|
| A Look Back: Mar. 28 1938: Sam Snead wins his first Greater Greensboro Open, by four strokes over Johnny Revolta. Snead win the tournament seven more times, the last being in 1965. 1971: Gary Player wins the National Airlines Open by two strokes over Lee Trevino. 1976: Hubert Green wins the Sea Pines Heritage Classic by five strokes over Jerry McGee. Green won the Doral Eastern Open and Greater Jacksonville Open the previous two weeks. 1982: Tom Watson wins the Sea Pines Heritage Classic, beating former tennis pro Frank Conner in a playoff. 1983: Hal Sutton wins the Tournament Players Championship when co-leader John Cook double bogeys the final hole. |
About
This E-Mail How
to Advertise |
Associations
LPGA Commissioner
Ty M. Votaw announces that Patty Berg, Jen Hanna, Nancy Lopez, Terry-Jo Myers
and Dottie Pepper have been selected as national spokeswomen for LPGA-USGA
Girls Golf, a national initiative promoting girls golf in the United States.
For
more...
Tournaments
The 2002
Giant Eagle LPGA Classic announces its schedule for July 15-21 at Squaw
Creek Country Club in Vienna, Ohio. The tournament will feature a $1 million purse
and the field will feature Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez, who has announced this is
her final year on Tour.
For
more...
Chris
DiMarco, Mike Weir and Colin Montgomerie -- all ranked in the top 25 in the world
-- have committed to play in next week's BellSouth Classic at the TPC at
Sugarloaf. The addition of the trio brings to 17 the number of players ranked
in the top 50 in the field.
For
more...
The John
Deere Classic ranked ninth in charitable contributions among 47 tournaments
on the PGA Tour in 2001 and raised more money per capita for charity than any
other event on Tour. A PGA Tour Tournaments Association study found the Quad Cities-based
event raised $1.49 million for charity in 2001, an average of $3.97 per person
living in the area.
For
more...
Courses
Club Tee Time
announces that Rio Secco Golf Club in Las Vegas, Nev. -- home to Butch
Harmon's flagship golf-instruction school -- has joined the company's golf course
marketing program.
For
more...
Bluegreen
Golf developer of Brickshire Golf Community in New Kent, Va., hosted U.S.
Ryder Cup Captain Curtis Strange Saturday. Strange, along with Ault-Clark and
Associates, designed the 7,300-yard, par 72 course at the community.
For
more...
Business
VGM Club,
a golf buying alliance with 2,800 member clubs and 150 preferred vendors, announces
the programs of VGM Financial Services are now available to assist VGM Club members
with their capital equipment needs.
For
more...
What are the LPGA's main issues? How should it go about addressing those issues? And is the LPGA Tour being realistic in thinking it can raise TV viewership by 10 percent each year and increase tournament attendance by 15 percent each year? Let us know what you think and send your responses to stuart@gpagolf.com with the subject line RE: LPGA. Also include your first name and last initial. |
Five Questions
Mark King,
President of TaylorMade
Mark King is an 18-year veteran of TaylorMade, having started as a territory representative. From 1990-98 King served as vice president of sales, where he guided TaylorMade sales teams, and in 1998-99, King served as vice president of sales and marketing at Callaway Golf Ball Company. He returned to TaylorMade in '99 to serve as president of the newly formed Taylor Made-adidas Golf Company.
Q:
The economy today may be turning a little, but it's got a long way to go, especially,
I would presume, in the product lines that you are dealing with and on the recreation
side. How is the economy not only affecting Taylor Made and adidas, but all the
other product lines?
A: Well, our business the last two years has
been growing 20-plus percent on the top line and 50-plus percent on the bottom
line, so we have had two very, very good years. As we led into this year, we're
looking for another 20-percent increase on the top line. Unfortunately, all of
our growth has been outside of the United States. The last two years the U.S.
business has been really flat. The golf market is pretty flat, and the overall
economy is not very strong. But we still are very optimistic about this year.
We're looking for 20 percent growth in the U.S. this year in spite of the economy
and 9/11 tragedy, because we believe that if you have breakthrough products even
in a tough economy and even in a down golf market you can still sell more golf
clubs. And I think history proves that if you have great products you can grow
your business even when the economy is tough.
Q:
You are probably the only manufacturer, with a couple of exceptions that has shoes,
balls, apparel and equipment. Nike is maybe the other one, and you could probably
put Titleist in that category, as well, so maybe there are three. What are the
difficulties of being everything to everybody?
A: It's very complex.
I don't want to use the word difficult, but it is very complex and the reason
it is because the golf business as a whole is not an extra large industry. So
when you figure that the largest company in golf is $900 million, we're going
to be about $700 million dollars this year. The difficulty is you don't have enough
resources to prioritize metal woods, irons, putters, wedges, footwear, apparel,
balls. So you have to choose some of the categories and put more dollars and emphasis
behind those. To me the complication isn't the number, but it is the amount of
money you have to support the different categories.
Q:
Since metal woods are a big product for TaylorMade, how do you address internally
-- and maybe externally -- the issues that are going on at the USGA?
A:
Well, I think that the USGA to me plays a very important role in the game of golf.
They always have, and as far as I am concerned I would like to see that they always
do. They are the governing body of the game, whether it is the rules on the course
or the equipment, and being a golfer myself I have always respected that. When
we jump into the business of equipment, there has always been rules that have
governed equipment. They have never really been on the forefront because technology
has never pushed those limits.
We here, at TaylorMade, support the USGA.
I think they have a difficult job in allowing companies to continue to invent,
but not to jeopardize the integrity of players and talent and skill. We believe
it's a benefit to us to have some restrictions, because it's going to force companies
to truly have R&D to be able to invent within boundaries. I think if there aren't
any boundaries, you can take a little startup guy, come up with a unique idea,
and all of a sudden he's grabbing market share. It's more difficult when you have
to invent within boundaries. We just kind of said those are the rules; we're going
to play by them.
Q:
The ball business has become extremely competitive, but can be extremely lucrative.
Titleist has proven that not at the retail side, but more on the logo side. Where
is TaylorMade with balls and in regards to trying to develop your logo business?
A: Well, this arrangement that we have just entered into with Maxfli,
our hope was that we were going to partner up and really give us a top performing
ball, a premium brand image that would allow us to be very competitive in the
ball business. The logo business is a big, big business, but it's also very brand-driven,
and right now the No. 1 brand is Titleist and it's a very difficult market to
crack into. So we have gone about our business the last three years based on performance,
and I think if we continue to focus on that as our mission, which is to continue
to produce the best performing products that we can in each of these product categories,
over time maybe we can break more into the logo business. Now the Maxfli business
and the TaylorMade ball business today does some business in logo, but not significant
enough to be a big player in it. That would be our goal, but I think that's going
to take us four, five years, again based on out-performing everybody and then
maybe we can break into that category.
Q:
The deal with Maxfli is an option deal to purchase them down the road?
A:
Yes. We were looking for a partner in the ball business, and they were looking
for someone to come in and partner with them and we entered into a 15-month period
where we have the option to purchase. It will allow us to look and see if the
partnership can work, do we like the brand and do we think we can grow it, but
it's certainly our intention to exercise that option within the 15 months and
hopefully purchase the company.