a good-natured negotiation, this is a channel for you.
Most videos feature Armstrong and Ashley going to pawn shops, garage sales, thrift stores and wherever else they can find clubs. Rick Shiels is even included in one of their trips.
In a recent video, Armstrong goes to a pawn shop and finds Bryson DeChambeau’s model of SIK Pro C-Series Armlock putter with an LA Golf shaft. The putter goes for north of $900 resale, but Armstrong buys it for just $499.
In general, Armstrong is not looking to rip people off by low-balling them for a club the seller doesn’t realize is valuable. His garage sales negotiations are amicable; he often pays more than the seller is asking for.
“We don’t really go for the shock and awe of beating someone down from $1,000 to $200 or whatever it might be,” Armstrong said. “It’s more fair that way. It’s also a funny dynamic with YouTube where you’ll get more comments if you pay over asking price. People hate it for some reason.”
That doesn’t mean Armstrong isn’t searching for a great deal. One of the main strategies is going to garage sales in nice neighborhoods where someone just wants to get rid of clubs. Maybe they are older and don’t even play golf anymore. Or they’ve just accumulated too much equipment over the years.
“The difference between a $5 club and a $400 club doesn’t mean much to some people,” Armstrong said. “But then sometimes you go to a garage sale where you don’t feel safe in the neighborhood and someone will have 100 clubs that were better than you found in the gated community. So it’s a lot of luck.”
One of Armstrong’s favorite finds this year was a Mizuno-Scotty Cameron “The Reason” putter. This was based on a short-lived collaboration between the two brands back in the early 1990s. He found it in a pile of clubs he paid $9 for. The putter’s value is well north of $300. In another video, a $5 Scotty Cameron Studio Style putter turns into a $500 sale.
Recently, Armstrong was giddy to discover a set of NIKE SQ MachSpeed irons still wrapped in plastic.
“It’s kind of nerdy but there is a huge thrill finding a set like that,” he said.
When it comes to pawn shops versus garage sales, the main difference is dealing with a professional negotiator who knows the club’s value and expects you to haggle. The juices start to flow, Armstrong says. With a garage sale, there is less of a hard line being drawn.
But no matter how the clubs are acquired, there are a lot of people in the world interested in seeing how that all goes down.
“When we hit 300,000 subscribers, our channel had about 299,998 more subscribers than I thought we would get,” Armstrong said. “Ashley and her mom are the only ones I thought would watch.”
Going once, going twice and … sold!
Once a club is found, it’s brought back to their warehouse and sold within the Stacked Golf community on District, a platform that allows creators and small businesses to have their own live-shopping marketplaces owned and operated by the seller.
District has become a dedicated space for Armstong’s live auctions and for other golf resellers to post about their own equipment sales, all of which is managed by Stacked. There are more than 600 resellers in the Stacked community of District, collectively generating more than $175,000 per week. Nearly all sales come from live shows.
A key aspect is that Armstrong wants other golfers to get good deals, just like he got in discovering a rare find in the first place. The community supports other resellers and those looking to take advantage of great deals. It’s also a family-friendly environment with strict rules on what types of resellers are allowed on the platform.
“We wanted to recreate the excitement that we feel when finding a club,” Armstrong said. “Instead of buying it from a soulless Ebay store, you are buying from fellow golfers.”
A part of the live auctions Armstrong hosts are that clubs can be auctioned off for just $1 if there are no bids within the first 10 seconds (or even less time depending on the club). It’s rare to go without bids but it has happened.
“It’s pretty nerve-racking to put a $500 club on there and you are hoping someone bids,” he said. “Half the people are there to see if a massacre happens.”
Built by Snapchat engineers, the District platform has allowed a creator like Armstrong to focus on bringing in users without having to worry about the plumbing of the live auction operation.
“It’s easier to scale your business when you don’t have to manage the technology and marketing side of it,” Armstrong said. “If we built our own platform with that functionality, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The auctions take place at all times of day although nights tend to be more popular.
Armstrong says the goal of Stacked is to become the place for golf club collectors.
Even if golfers interested in rare finds don’t watch the YouTube channel, it’s possible they could stumble upon Stacked organically and become a part of the community, participating in live auctions.
The side hustle Armstrong started has grown into a brand with several employees who help with shipping and other operations. It’s a legitimate golf business.
All of this after digging in the woods for balls.
“Every single day we pinch ourselves.”
If you are interested in Stacked, visit their District community here.
The post Garage Sale Hero: How Stacked Golf Turned Rare Club Finds Into A Thriving Business appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
