From the Fairway to the Shelf
Sunday Golf began when a group of friends in San Diego turned their time on the course into a business idea. Six years later, the brand’s colorful golf bags and accessories are sold through more than 1,000 retail accounts, and the business is split almost evenly between e-commerce and retail.
“Golf should be fun, and the gear should feel that way too,” says Galen Brunelle, Co-Founder of Sunday Golf. That belief has helped the company create a brand that feels fresh, approachable and unmistakably its own while building a substantial and increasingly complex retail business behind the scenes.
As Sunday Golf expanded, the challenge was no longer simply getting its products onto store shelves. It was gaining a consistent view of what happened after they got there.
The challenge:
Sunday Golf depended on individual retailers for sell-through and inventory data. Some shared reports when asked, while others did not, leaving the team without a consistent view of what was actually selling in stores.
The solution:
Decision Intelligence gives Sunday Golf a consistent retailer-level view of sales, inventory, sell-through, and weeks of stock, helping the team evaluate performance without chasing reports account by account.
The result:
The data overturned assumptions about online versus in-store demand, showed that one key account carried just 14 of Sunday Golf’s 120 SKUs, and changed how the team approaches assortment and buyer recommendations.
The challenge
Before Decision Intelligence, Sunday Golf knew what it shipped to retailers but could not consistently see what sold through or remained on hand. Access depended on each retailer. Some partners sent reports when asked; others did not share the information, leaving Brunelle with an incomplete and uneven picture of performance.
“You’re flying blind. You know what you’re shipping, but not how it’s actually selling, and we don’t have a rep force that can go check the stores.”
– Galen Brunelle, Co-Founder, Sunday Golf
That made reorders deceptively difficult. A repeat order suggested demand, but without sell-through and on-hand inventory data, Sunday Golf could not tell whether products were moving quickly enough or inventory was building at the retailer. The team relied on shipment history, reorder activity and e-commerce performance to infer what retailers should carry next.
Online success was not always a reliable proxy for in-store demand. The risk was recommending more of a product that looked strong online but was already moving slowly on a retailer’s shelves.
Sunday Golf’s lean team made the visibility gap harder to overcome. Two or three people had historically managed more than 1,000 accounts, and the company did not have a field force that could regularly visit stores, count inventory and verify shelf conditions. The team needed a scalable way to see performance without repeatedly asking buyers for data.
The solution
When Sunday Golf put Decision Intelligence in place, reporting was up and running within a week or two after the team provided its SKU list. Instead of requesting information account by account, Brunelle could review consistent retailer-level sales and inventory data in one place.
“Just having the data source is everything to me.”
– Galen Brunelle, Co-Founder, Sunday Golf
Brunelle uses the Business Overview to evaluate each account separately, reviewing sell-through, weeks of stock and product performance. That consistent process helps him distinguish true consumer demand from shipment activity, identify where reorders may be needed and see where an assortment may be too broad, too narrow or misaligned with demand.
Rather than arriving at a buyer conversation with a broad recommendation, Sunday Golf can now bring retailer-specific evidence: what is selling, what is not, where inventory is concentrated and which products may warrant greater focus.
The results
The first surprise was how differently some products performed by channel. Several of Sunday Golf’s strongest online SKUs ranked among the weaker sellers in stores, exactly the opposite of what Brunelle would have expected.
“Some of our top SKUs online are among the bottom sellers in stores. I would have guessed that completely wrong, and my recommendations would have been wrong too.”
– Galen Brunelle, Co-Founder, Sunday Golf
That finding changed the recommendation. Without Decision Intelligence, Brunelle said he might have suggested more of a product simply because it performed well online. With actual sell-through and weeks of stock data, he can avoid adding to slow-moving inventory and focus the conversation on products better supported by that retailer’s results.
The platform also exposed a significant assortment gap: one key account carried just 14 of Sunday Golf’s 120 SKUs, while another carried a much broader assortment across more than 100 locations. For Sunday Golf, that comparison turns a general request for more shelf space into a specific, evidence-backed conversation about which products could expand the assortment.
“All assortment decisions have completely changed because now we can get the real data.”
– Galen Brunelle, Co-Founder, Sunday Golf
Early value is also showing up in planning efficiency. Brunelle estimated that access to the data could save 30 to 50 hours over an upcoming four-to-eight-week retail planning period. More importantly, it gives him confidence that the recommendations he brings to buyers reflect what is actually happening in their business.
Sunday Golf is still early in its use of Decision Intelligence, but the shift is already clear: the team has moved from piecing together partial signals to using consistent retail evidence to guide assortment, inventory and buyer conversations.
With Decision Intelligence, it feels like you actually know what you’re doing instead of guessing. The confidence I have that my recommendations are going to be great, and that our relationship is only going to get better, feels awesome.
– Galen Brunelle, Co-Founder, Sunday Golf