How Skin Cancer Inspired Us to Start a Sun-Safe Golf Clothing Brand

A Personal Wake-Up Call on the Golf Course

The idea for Breakfast Ball started after I had become completely obsessed with golf and found myself out on the course a lot! I had also recently had a skin check and found out I had a skin cancer (squamous cell carcinoma) that had to be cut out.

Safe to say, this made me have a long, hard think about all the time I was spending in the sun on the course, and I knew I had to make a change.

The Surprising Lack of Sun-Safe Golf Apparel

In my attempts to find some long-sleeve, sun-safe shirts, I was pretty shocked to discover that they pretty much didn’t exist. Besides thick winter-style shirts or fishing shirts, I couldn’t find anything that would protect me on the course while still being breathable in the hot Australian summer — and something that would still be accepted at a golf course.

Turning a Personal Need into a Business Idea

I was discussing this with my wife and mate (now business partners), and they also couldn’t believe this kind of product didn’t exist. Originally, we were just going to source some shirts from manufacturers for our own use, but then the idea started to grow into a potential business opportunity.

Surely there are other people out there just like us who are looking for the same thing.

Testing, Sampling & Building the Brand

So, we placed a few orders from different manufacturers to get some samples to test out. After finding the ones we loved, we sent the material away to be tested to check the UPF rating — and it came back as UPF50+.

So there we had it.

After a few months of getting our stock in, figuring out how to model and do a photo shoot, we were ready to take our product live.

Our Mission: Keep Golfers Protected Without Compromising Style

We’ve had such great feedback since our launch, and we hope we can help keep people protected out on the course — and reduce the number of skin cancers in golfers — so we can all keep golfing for as long as possible.

 Skin Cancer Facts & Stats

• More than two in three Australians will be diagnosed with some form of skin cancer in their lifetime. SunSmart
• About 2,000 Australians die from skin cancer each year. SunSmart
• Australia has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. SunSmart+2Melanoma Institute Australia+2

For Golfers in Particular

• A recent study from the University of South Australia found that golfers have about 2.4 times the risk of having been diagnosed with skin cancer compared to non‑golfers. UPI+2bmjopensem.bmj.com+2

Author: Nick Parker