Then there's the balance sheet, which belongs in a museum it's so beautiful. The company has no debt and a net current asset value of $39.59 million. The market cap for Adams is just $48 million, qualifying Adams as a bona fide bottom-of-the-barrel deep-value stock, the kind of thing Benjamin Graham might have liked. Except unlike most deep value stocks, Adams is growing, has a strengthening brand, and invests heavily in research and development. Compare Adams's numbers to those of Callaway (NYSE: ELY), its much larger competitor:

Adams Golf Callaway

Price/Sales Ratio: 0.58 1.28

Price/Book Ratio: 1.03 2.21

Price/Earnings Ratio: 15 (before tax credit) 38

R&D as a % of sales: 3.4% 2.65%

While Callaway has a big competitive advantage over Adams -- its size and brand -- Adams is making the investment to carve out a spot as a niche player. The company has bet heavily on the continued growth in sales of hybrid iron sets, and it's a bet that appears to be paying off. As the brand strengthens, it may also find greater acceptance for its drivers and other products.

All of this leads us to one question: Given Adams's solid profitability, explosive sales growth, and strong technology, why is the company trading at only a tiny premium to its book value? The answer to that may be simple: Adams trades on the bulletin board, and many investors don't want to touch those stocks because of the lack of liquidity. Its status as a niche player may make it vulnerable to a sudden collapse in sales but, as the brand grows stronger, that becomes less and less likely.

Chip Brewer has been the CEO of Adams since 2002, and he deserves tremendous credit for guiding the company through a nice turnaround -- from dripping red ink and battling for survival to solid profitability and buying back stock. But he also needs to articulate a plan for the long-term future of Adams Golf, and so far he hasn't really done that.

On the most recent quarterly earnings conference call, investor John Gregory, who owns about 5% of the company, asked Brewer why the company didn't move to reverse split and up-list to the NASDAQ. Brewer's response was bizarre: He said the company had explored doing that and would continue to think about it, but doesn't have any plans for up-listing. A listing on the NASDAQ would do wonders for the share-price, and could serve to close the wide gap between Adams's value and its share price.

But a strategy that would probably be even more lucrative for shareholders would be to hire an investment bank to explore a sale of the company. Giving that it could be acquired at such a good price (even a 75% premium to its current price would still make it cheaper than Callaway by nearly any metric), I believe it is very likely that a strategic buyer could be found to provide Adams shareholders with a strong return on their investment. I asked Brewer about that on the conference call too, and his response was similar to the one he gave Gregory: The company would consider any strategy to increase shareholder value (What else was he going to say?) but would not be putting itself up for sale right now.

These are questions that Chip Brewer and the Adams Golf board needs to give more compelling answers to. If they want to pursue a strategy as a stand-alone public company, up-list to the NASDAQ. If not, put the company up for sale or take it private. (The tiny premium to book value means that Adams could likely be taken private with little outside capital.) I strongly believe that Adams must do one or the other.

I may not have a hedge fund like Dan Loeb or a reputation that makes grizzled executives wet their pants at the site of a 13-D like Carl Icahn or Robert Chapman. But I am a shareholder nonetheless, and the management at Adams Golf owes me, and other shareholders, some kind of strategy for increasing shareholder value beyond a listing on the OTC and excessive executive pay.

Zac Bissonnette owns shares of Adams Golf.