March 2012: Hot List 365: Golf Digest

Golf's "Social Network"

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Time was--and it wasn't that long ago--when the marketing of golf equipment focused almost entirely on the technology of a product. In the early 1990s when that master marketer Ely Callaway started pushing his innovative new clubs, he even was often accompanied by an animated version of arguably the most important scientist of all time, Sir Isaac Newton.

Today, however, while research and development is the largest line item in most major golf equipment companies annual budgets, the marketing of those products seems to be less about physics and engineering and materials science than it is about brand affinity. It is more about building a community of true believers than engaging in Pepsi Challenge-like technology battles. It is also about less-traditional approaches to advertising in less-traditional golf places. Last year, TaylorMade bought space on a foul pole at San Diego's PetCo Park, home of the Padres, to tout its then-new R11 driver, while Callaway was offering club fittings last weekend at the famed Saks Fifth Avenue in New York as part of a Men's Luxury Weekend that also included master tailors, cigar rolling demonstrations and a straight-edge shaving experience.

The new idea--for golf anyway--is to pursue guerilla marketing, the off-the-grid approach to building company or even product awareness. And it has very little to do with logos on shirt sleeves at PGA Tour events. Instead, you need to think differently. It's about Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, much more than spring-like effect and moment of inertia. Golf's top three brands each have more than 40,000 followers on Twitter: TaylorMade (51,847), Callaway (42,797) and Titleist (56,195). But Nike dwarfs them all with more than 436,000 followers.

Can club fitting change your game? Our test needs you

Friday, March 23, 2012

When Golf Digest Senior Editor Matt Ginella recently tweeted "Can't believe I ever bought clubs without getting fitted. Which sounds like an ad, but it's just the facts," it was the kind of aha moment we've seen over and over again. Anecdotally, there is an endless stream of evidence for the effect of clubfitting.

Now, we're looking to get more clinical evidence of the effect, and we're seeking your help.

Golf Digest, the No. 1 golf publication in the world, and premium clubfitter Club Champion, one of America's 100 Best Clubfitters as rated by Golf Digest, are conducting a clubfitting project this year, and we are searching for avid golfers to participate in this study. Both the participants and the information gathered from the study will be part of a future Golf Digest story.

This season-long research project will include a fitting at Club Champion, which has facilities in the Chicago and Philadelphia areas. Interested participants must never have been custom fit for clubs before and must be interested in purchasing a full set of clubs--all 14 from putter to the driver--after a custom fitting at Club Champion. The cost of a fitting at Participants will be expected to track various statistics from each round they play, both before and after the fitting for several months. In addition, participants must meet the following initial prerequisites:

Handicap: approximately 5-20

Age: 30-55

Must be planning to play 20 or more rounds in 2012

If you are interested in participating in the study, please send an email to clubchampion@golfdigest.com. In the note, please include your name, age, handicap or index, GHIN number, home club or course where you play most of your golf, typical number of rounds played per month and a brief description of what you know about golf equipment and clubfitting, as well as what you would hope to gain from the experience of this study.

Qualified candidates will be determined by Golf Digest and Club Champion and will be notified directly in the coming weeks. Our search for qualified candidates will end by April 30.

--Mike Stachura

Follow me on Twitter @MikeStachura

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Adams on TaylorMade deal: 'the best of both worlds'

Monday, March 19, 2012

When the news came across our desks today at 4 a.m. that TaylorMade was acquiring the long-time independent, self-made success story that is Adams Golf, much of the discussion centered on the bigger company expanding. Little was heard from the company that was being acquired, particularly from the man who founded that company, the man who made the fairway wood a hot commodity two decades ago with an upside down design he scribbled on an airline napkin, the man who in a large way turned the hybrid into a standard piece of equipment by sheer force of will.

Barney Adams, the patriarch of Adams Golf and its current interim CEO, called at 10 this morning Eastern Time, ebullient as ever, with a self-deprecating tone that belies the wisdom of nearly 30 years in the business.

"Just so you know," he barked with a laugh. "I'm calling from California and I've already been up for two-and-a-half hours and I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet, so I'm just warning you if I doze off."

Barney Adams? Not bloody likely. On a day when he agreed in terms to sell the company that bears his name and he founded 25 years ago for $70 million, Adams was still full of the entrepreneurial energy and straight-talk outlook that allowed his independent company to rise to be one of the leaders in innovation and sit currently as one of the top-selling iron, hybrid and fairway wood brands in golf.

The acquisition is good news, Adams said.

TaylorMade reaches agreement to buy Adams Golf

Monday, March 19, 2012

Ever since Adams Golf announced on Jan. 4, 2012 that it was "examining strategic alternatives," there has been speculation about what would happen to the brand. In the interim, rumors that TaylorMade was interested in acquiring Adams circulated. Those rumors became reality Monday morning as TaylorMade announced it had reached an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Adams Golf for $10.80 per share in cash, or roughly $70 million. According to a statement from TaylorMade, it will maintain Adams' headquarters in Plano, Texas.

"This acquisition reflects our commitment to continued growth in the golf category," said Herbert Hainer, CEO of adidas Group, TaylorMade's parent company. "The proposed combination of Adams Golf and TaylorMade-adidas Golf brings together two highly complementary sets of brands, combining Adams' focus on game-improvement as well as senior and women golfers with TaylorMade-adidas Golf's focus on the younger and the low-to-mid handicap golfer."

The acquisition by TaylorMade caps a whirlwind few weeks for Adams, which posted sales of $96.5 million in 2011. CEO Chip Brewer left Adams for Callaway Golf on Feb. 28 with company founder Barney Adams taking over as interim CEO.

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Another take on Langer's high swing speed distance boost

Friday, March 16, 2012

Misinformation is a dangerous thing, and were it not possible that a misinformed opinion would unjustly shape an argument that already is more about heat than light, it would remain comical. Fortunately for all of us, I am not talking about political campaigns.

Instead, I'll stick to something that I at least have spent some time trying to understand: the distance a golf ball travels. Today's discussion centers on the comments Bernhard Langer made regarding his belief that the modern solid-core, non-wound golf ball provides some special advantage for faster swing speed players. Langer is known to be reserved and not prone to hyperbole, vitriol or anything but the most well-reasoned thoughts. But he seems to be falling prey to the idea that selectively anecdotal evidence is an indication of irrefutable scientific fact.

TaylorMade's Vincent explains hockey stick technology

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

More details are coming in about the new stick being developed by TaylorMade and hockey equipment manufacturer CCM. Already in use by a couple of NHL players, the RBZ stick will be introduced in June at the NHL Entry Draft and should be available at retail this fall. Unlike the company's new line of metalwoods and irons, the RBZ does not stand for "RocketBallz," but rather "RocketBladez."

According to TaylorMade chief technology officer Benoit Vincent, the stick uses a fundamentally different structure than typical hockey sticks.

"The blade on a hockey stick, which is analogous to the club head on a golf club, is responsible for making contact with the puck and imparting the energy stored in the shaft during a player's swing," Vincent wrote in an email to Golf Digest this morning. "By understanding how a metalwood club face is designed to maximize COR [coefficient of restitution, or spring-like effect, the rule limiting the speed-producing potential of a clubface], we drew upon this concept to develop the very first completely hollow, or air-core, structure in a blade.

"Traditionally, hockey stick blades have been a sandwich structure comprised of composite skins adhered to an inner core made of polymer foam. By removing the foam through a novel structural design and manufacturing process, we have not only improved the mass distribution in the stick for a faster swing speed, but the unsupported region on the blade face increases COR. We combine these blade improvements with a shaft that has a finely tuned stiffness profile to return maximum energy at puck release."

Unlike golf, hockey does not have a limit on the springiness of the face of sticks, which according to NHL rules must be "made of wood or other material approved by the League."

--Mike Stachura

Follow me on Twitter @MikeStachura

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TaylorMade getting into hockey technology

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

It's been noted by more than one golf observer that hockey players, when given the opportunity, tend to have naturally powerful golf swings. That may be a propos of nothing, but the link between the two sports got a little more interesting recently when TaylorMade announced that it would be partnering with hockey equipment brand Reebok-CCM in developing new products.

First up is the new RBZ hockey stick, which is set to debut in June but won't be seen at retail until the fall. It's already being used by NHL rookies Gabriel Landeskog of the Colorado Avalanche and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Edmonton Oilers.

While details of the stick technology are not clear and both Reebok-CCM and TaylorMade are not saying much about what the stick does, the idea seems to be about increasing the potential for creating speed, presumably of the stick itself and in turn, the puck. The stick, including the blade, is all white, just like TaylorMade's current product line of drivers, including the RocketBallz and RocketBallz Tour, as well as the RocketBallz fairway wood and hybrid.

TaylorMade was the first major golf company in the U.S. to introduce lighter and longer drivers with 46-inch and longer clubs that weighed less than 280 grams, including 2011's Burner SuperFast 2.0, which featured a 48-gram shaft. The eight-way adjustable RocketBallz driver is actually heavier at just under 300 grams, but features an improved aerodynamic profile.

Even the players using the stick don't know much about it. Nugent-Hopkins told the Edmonton Journal, "They make it so you can't tell the difference," said Nugent-Hopkins, a CCM stick user since his junior hockey days. "They're good at that. I can't feel the difference, but it does have the white at the bottom, which is different from what I'm used to. I like it."

Whatever the new RBZ stick does, though, it seems like just another reason to dissuade your aspiring young hockey star from playing goalie.

--Mike Stachura

Follow me on Twitter @MikeStachura

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PGA Tour driving distance: More fun with numbers

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

If you're looking for clarity about predicting the future when it comes to the distance the golf ball might travel in some future not-so-far away, the most dangerous thing you can do is look at numbers.

In that light, a clarification regarding the improved launch conditions of tour players this year vs. 2007 (the first year such data was made available from PGA Tour events). While ballspeed has increased about a mile per hour since that date, the improved launch conditions we see this year (higher launch angles and lower spin) are actually relatively unchanged from what they were in 2008, The main improvement, if you want to call it that, occurred from 2007 to 2008. In clearer terms:

Year	Spin	Launch	Ballspeed
2007	2842	10.9	165.1
2008	2685	11.2	165
2009	2679	11.3	165
2010	2725	10.7	165.9
2011	2687	10.8	166.4
2012	2641	11.3	166.2

What's more confusing is that the "improved" launch conditions from 2007 to 2008 did not result in improved distance, but rather a loss of 1.3 yards. The launch conditions are still better this year than they were in 2008, just not six "theoretical" yards better. So while the distance average is trending up again this year, I still like the thought that the average this year could be as high as 291.9 or as low as 288.3. Or somewhere in between. Maybe.

What is true, though: Through the Honda Classic in 2008, there were 37 players averaging 290 or more yards per tee shot. This year, there are 82.

--Mike Stachura

Follow me on Twitter @MikeStachura

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Where is distance on the PGA Tour going?

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

For those who haven't been paying attention, the distance trend continues on the PGA Tour. After last year's driving distance average broke the 290-yard barrier for the first time, all eyes (or at least my eyes) are on an event-by-event comparison to see where distance is headed this year.

Mind you, I'm not in a lather about it being a bad thing or a good thing. I'm just interested in whether last year was an insignificant recorrection from flat numbers or the relentless approach of armageddon. On the side of the former is the fact that viewed on the scale of the increase since 2003, driving distance is only up about half a yard a year, or close to what it was in the period from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. On the side of the former, though, is viewing last year in the context of one-year gains. Last year's been the the largest one-year since 2003. If the trend is continuing this year, are we likely to see another three-to-four-yard boost?

Hard to say, but the pace is in that direction. Through the Honda, the driving distance average is about three yards ahead of last year's pace. (288.5 for 2012, 285.8 for 2011).

One area of statistics that might offer an explanation: launch conditions. The PGA Tour has been cataloging Trackman launch monitor data among the statistics it supplies to players and the media since 2007. A quick look at those numbers show PGA Tour players are launching it higher with less spin and an extra mile per hour of ballspeed this year compared to 2007. Admittedly, the results are limited to just this year's 10 events, but still it makes you wonder.

For fun, we put those numbers in Foresight Sports shot simulation software on the GC2 launch monitor. According to those calculations, the difference between current launch conditions and 2007 launch conditions could be more than six yards. The driving distance average in 2007 was 288.6. So one way to scare those afraid of the ball going too far would be to suggest that by adding six yards to 288.6 you'd get the driving distance average for 2012.

But it's way too early to even suggest that. Way too early. Instead, I prefer the wisdom of our Hot List Technical Panel, a team of Ph.D.'s who can spot faulty logic a mile away. Their review of recent driving distance average trends suggests that the average for the end of this year seems like it should be within a range of 288.3 to 291.9. In other words, to butcher Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, it could go up, it could go down, or it could stay the same.

--Mike Stachura

Follow me on Twitter @MikeStachura

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