Meet the Surprising New Player Driving Innovation in GolfTyler Sullivan is on a quest to redesign the golf driver.

Tyler "Sully" Sullivan was so excited when the new golf club heads he'd developed arrived from the manufacturer in April 2013 that he glued one onto a shaft with a 24-hour epoxy and could barely sleep before taking it to the driving range the next day. With his first swing, he crushed the ball 300 yards and dead straight. He thought it was just a lucky hit, but as he worked through a bucket of golf balls, his sweet shots caught the attention of the man two stalls down. Sullivan let him try out the club.

"He took a swing, then another, and didn't say anything," Sullivan recalls. "Then he looked at me, puzzled, and said, 'How is this possible? I just hit it past my brand-new TaylorMade, and it feels better.'"