Sycamore-based custom clubmaker pioneered online sales
Photographs by Charles Cherney
This article appeared in the July 2025 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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Sub 70 Golf was the third golf company founded by Jason Hiland, who stands in the company's fitting studio/retail store in Sycamore, Illinois, where the company is based, six miles north of DeKalb.
For Jason Hiland, running two golf companies just didn’t seem like enough. In Dec. 2018, the Hinckley, Illinois native and owner of club component seller Diamond Golf and discount retailer Hurricane Golf saw another opportunity to turn what began as a passion project into Hiland’s third venture, called Sub 70 Golf, a custom clubmaker he created with a twist.
Instead of starting yet another club company with the hopes of selling into big box stores and green grass shops, Hiland decided to cut out the middleman and create Sycamore, Illinois-based Sub 70 with a direct-to-consumer business strategy that Hiland says allows golfers to buy high-quality custom clubs but at a lower price. No retailers, little advertising and no double-digit middleman markups.
“It was completely different in the sense that no one was doing it,” Hiland said. “PXG wasn’t doing it then, and being different was to our benefit. How can clubs be less expensive but better? We wanted to thread that needle.”
Though Hiland won’t reveal specifics, Sub 70 has found its niche in the club market with prices ranging from $65 per game improvement iron and forged irons for low handicappers starting at $145 per club. Other clubs range from $279 for drivers and down to $129 for fairway woods. Putters cost $179, wedges range from $105 to $135 per club. Sub 70 also sells bags and apparel. Iron sets run from $400 to $900. While the club heads are forged in China (as is the case with almost all heads), the clubs are custom-made in the company’s Sycamore headquarters just outside of DeKalb.
The products are sold online and by phone, with custom fittings available at the company’s facility. Sub 70 offers a money-back guarantee.
But how is it possible for golfers to buy custom clubs over the phone or online? Simple, said Hiland. “People know their specs.” Meaning that many serious golfers have previously been fitted for clubs; they know the specific weight, flex and even brand of the shafts they want installed on their irons, drivers, fairway woods and hybrids, etc. “If someone contacts us who doesn’t know his specs, we tell him to find a local fitter and get back to us. If they live in the Chicago area, they can make an appointment and get fitted free of charge at our facility in downtown Sycamore.”
If for some reason, there’s something wrong with the clubs, Sub 70 is committed to fixing them. That’s part of the reason for the positive reputation the brand has built in the social media space, lending to its upward momentum
“We’ve grown fast,” Hiland said. “We’ve gone from a passion project to a real company. I want to be bigger, but you can’t let that get in the way of what we are today.”
Entering the club market was a natural progression for Hiland, who said he has never worked in a job outside of golf.
His love for golf began as a kid in Hinckley, located about 20 miles west of Aurora, where he spent summers learning the game at Indian Oaks Country Club, a semi-private nine-hole course. He played on the Hinckley-Big Rock High School team and on the Waubonsee Community College team before earning his business degree at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where he did not play golf. But he worked all through school at SMT Golf in Oswego, where he learned how to build clubs. (SMT no longer builds clubs.) “I’d come back and work summers,” Hiland said. “I was around it all the time.”
After graduating from UW-Oshkosh in 1995, Hiland started Diamond Golf in 1995 and Hurricane Golf in 2008. After finding success with those two companies, Hiland took some time off to help raise his kids, but then felt the itch to start Sub 70.
“I was ready for the next push,” Hiland said. “We started off small and said, ‘Let’s see if this has any teeth.’”
Fueled in part by the massive growth in golf due to the pandemic, Sub 70 began to take hold in the direct-to-consumer market. The company initially offered three sets of irons, three different putters and one wedge model. Today, the product line includes 11 iron sets, multiple fairway woods, 12 different putters and four wedges.
“We were extremely Mom and Pop, but now our customer base has gotten much more widely adopted,” said Jay Armour, Sub 70 marketing director and co-owner.
Sub 70 does not rely on a deep marketing spend and does not pay any Tour players to play their clubs. Instead, the company is based on a smart social media marketing strategy and a deep commitment to customer service and accessibility.
The company does not charge for fittings and is responsive to building the clubs that best fit buyers’ needs.
“We are small, but there are benefits,” Armour said. “We are more nimble, more responsive and more accessible than a company that has 1,000 employees. We are not going to have a set product cycle unless we can make it better.”
A key breakthrough for the brand came in 2019 after PGA Tour pro Mark Calcavecchia put Sub 70 fairway woods in his bag followed by the company winning accolades from the MyGolfSpy product evaluation website.
Both brought legitimacy and visibility to the upstart brand.
“Those were two huge breaks,” Hiland said, adding that today the company has a few professionals playing Sub 70 irons, including Zack Fischer, who plays mainly on the Korn Ferry Tour.
With the typical five-year consumer club buying cycle, there is room for growth for Sub 70 as golfers replace equipment. Still, the company has rebuffed opportunities to put clubs at retail and, so far, has not pursued any outside investment or private equity infusion as it competes with other direct-to-consumer brands, such as PXG or Takomo.
“We’ve turned down deals from retailers and I won’t compromise,” Hiland said. “What I won’t do is grow too fast and lose control.”
John Lombardo covered the golf industry for nine years for Sports Business Journal.