Our story
Golf was built to
keep people out.
We're changing that.
GolfRoots started in a garage with a box of clubs and one big question: why is getting into golf so needlessly hard?
How it started
When Ben Stromberg was four years old, his grandfather and father introduced him to golf. He played for a few years, then put the clubs down at seven to chase soccer, a sport he played competitively all the way through high school at Greenhill School in Dallas. Golf didn't come back into the picture until he was 17.
In college at Texas A&M, Ben picked the game back up recreationally and eventually founded the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets Club Golf Team. One summer, he worked at Las Campanas, a club in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and came home with a car full of demo clubs, lost-and-found gear, and old equipment that nobody had come back for.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020, stuck at home with a pile of clubs and not much else to do, Ben started selling them on Facebook Marketplace. Small sales, nothing serious. But the more he did it, the more he noticed something: people weren't just looking for a single club. They were trying to get into golf. They just didn't know where to start, and couldn't stomach the price tag to find out.
So he started building full sets from what he had. Word spread. Orders came in. A business started to take shape.
Enter Jake. Exit the garage.
In December 2020, Ben connected with his old Greenhill School teammate Jake Hoffman about what he was building. Ben was finishing up at Texas A&M. Jake was wrapping up at Washington University in St. Louis. Jake had never really played golf, but he immediately understood the opportunity.
"Golf is such a hard sport to get into. It's expensive and it's exclusive. It's all designed to keep people out. I thought there was room for a company to change that."
— Jake Hoffman, Co-Founder
Jake came on as co-founder. The two brought different perspectives and different experience, both in business and in the game. They built the website, formalized the model, and got to work: curated, affordable, pre-owned clubs for every level of golfer.
In 2022, Ben left his job to work on GolfRoots full time. The operation moved out of the garage and into its own space. Things were getting real.
The growth
Summer 2020
The first sales
Ben starts selling clubs out of his parents' garage on Facebook Marketplace during the COVID-19 pandemic.
December 2020
GolfRoots is founded
Ben and Jake officially launch GolfRoots. They build the website, lock in the model, and start growing.
2021
First press and private club partnerships
GolfWeek covers GolfRoots as a place to try golf risk-free. Private club trade-in partnerships begin to take shape.
2022
Ben goes all in
Ben leaves his job and GolfRoots moves out of the garage. The team starts to grow and the operation becomes a real company.
2024
Team, warehouse, clubs
The team expands, the warehouse grows, and the volume of clubs moving through GolfRoots reaches new highs. Private club partnerships spread across the country.
2025
The largest social following in the space
GolfRoots grows to have the largest social media following of any US-based company in the used golf equipment space, and is featured with Good Good, MyGolfSpy, and Forbes.
Today
22 teammates. 400+ club partners. More coming.
We're operating out of a 6,100 sq ft warehouse and preparing to move into a much larger space to keep up with demand.
Three roots. Three barriers.
The GolfRoots logo isn't decoration. It's a mission statement. The three roots represent the three things that keep people from getting into golf: cost, complexity, and community. We go after all three.
Affordable equipment is only part of it. We also use social media to make golf easier to understand, breaking down what clubs you actually need, how equipment works, what the rules mean, and why none of it needs to be as intimidating as the industry has made it. Golf has always had a gatekeeping problem. We're trying to fix it.
And then there are the products we've built ourselves. The Just The Roots Starter Set is the most affordable starter set in golf: four essential clubs, five balls, and 100% of the money back toward a full set when you're ready to upgrade. We've also developed our own line of affordable putters, balls, tees, and accessories, with JTR sets, wedge sets, and bags on the way.
"We don't want to be just another used-club company. We want to be a golf company that sells used clubs, with the focus of making the game approachable."
— Ben Stromberg, Co-Founder and CEOSustainability, not charity
To build our inventory, we partner with golf clubs and country clubs across the country, running trade-in events and facilitating annual trade-ins for their members. Members get to clear out their garages, offload equipment they've stopped using, and earn credit toward new gear at their club. We acquire quality inventory at prices that let us pass real savings on to you.
Re-introduce unwanted clubs back into the market for golfers who desperately want them. It's not charity. It's just a smarter way to think about the golf equipment cycle. We support golf clubs in making more sales and better servicing their members, while moving our own mission forward at the same time.
Sustainability at its finest.
Our mission
Eliminate the barriers to entry into golf through affordable equipment, honest guidance, and a community that's actually welcoming. For us, it doesn't matter how you play. Just that you play.
Golf-obsessed. Here for the long game.
Our team is made up of people who genuinely love the game and want to see it grow. We believe golf is better when more people play it, and we're building a company around that belief every single day.
Whether you're spending $89 on your first starter set or $800 on a premium tour-level iron set, we'll treat you the same: like someone who deserves great equipment and honest advice.
Welcome to GolfRoots. Let's get swingin'.
