The brightest, cheeriest booth at the 2026 PGA Merchandise Show belonged to Hally Leadbetter, who recently launched her new wellness and lifestyle brand, Happy Golfer. The daughter of famed golf instructor David Leadbetter, 33-year-old Hally has roamed the floor of PGA Shows for as long as she can remember. This, however, marked her debut as an exhibitor — and she brought snacks.
Hally sat down with Golfweek last week in Orlando, Florida, to talk about Bunchies, which are bite-sized energy balls designed to give on-the-go golfers a healthy option. Bunchies are packaged in golf ball sleeves, come in three different flavors — Chocolate, Maple Peanut Butter, and Vanilla Almond — and are made with ingredients like nut butter, oats, dates, and hemp hearts.
This week, Bunchies are on the tee boxes at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, where Hally is once again competing in the celebrity field. She actually grew up on the 16th hole at Lake Nona in the house now owned by LPGA legend Annika Sorenstam.
A portion of the profits from Bunchies sales will go to mental health resources, a cause that’s dear to Hally as she’s had been open about her own struggles over the years.
What follows are excerpts from a conversation on bringing this happy dream to life:
How Hally Leadbetter’s idea became reality
We all go to so many golf courses and I was just like, man, there is nothing that’s like geared towards a health-conscious golfer. I mean, maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get a Clif Bar now and then. You need to plan ahead, especially if you’re in tournament.
Originally it was going to be a trail mix and then it evolved into energy balls because I was like, OK, that’s easier to eat. You can pop one of those, close the top and go.
Thanksgiving 2024. Around that time, I was like, oh my God, I started looking into what it actually takes to launch a CPG (consumer packaged goods) company. I was like, oh, I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t have the bandwidth for this. The content stuff was really taking off, and I was like, you know what? This is just not the right time. Just because something’s a great idea, doesn’t mean you should do it. And so I was like, you know what? I’m at peace with this. I’m just gonna let this go.
Then I was doing a turkey trot with Amanda Balionis, she’s like, okay, well, before you put it to bed, can you just get on the phone with my friend Alex? He’s my best friend from childhood. He owns a food consulting company. And I was like, alright.
So I get on the phone with Alex and his company, Lasagna Box. They’re like, we can do this in our sleep. Like, this is what we do. They’re very good at what they do, so they’re expensive. And I was like, guys, I don’t have that money. I haven’t even raised money yet. It’s just an idea. And he says, well, what if we were to partner? What if we were to do this together? And I was like, okay, that’d be amazing.
So I got the golf lane and then he makes it all come to life, and we worked with a golf nutritionist named Amy O’Donnell, who works with a lot of Ladies European Tour players. That was really important to me. I mean, I think I could have probably figured out what makes a good golf snack, but I wanted to have a stamp of approval of someone who’s like, listen, I would recommend these to tour players.
Expanding and refining Bunchies
With the branding, I wanted to make it fun. I didn’t want you to feel like, oh, I have to cold plunge and drink green juice in order to eat these. But I think we’ll get that crowd too, because it is the healthiest thing that’s out there.
I had a friend of mine tell me when it comes to launching a company, it always costs more than you think, takes longer than you think and it’s harder than you think. That was spot on for this. This was four years in the making, and it’s really crazy to be sitting here today.
When people try them, they almost always have a different favorite flavor, which makes me excited because I’m like, okay, none of them suck. Vanilla chai was one we were toying with, but I had Rob Gronkowski try them a couple months ago. I was doing a shoot with him and he thought vanilla chai was really good. But, he said, chai can be controversial. And I was like, that’s so true, Gronk. That’s so true. So vanilla chai is on hold. Maybe like a limited edition, holiday run at some point.
Then Michael Pena and Mardy Fish have also been my testers. I’ve been handing these out for the last year because we probably have done at least 15 renditions of the thing with various textures, you know, one of those too oat-ie, and then one was too mushy. So we had to get it to be the exact texture … Does it melt? That’s huge. The 12-month shelf-life is huge. It’s been a long process to get it exactly right.
Everyone’s like, the packaging is genius. And I have to give a shoutout to Chris Keiser at Dream Golf. They just became our biggest investor, which is helpful. Because obviously everyone’s like, oh, this reminds me of Bandon Balls and they do the packaging and that. So I would say about a year ago is when I reached out to Chris, because I knew that they did this, and I was like, hey, you know, we’re gonna do this. I want to let you guys know. Would you want to get involved in some way? And he said ‘We’ve been thinking about how to do this ourselves, but it’s really hard. I would love to support and I think it’s a great idea. I would love to get involved.’ So that’s been huge because, you know, they’re obviously very well-respected in the golf space … and they fly off the shelves there.
Growing up around Annika Sorenstam
I was born down in the Winnie Palmer Hospital, and then I lived on the fourth hole (at Lake Nona), and then when I was about 7 or 8, we moved to the house on 16 that Annika lives in now. I grew up there and then I moved when I was in 10th grade. So I was hitting balls on the range … I mean topping balls on the range next to Annika and Lou Holtz.
My dad always talks about how Annika had a junior girls clinic, and she would make her way down the range. And supposedly she had to wait like 10 minutes just for me to make contact. I was so bad. And then when we moved to Sarasota so I could go to IMG, so I could get better and play in college, some of my recruitment letters were sent to the house at Nona, so I had to go pick them up. And she’s like, oh, I see you’ve gotten better.
I was paired with her in the last year at the Hilton Grand Vacations. I get to interview all kinds of celebrities and I have never been more nervous in my life to play than I was with Annika at Lake Nona. I’ve never been shaking so much in my life, paired with Annika at the course that I grew up, watching her. Now her daughter has my bedroom.
Prioritizing mental health
I remember going to a psychologist, as young as 9 or 10, because I think my parents noticed that like I had classic OCD things, like having to touch things a certain amount of times. There were things that my parents were clocking and they’re like, that’s odd. So I remember going to the psychologist. My dad’s a health nut and I loved going to the psychologist because they’d give me Oreos and stuff.
I knew when I was very young that maybe something was a little different in my head, but it was really, I think, when I was in college at Arkansas, that Shauna Taylor, actually, through the school, paid for me to go to a psychologist and a psychiatrist to get diagnosed with OCD and ADHD. I’ve been working on it throughout that time. It goes through waves.
I kind of liken it to almost like eczema, like a rash. It flares up, especially when I have something that I really care about, and honestly, I think that’s why I really struggled with golf for quite some time because when you really care about golf, I tend to make things very complicated. It’s kind of like a double-edged sword, because I think I’m incredibly organized and I’m trying to stay on top of things, but it also I can take it to extremes and make myself really miserable and anxious. The more that I talk about it, the more I find that people are like, oh, I really struggle with things like that as well. And I just think that it’s important to talk about, because people don’t.
The amount of times that people on Instagram will message me, you’re crushing it. And I’m reading it as I’m in bed having a panic attack. I just think it’s important to show the two sides of everything and realize that no matter how much people might look like they have it together, everyone’s got their own problems, whether you see them or not. … I actually got to play with Carson Daly at the American Century, and he is super open about his mental health struggles and how he takes medication. I was just like, wow, here’s someone that I really admire and is incredibly successful and good at what they do and is very honest and transparent about their mental health struggles. And I just think that’s really, really cool. So I really enjoyed playing with him and I was like, that’s how I want to be. I think it’s really important.
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