Nate Hryn is not your typical college student. On top of being a full-time student and golfer on his Division III team, he also own his own apparel company. How Acorn Hills separates itself from the pack is truly unique. Nate joins Jeff Hartman on the latest Two-Man Scramble podcast on the Fairways & Dreams podcast. This podcast is a part of the Fans First Sports Network.
What’s up golf fans welcome back to another episode of Fairways and dreams I’m your host Jeff Hartman and I love these two man scramble podcast in case you’ve never listened maybe it’s your first time chiming in every time I have a guest on the show I call it the twom
Man scramble where I have someone on that maybe let’s just put it this way I find them intriguing and that’s why we’ve had someone like Ken Keller uh we had Kane on last week who’s an influencer on on Instagram and speaking of Instagram this is where I found our
Guest today it’s Nate Ren from Acorn Hills Golf company but not just golf it’s a very unique company I’m anxious to hear about this but I want to welcome Nate to the show Nate how are you good Jeff I appreciate you having me on you know it’s finally uh nice to put
A face with the name we’ve been chatting on Instagram for a couple months here now and um you know you you were kind of one of my first followers when I was in the infant stage of the business and um finally good to come on the podcast kind
Of support you a little bit too yeah absolutely and uh so it’s it’s great to like you said put a name with a face and all that good stuff and uh let’s talk about your company first so I have followed you all for a long time on
Instagram and I loved how it’s just it’s Unique you know when you talk about Golf Apparel and you don’t just do golf apparel you do other apparel as well I want to make that very clear there are a million options out there now when it comes to uh you know independent golf
Companies and everyone does it differently but no one does it like you do so let me ask you in your opinion what separates you from the pack because I think that’s a very important question yeah I think you you know you hit the nail on the head when you said
Kind of there’s a million and one different clothing companies out there um you know I think I think the simple part people sometimes take for granted is anyone can kind of take a design and slap it on a sweatshirt or slap it on a T-shirt and um to me that takes kind of
Not too much skill um it still takes a little bit of effort but I think what Separates Me is uh the way I kind of get back to the environment and the way kind of I I approach things from a conservation aspect so those that aren’t
Familiar with me um I actually use seed paper I’m not sure if you know what seed paper um you’re familiar with seed paper Jeff but what seed paper is is it’s decomposable um paper that has seeds sewn in them and then um you know when you get for example when you buy my
Product uh you get instead of having like a cardboard or a plastic uh glossy like price tag that people cut off and throw away they take that seed paper tag they cut it off and instead of throwing it away they’ll soak it in water and plant it in the ground and within a
Couple weeks you’ll have sproutings of wild flowers so that’s kind of what um you know separates me I think too and I think too another thing is my personalized service is you know it’s just me um I you know I have hold all my inventory um I’m a full-time college
Student so I have two shipping locations my college dorm and uh my parents house at home so you know it’s kind of kind of grown grown that way you know like for example like with you uh on Instagram and stuff you know that’s me responding to your DMs it’s not some sort of
Thirdparty marketing or some sort of AI bought or something it’s actually me so um I think that’s what kind of separates separates the company so I gotta be honest you know I’m 40 years old I went through college uh did the whole fraternity thing never in my wildest dreams would I think to
Myself hey maybe I should start a golf clothing company while I’m in the midst of getting my four-year degree what caused you to want to do that because I was worried about everything else Under the Sun probably more so than my studies and yet you wanted to start a company
Where did this come from yeah and you know um being I’m from pa um cleari PA for all my PA listeners out there but it’s a very rural part and you know not a lot of um industry so to speak and a lot of the golf courses were
Munis and public golf courses so the outdoors were a huge part of my life whether it was you know biking or you know running outside or fishing or something like that there was this whole other world besides golf for me and um you know when I came to college I
Actually play golf in college here I thought why could I combine the two and you know kind of combine that outdoor feeling with uh kind of my passions for golf and see if there’s a way to cross-pollinate the ti and uh I’m obviously I’m not the first
Golf company to have a casual side and vice versa first casual company to have a golf side but um like I said the way I approach things is kind of what separates me um from my competition I think but you know I started it I was I
Was a freshman I thought well you know if I’m gonna fail I’m gonna fail big and I went ahead and like launched everything and I didn’t start uh launching the site until my S sophomore year so it took about six to eight months of actually research and
Development on my end to do it so so how how much have you grown since you started it a few years ago like do you have any tangible numbers or anything like that for I don’t need like profit margins but do you how how how has the success been so
Far well you know this is actually our our first year in in business like I said the research and development was 6 to eight months um and that push us till you know my beginning of my sophomore year and I didn’t I didn’t launch until January 1st of 2023 was my official
Products were live um you know I available to ship them out everything like that and you know I started with a little bit of my um I work I work two jobs here on campus so I put a little bit of that money aside I started with
That and through that I’ve been able to um you know quadruple the returns and when I say returns I don’t mean profit for myself this is this company is not paying for my college education by any means when I say quadruple returns I mean followers I mean engagement I mean
Um you know news segments because I don’t know if you’re familiar with it or not but when I first went live um I got picked up by USA Today to do a news kind of article on me and that actually got so much re-sharing and so much traction
That the Weather Channel picked it up and I went on the Weather Channel on April um April 12th I think it was but it was with in front of a couple milon people the viewer audience was estimated a couple million so um it was pretty it was pretty surreal moment that all just
Like happened within months of each other and uh now I’m starting to get getting some Pro Shops and retailers on the outdoor side and um just kind of every day is a new day so if you would have told me a year ago that I’d be
Where I’m at today I would have called you crazy and if you you know maybe five years down the line I look back and um you know this we’ll laugh at like something like this where I’m still kind of small and uh maybe I’ll be bigger
Down the line we just don’t know so well I know the answer to this because I have communicated with you I’m getting ready to place an order for some people for the holidays uh and I know that your stuff is good stuff and you’ve told me
Like that you in terms of your suppliers the one thing like I’m all about helping out the the young company I’d rather give the money to an upstart into a local independent Group whatever we also want to make sure we’re getting really good good stuff whether it’s you know
The the golf shirt the the quarter zip the long sleeve t-shirt speak to the quality of your products to to anyone out there listening that might be wanting to Google Acorn Hills and make place an order yeah and I think that’s where um that’s another differenti uh you know
Kind of Separates Me from the competition I’d say for lack of a better term is I use these suppliers all over the world you know I have some domestically in the US I have some overseas wherever I can find things like such as like recycled fabrics and biodegradable packaging and things like
That um that these huge companies use like you know FootJoy and Peter M and um you know roback and these these upand cominging golf companies and already established golf companies like those guys and you know I look at their pricing and nothing against their pricing branding is great but I’m
Providing the same product at half the cost and um I think that really kind of speaks to my message is I’m not I’m not trying to gouge my customer I’m not trying to kind of um make this you know some sort of fantasy product where only
The wealthy can afford it it’s you know if you want to make a difference no matter how big or how small um my products can do that it’s fantastic I I do have to ask this is a golf podcast we got to talk some golf now we got to talk
About you as a player give us your background you did say you play collegiately currently uh where do you go to school how’s your game what’s it look like what give give us the rundown yeah yeah so um like I said before I’m from a very small rural town so a lot of
Times growing up um not a lot of my friends play golf or if they did play golf it was just to kind of fill a team so I could play golf um and that’s that’s how it was my my Senior High School uh we had 12 guys on the team
They were all my 12 buddies and none of them prior to that year uh picked up a golf club besides me so uh needless to say you know we would go out there and have a great time but with that said is I never had a lesson until college so I
Was all self-taught um you know and i’ I’m all field player so everything uh you know you’ll see people pound balls on the range for hours and hours that’s not me I’m I’ll go out there from 20 25 yards out on some sort of hole hit little like you
Know wedges and bumping runs and things like that I’m I’m all feeli and I can tell you where the ball’s going without um you know that Split Second between impact and the direction of the ball but I think too where I struggle a little bit Collegiate wise um is I don’t hit
The ball real long for driver-wise you know I’m maybe 250 260 carry if that and while that competes recreationally you know I’ll go back in a summer time at my course yeah when I go home from you know school and on vacations and breaks and play at
My own course which is a little bit shorter because in college we play from the tips um and my home course doesn’t have tips so I’ll compete pretty well and then you know I come to college and I’m surrounded by guys who hit the ball you know 280 29 sometimes you know three
300 plus carry and it’s a wonder like how do you how do you compete at that level and especially me from a division I’m I’m a division three I came out of high school with a couple Division 2os I thought well you know financially wise division three was
A better option so I stuck with D3 and the question comes you know how do I compete at this level not hitting the ball along and it really comes down to short game that feeli like I said the 20 yard pitches the 25 yard um you know pitches bumping runs sand shots those
Sort of when they say like short game short game short game for me it’s really short game short game short game and you know to kind of validate that point is my freshman year putting we kept track of putts on our team and I led our team
And I think I probably would have led pretty well in our conference I I averaged 22 putts per 18 which wow you know if you think about it that’s it’s insane now obviously my putting numbers have since it’s funny because now I hit the ball a little bit further and my
Putting numbers go up too because now I don’t put so much pressure on my short game um but FR freshman freshman year me was you put a putter in my hand it was it was like vintage tiger or something it was crazy but um yeah I think I think
My game is a little bit of a uh older style type player you know you’re your guys who are good ball Strikers rather than hit the ball mile um I think that’s kind of my my style so you said that you hadn’t had a lesson until you went to college I find
That intriguing because I’ve never been a guy that goes to Les to gets lessons either I went to one when I was really young and the dude taught me nothing and I was like well screw this I’ll figure it out on my own so when you eventually
Got your first lesson as a Collegiate golfer was that difficult to take that instruction because you said I’ve played with a lot of players who are field players just like you just labeled yourself where if I’m 60 yards out like you might not even need to know it’s 60
Yards out you’re looking at the pin you’re looking at the hole the lie all that stuff you’re like I know how to play this shot you know how it’s going to check and how the ball’s going to respond but was that lesson was it was it difficult for you to take that lesson
And how did you implement that into your game oh tremendously it was um essentially it was a reverse learning curve for me because a lot of times you know people get these lessons they get all this knowledge and they can apply it simply because you know they’ve had
Lessons before for me it was how do I take this information and not totally change my swing to where you know I change what what kind of got me there um and incorporated into my game and it was really tough my freshman year I came in
I was probably I was close to a couple over per 18 maybe like 74s a 77 range um and you know I thought okay I’m going to get really good and probably get it down to 70 to 74 range and sure enough I got
My first lesson and I went from 74 to 77 to 84 to 88 and it just kept climbing and climbing and climbing and I was like I was like uh oh something’s going to change here and uh you know at that point it’s like okay what do I ditch
Kind of from the lesson and what do I keep and uh that’s kind of been my whole whole college career is bringing it back down from that freshman year and I finally got it back down this year um to where this is probably my best year ball
Striking was um everything so it it takes time it takes time I feel like I was playing catch up to kids who had lessons all throughout junior golf yeah you talked about the the length of your game and and that is such a man that’s such a talking point now when people
Talk about stock numbers with clubs and they talk about how you carry numbers and and Club head speed and all that stuff and uh these numbers in the analytics are taking over uh in some Realms of golf not my realm but in your realm yeah absolutely so what was the
Biggest change to help you gain some some yardage you said you got some distance back in your game now you’re putting suffered but what did you do to add some of that yardage to your game well you know to be honest um I was always kind of a Tempo type swing like
Tempo swing and just because the way it’s kind of set up here in PA is obviously we have great winners that are super cold and frigid and everything so a lot of times in a winter we’re inside um either in the gym and a lot of those
Gym exercises you know people think okay core has to be everything for golf but really what happens is it boils down to fast twitch muscles um so you’re sprinting uh your lunges you know you’re jumping is really how you gain speed and gain distance and so my freshman is
Sophomore year I really concentrate on that and then this sophomore to junior year I really concentrate on when I was out there on the course I swung as hard as I could even if I would go out and practice um at a range for 20 30 swings
Those 2030 swings were as fast and as hard as possible as I could possibly swing and you know I I hit a lot of bad shots when I was on those range sessions and because I didn’t my hands couldn’t catch up or I would get too Steep and
You know something but when I caught one and I knew the feeling I could feel it and replicate it um I noticed a huge difference and then I carried that into our season too I just did a podcast uh last Wednesday about Fitness and golf and you
Definitely just pequ my interest as a per former personal trainer uh someone I I would tell people that come to me with golf and they’re like I just need ab exercise like you all don’t understand the golf swing is so much more than just your your rotational muscles and your
Trunk it’s also the big muscles it’s your shoulders especially your back muscles and being able to turn the body and to deliver that speed at the top of your back swing down into the impact area how much emphasis does your team put on weight training outside of like
You said Sprints explosive training that stuff makes a ton of sense what about lifting weights what do you all do there yeah um we we do lift weights and it’s a lot of it you know our um well what do they call it’s not straight bar deadlifts but it’s like the hexar hexar
Deadlifts yeah um sure do a do a lot of those do a lot a lot of like weighted farmer carries and we know um we have a workout plan but then you know a lot of the guys lift weights on the team a lot of them you’re always in the gym and you
See them benching and stuff and it’s like um you know I’m not going to let them get the Competitive Edge against me so then you you up your weight so um we definitely lift weights but we do do a lot of mixture of both too yeah for sure
Well the grip strength with the farmer carries and those hexar deadlifts make a ton of sense with golf and the forearms and all that good stuff sounds like you’re on a good path and it sounds like you all um you have a really good team and so is your team successful are you
Guys competing for uh Conference titles or anything like that yeah um we kind of had a unfortunate kind of Way the season ended we had qualified Ying we that’s that’s another thing I think people don’t understand about college golf is qualifying is like for
Us we have 22 guys in our team and I would say 18 out of those 22 can break 75 at any time and when you have the tournaments these huge tournaments where you’re traveling all over the um country you know um you take five four or five
Guys and out of 22 guys you know Five Guys it’s it’s pretty Cutthroat qualifying and up until the tournaments we have 54 holes of qualifying so when you go to class all day and then you come out and have to go play qualifying or um you know you have an assignment
Late due late at night or an sa due late at night and have to go qualify the next day and you’re you know sleep deprived and those are the struggles I think no one really wants to talk about when it comes to college uh golf and Athletics
In general but um from a result standpoint our team does pretty well when we started out my freshman year we weren’t really that good but um my next year will be my senior year and we’ll be we’ll be pretty solid fantastic that’s great it’s again and let’s not hey for you you’re also
Running an apparel company on top of the the class load and being an athlete so that adds another layer to it um so I asked you before we went live on the show I like Have you listened any of these podcasts for he said not really
That’s fine I like to do a rapid fire segment with my guests are you cool with that you don’t you can answer simply or you can expound on it it’s up to you are you ready for this oh yeah give it to me I’ll ramble for for
Hours all right so real simple you’re a Collegiate athlete you’re a golfer I think I know the answer to this but would you rather ride or walk um it depends on the course um if it’s like a really really renowned course or something I’ll definitely walk
It but if it’s a uh this is kind of like my recreational back home course I’m I’m riding all day save some time okay there you go now music on the golf course you okay with it or he at a big no no over
You see I was I have no problem with it see I’m used to it just because the way my golf course was kind of set up very um very public very you know people Weekend Warriors type type players out there and so I’m kind of used to playing
Uh music on the golf of course but as long as it’s like not distracting so if I’m like on a hole and I hear it um from three holes over I have no problem with it all right so if you’re picking the music what music are you picking for for
What’s what’s on the playlist I want to know the playlist H probably some sort of country music I um not so much modern country but just just a mix of you know classic countries 90s country or um maybe throw a little class in there too are you calling 90s country classic
Country classic no no it’s like like 60s 7s countries classic then 90s is own genre okay very good because I was like you know 90s country like that’s not that old like I mean Toby Keith and all those guys like that’s whatever I think like Wayan Jennings Johnny Cash like
Your mer haggards that’s classic yeah yeah yeah that’s that’s yeah I listen to all of it I play so when I’m not playing golf or running the company and stuff or doing anything here on campus um I play a lot of guitar so that’s a lot of what I what I play very
Good so very good awesome that’s awesome now if you had to choose spring golf or fall golf what’s your favorite um I prefer I prefer fall golf I think but I like the like the weather kind of a spring when it’s getting warmer because fall golf um when we have qualifying and
Stuff early in the mornings on Saturday mornings and stuff towards mid October it gets pretty chilly waking up in the morning and especially when you take a seven iron off the toe that hurts so spring there yeah all right what’s your favorite team format if you had to choose
One H for for college or just in general just in general like this is just Recreation maybe yeah I think I think alternate shots a good one um that we play here a lot in college a lot of our lot of our practices will be alternate
Shot um you get paired with a guy so that that can be pretty pretty nerve-wracking so it’s a good practice I always call that format screw your partner is what I call that one okay different terminology than what I just said but you know what I
Mean yeah all right hey um what’s in the bag that’s I want to know what kind of clubs you using uh Woods on down to wedges yeah so I’ll start with a driver I got it I I used to swing an M2 and I swung it so much that I’m kind of It
Kind of Dent I don’t want to say dented the face but I hit it so so much like same in the same spot so many times that kind of weakened the face a little bit gave that trampoline effect and pretty soon just went so I got a Callaway um I
Got a Callaway speed I swing that uh Taylor Made Sim woods and then I have a Sim 2 hybrid it’s so for me not hitting the ball too far where guys might hit four irons I have a two hybrid um it’s a Sim 2 two hybrid so I I love that thing
It goes for Miles um problem is you just can’t get it to stop uh wedges I have I have mac daddies Callaway Mac daddies irons I have Munos um jpx 9 919 hot metal Pros so they’re a little bit older and I have a little bit of a softer
Shaft in them because in high school I uh swung them pretty I swung them a lot and they’re the right shaft when I got fitted but in college I have the same shaft but I’m able to shape them a little bit better with that softer um
Weight to them so for me I like to hit draws I like to hit Fades um the only problem is I I don’t always hit it straight but but yeah uh my my my my putter is an odyssey um it’s a seven it’s like the Fang looking putter I
Don’t know if you know which one I’m talking about I do I do I do all right very good good stuff hey uh next question will tiger ever win again I’m gonna say no yes I don’t I I don’t I don’t think so no not I don’t think
Hey fair enough I’m not a huge Tiger Woods fan but I know a lot of people are especially as it listen let’s go to the next question what’s the worst rule in golf there’s a lot of them but what’s the worst one worst one I’d probably say white steak um not
Not because like it’s a bad rule itself it’s just I’ve done it so many times throughout my whole life playing golf where I just snapbook one OB and have the ret and that’s the worst feeling in the world okay uh what’s your favorite major on the PGA
Tour uh the Masters for sure no no doubt the Masters all right i’ I have yet to have a guest that says anything other than the master so that’s going to be intriguing as we keep going that’s one of those questions if you didn’t golf what sport would you
Play um it’s funny you say because in high school I played everything um up until ninth grade I played football baseball basketball nth grade on I just played golf um but I was always pretty decent at baseball so I think that would have been my
Sport all right I love it and what do you think is the best golf movie best golf movie I mean I don’t know I think growing up I liked Happy Gilmore a lot just because it was funny but uh yeah I’d say Happy Gilmore is a classic anyone like golfer
Or non-golfer can watch that absolutely I agree last one here do you have any superstitions on the golf course and if you do what are they super superstitions I don’t well no yeah I I don’t have any superstitions now I like I never clean my putter that’s that’s
The thing I’ll never clean my putter um but that’s the only Superstition I have I’ll clean the grips of the of the putter but never never the face or anything like that so hey there you go I love it I love it all right Nate this has been a great show great conversation
I’ve really enjoyed having you why don’t you go ahead and take the time now to let the listeners know where they can find your products your company website and also where they can find you on social media yeah like I said Jeff I really appreciate you having me on but um for
Anyone out there listening you know you can find me on Instagram I’m aorn dohil and then on my website I’m www. Acorn Hills co.com awesome love it absolutely love it maybe you’ll be hearing more from Acorn Hills on the podcast in the future we’ll let you know about that in the
Meantime Nate take it easy thanks for taking the time I do appreciate it hey thank you Jeff had a blast
1 Comment
Nice video! I played div. 3 as well. My team won the 2019 and 2021 NCAA. Illinois Wesleyan