UP CLOSE

Pulse

UP CLOSE / BEAT / HIS STYLE / HER STYLE

BY ELIZABETH LIBERATORE / PHOTOS BY CLAUDIA JOHNSTONE

GAME CHANGER

Thanks to Jason Richardson’s Bad Birdie, a bold polo retailer, the drab golf polo is history

Arizona is a true golfer’s paradise. Home to more than 300 golf courses, all varying in difficulty and magnificent landscapes, there is a course or two (or five) for every kind of player: amateur, professional and those in-between. With stellar golf courses (and not to mention ideal golf weather for most of the year) comes stellar tournaments — the kind people travel to attend. Take the Waste Management Phoenix Open as one example. Growing up in Scottsdale, Jason Richardson had access to these stellar courses and tournaments right in his backyard. Golf inevitably became a hobby of his.

“I love it! I try to get out once a week. The last two courses I played were Monument at Troon North and Stadium at TPC Scottsdale,” he says. Something Richardson never loved about golf was the nondescript attire. Plain polos somehow became the unofficial official uniform of the sport, which did no favors for a game many consider dull to watch. After searching the Internet to no avail for a vibrant polo to wear to a tournament, Richardson decided it was high time to re-brand the way people think about golf and golfers. “Nobody was putting prints on polos, so I created a product I wanted and was proud to wear. In May 2017, Bad Birdie was born [in my Los Angeles apartment],” he says. Bad Birdie offers a wide range of brightly colored and patterned polos in an athletic fit optimal for playing golf. As the company’s website says, “These aren’t your grandpa’s polos.” Before this, Richardson, a marketing professional, produced commercials and branded content for companies like Nike, Apple, Microsoft and Toyota for years. He switched gears and became a freelancer working on a project-to-project basis while simultaneously launching Bad Birdie as a side hustle. But as demand for his bold and playful polos increased, so did his time. “I slowly started taking fewer commercials as a producer and invested my time back into every aspect of the business. I did every job in the company from answering customer service emails to packing boxes to running Facebook ad campaigns,” Richardson says. Shortly after his wedding, Richardson and his wife, Jenna Richardson, decided to fully invest in Bad Birdie. They bought inventory and hired employees so that the business could soar. Richardson even brought Bad Birdie to ABC’s Shark Tank stage. Shark Tank is a TV show where business professionals pitch their ideas to a group of investors or sharks who decided whether to invest in the company or not. His episode aired in April of 2020, and Bad Birdie even secured an investor. “[Being on Shark Tank] was the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done but also one of the most exhilarating. There are tons of nerves before you go into the tank and even more when the sharks start asking questions. Overall, it was a fun and challenging experience that felt a bit like business boot camp crammed into a few minutes,” he says. The time and money Richardson invested into his company paid off. Now, 16 employees run the business operations of Bad Birdie from the company’s home office in Scottsdale. This past holiday season, Richardson debuted the company’s first retail store located in Kierland Commons. He and his team are eager to explore growth on all fronts, including expanding the line of products and opening more retail shops locally and nationally. Bad Birdie was a mere hatchling when it got its start in Richardson’s L.A. apartment. Now grown to spread its wings, the company’s mission remains the same as it did in 2017: To make golf more fun and inclusive for anyone who wants to play. “Most golf companies build their marketing around performance, rigid traditions or the exclusivity of the sport. Bad Birdie builds our marketing around the belief that golf is one of the most fun things you can do with your buddies on the weekend,” he says. “Our content shows guys being their authentic selves, with their shirts untucked, wearing a backwards hat and holding a cold beverage in hand and playing one of their favorite games with some of their favorite people. We’re selling fun and community.” With Richardson at the helm, the next golfing generation is changing the way golf is perceived. And until Bad Birdie brickand-mortars land in other states, Arizona is home to yet another golf-related thing: the coolest looking players on any greens that are there to enjoy the great game of golf. “Golf is meant to be fun. Stop taking yourself so seriously,” says Richardson. To learn more about Jason Richardson and Bad Birdie, visit www.badbirdiegolf.com.