Bright Valley Enterprises, LLC

So, exactly how did The Square Golf Ball become a thing?

The initial idea came to me in 1995 when a friend complained about his golf ball always rolling past the cup. My immediate come back was "you should a suqre golf ball instead". This generated a chuckle, but that image was now in my head. Being one who finds humor in small puzzles that you have a hard time putting back together, gadgets or gimmicks that are novel in a humorous fashion - this square golf ball became a search for me. Certainly somebody had thought about and made this, but 1995-2000 was prior to the Internet, so my research options were limited. When the Internet became populated with search opportunities, my searching became more intense. In April 2012, having zero success in finding this item, my wife said "If you can't find this,
then make it yourself".

Little did I know just how difficult it would be to actually produce The Square Golf Ball. And I had grossly underestimated the cost to arrive at a finished product. Had I known these two elements - I would never have made The Square Golf Ball. This was a case where money is invested, then a little more money, then countless failed attempts, throw in some more money - and very soon I had too much invested to just walk away. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars.

Locating a manufacturer who could make The Square Golf Ball was a major hurddle. I really wanted to claim "Made In The USA" - but having very little success within the USA, Asia became the next place to look. Do to the time difference, just exchanging emails would be a full day before a reply. Just trying to convey what I wanted proved quite difficult.

Albuquerque, NM (where I am located) is well known for offering an excellent location for movies to be filmed. Almost by accident I found a local company that produced movie set items - special swords, hand guns and a host of other "look real" small items. I laid out my idea, and he said sure. Wow - after a global hunt, the manufacturer was just 10 miles from my office. But this was
still no easy task, as we both learned early on. More than a year after starting (and a lot more money invested), a finished Square Golf Ball became reality. Finally out-of-the-woods - nope. The production process was slow, very labor intensive and the reject ratio was 50% - half (or more) of the units would be unacceptable for sale. We learned that temperature was a major factor during production, unlike when producing other movie set props. We had to use the same outer covering material as a traditional golf ball - and that added even more twists, expense and a learning curve.

And that is the condensed version of how The Square Golf Ball came about. All during the time spent trying to actually make this, there was another huge, time-consuming and costly issue - the patent and trademark. These both proceeded at a snails pace. Getting "The Square Golf Ball" trademarked was nearly impossible, because I would be unable to incorporate "square" and "ball" in the same name. This finally got approved - wow, what a journey.

Phil Ellison
Inventor, producer and patent holder.

Bright Valley Enterprises LLC operates from headquarters located north
of Albuquerque, NM.

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