In Tim Neill’s neatly organized home closet, the white golf polos are hung first followed by various colors, patterns and styles. But the white shirts at his Washington, D.C.-area residence are singular in interest because the first shirt has a history that is both business and personal.
“Spilled some wine on the first one and it’s almost purple now,” Neill says. “It’s from Portmarnock (Ireland) Golf Club. My wife wondered why in the world I bought a white golf shirt. I never do that. Within three weeks, I had three big wine drips down the front. But this one is almost the first shirt in my closet. I guess it’s inspirational. I will occasionally wear it under a quarter-zip or sweater.”
(Photo: Courtesy of Tim Neill)
Neill, a 56-year-old digital marketing executive with experience in restaurants, hospitality and non-profits, was on a golf excursion to the United Kingdom and Ireland in summer 2022 when he brainstormed an e-commerce startup. He played Portmarnock and purchased the aforementioned white shirt. In 2024, on a return visit to Ireland, he finished the trip at Ballybunion Golf Club and wanted to purchase a shirt upon his early evening finish. But the golf shop was closed for the day.
In the instances when Neill wanted to replace his wine-stained shirt or purchase a Ballybunion logo shirt, an internet solution was not available.
“I turned to Joe (Petrucci) and all I said was, ‘Dude, we’ve got to fix this,’ ” Neill said of his golf business partner and fellow golf trip attendee. “This is totally crazy that we can’t get a replacement. The first idea was we could build e-commerce stores for these iconic places that don’t have that option or their site is outdated. And then we’d connect them all.”
In August 2024, Neill and Petrucci, another marketing wiz, co-founded Fescue & Dunes, an e-commerce company named after the landscape one often tromps around at links courses. That name stuck, instead of generic titles such as Ireland Pro Shop, Epic Golf or Destination Golf. The goal was two-fold: help golfers find logoed clothing or gear for iconic courses they have played or wish to play, and enable those courses to distribute their gear more widely in tandem with making their on-site and on-line offerings more efficient.
“We were able to talk to a handful of clubs and took this idea to them,” Neill says. “They knew they needed to be more focused on e-commerce. Previously, they said they didn’t pay much attention to selling something online because every time they made a sale it was pulled out of their actual shop inventory. Their process of standing in line and shipping it through the post office was a nightmare. We told them we could essentially do this turnkey.”
Initial paperwork was distributed to approximately a dozen clubs, with five buying in by July 2025 before the site had any cache. The new Fescue & Dunes logo, a Northern lapwing bird perched on a golf club, is a nod toward the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball logo that has a cardinal on a baseball bat and to Neill’s hometown where he grew up caddying at St. Louis Country Club. The unexpected sales success of that original logo and not just iconic clubs’ marks has led to further brand work on simplifying or creating alternative versions of more complicated and larger club logos, seen often in Europe.
By late 2025, the company had already reached 17 clubs, surpassing a year-end goal of 15. The challenge was to reach 32 by the end of 2026 but expectations are that 40 clubs will have signed up by this week’s PGA Show in Orlando, Florida. Of those 40, Neill says “18 might be in the global top-100 list ratings.”
That listing, as of late 2025, includes Portmarnock, Tralee Golf Club, Royal Dublin Golf Club and County Sligo Golf Club in Ireland; Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club, Barassie Links, Nairn Golf Club and Dundonald Links in Scotland; Royal St. George’s Golf Club, Royal Birkdale Golf Club and Hayling Golf Club in England and Lofoten Links in Norway, with more to come.
Some prime exclusive clubs, many from Scotland, want limits on who can purchase club-logoed gear. They prefer those who make actual visits, a model that Fescue & Dunes is working on via club emails, password protection, names and contact information on tee sheets.
The Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters Tournament, provided online shopping for Masters merchandise for the first and only time in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, but sales were limited to those attending the 2020 event, which was extremely small. Ordering Masters merchandise, along with packaging of famous Masters food items, continues today, both conducted by Fanatics.
Other clubs like having brands they don’t carry in their physical shop and the possibility of replacing a shortage of on-site sizes, colors or shirt maker with an e-commerce backup.
(Photo: Fescue and Dunes)
There is a growing golfer braggadocio of sporting the most exclusive and rarest logo, especially when traveling — Augusta National and Muirfield come to mind. Having someone ask if the wearer has played at that course swells the pride a bit and has become a social badge of distinction, especially among Americans.
“Anytime we see a golfer with a logo, especially from a club from the UK or Ireland at an airport, we stop them and we just ask them about where they played, because it’s a great intro into Fescue & Dunes,” Neill says. “People love talking about the courses that they played because these are really remarkable experiences. And I think even golfers that get to play a lot of these bucket list courses, they remember each of them.”
Neill says the next steps for Fescue & Dunes is helping clubs get smarter about how they collect and use golfer data, engaging with tour operators to gather their clients’ information, and provide more flexibility in clubs’ purchase windows when their supply chain options are normally very rigid. Expanding to Europe and Australia for sales is also a target, as international engagement is growing for places where club memberships are considerably less expensive than in the United States.
“Our intent was always to start with American golfers, because they buy probably 70 percent of the inventory that sits in the pro shops of these clubs,” Neill says. “American golfers subsidize this market.”
Neill has recommitted to his own game and is now a single-digit handicapper for the first time, adding a personal interest to a business venture that caters to those who are similarly enthralled with showing off their travel destinations. He has the shirt to prove it.
