The Pellucid Perspective - September 2016 - 4

RECREATIONAL GOLF equipment was Adams Golf (before the TMaG interruption). Different support points but similar differentiation and logic: * Adams "made their bones" in fairway woods and hybrids which were essentially weapons in the game improvement war. After that, the brand had considerable equity among golfers like me (I play Adams irons today) as being forgiving and aiding in the enjoyment of the average golfer. * They weren't going to grow exponentially by solely executing better on their legacy strategy (Barney and Chip Brewer will likely disagree with me on this point); they needed another growth lever and it had to fly under the radar of the "bigger boys." * They had the lesser to lose if the strategy failed, it wasn't like it would poison their brand equity among the "faithful" of golfers who hewed to the "one game, tradition and honor" principles regardless of the needs and desires of 280M nongolfers who were put off by the difficulty of the game and the commitment it required to get to some level of proficiency that might translate to "fun." * When TMaG acquired them, I thought that it actually made even more sense in that you could position TaylorMade as the "serious golfer" brand and Adams in the portfolio as the "fun golfer" brand. They saw it differently and positioned Adams as the Seniors' and Women's brand but never really mounted any serious campaign or spending behind it before the music stopped on the TM side of the business and Adams was left without a chair in which to sit. As a backdrop to all of this in the early 2000s, the category as a whole was choppy but not on the 10% decline trajectory (~1.5% Compound Annual Change Rate) we've seen since 2007. Golf retail was shifting from green grass dominance to retail stores (golf exclusive chains as well as national sporting goods retail chains) and Golf Galaxy was the model/industry darling, etc. Finally, the USGA was unquestioned in its control (if not its wisdom and motives) of equipment standards, rules and everything that was good in golf. So, what the industry lacked during my previous runs up the hill of someone introducing recreational golf equipment and basically upending the category was "a good crisis." I'll skip the part about why 2016 meets the criteria of "a good crisis" and if anyone wants to take exception to that, my email is jimk@pellucidcorp.com. Bring your facts to the discussion and we'll debate it. The perfect storm of declining participation, the persistent barrier to playing or playing more of "too difficult, takes too long to achieve any proficiency" (i.e. "fun"), and the relatively recent events with Dick's Sporting Goods, TMaG, Nike and (potentially) Golfsmith have changed the landscape beneath both manufacturers' and retailers' feet considerably and irreversibly. In addition, I think it's also a reasonably-supported fact that the popularity and relevance of the USGA to the game of golf and the operational industry of golf is probably testing the lower bounds of recent (if not all of its) history. The only challenge is that we no longer have any of my previous suitable protagonists to step into the lead role in this play (definitely not 4 The Pellucid PersPecTive a comedy anymore). Enter Wilson Golf. A little-known trivia fact is I actually interviewed for the job of Director of Golf Ball Marketing back in the late 1990s (pre-Pellucid) and they remain headquartered here in Chicago right next to O'Hare which hosts my weekly pilgrimage to the airport. I learned during the interview process that they were owned by the Finnish company Amer (and still are) but that golf was a relatively small and not very profitable component of the portfolio. At the time they were trying to make a "pivot" in branding to "the brand most trusted by PGA Professionals" but that didn't have the planned impact or longevity (the base of the pyramid of influence wasn't quite as wide as they had imagined). By recent accounts such as this article in the Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ctwilson-golf-equipment-0904-biz-20160901-story.html), it appears that they've stabilized the ship from a profit standpoint but the line of sight to a breakthrough is still somewhat obstructed. In my worldview, Wilson Golf checks the following boxes for being the next likely candidate as the spoiler for recreational golf equipment, a disruptive move in the category and the potential exponential upside if I'm right and it's executed correctly: * Current growth trajectory and strategy is slow and arduous. If they're going to crack the Top 4, they're going to need transformational vs. incremental change. * They have a tough-to-shed reputation as being a big-box brand. Why not leverage that with the place that recreational golfers are more likely to pick up their first set of clubs than playing the green-grass game initially. I think a number of green grass outlets might come around to the idea if Wilson gets some initial traction; they want the recreational golfers and their rounds. In addition, if the recreational equipment carries a benefit that their legacy brands don't, then it's not like they're trading one legacy brand for another, they're offering wider variety catering to entirely different segments. * They probably have less to lose in a war of words with the USGA; the USGA is likely more concerned with keeping the "big boys" in line (although they did take quite a swipe at PING even though they weren't a dominant manufacturer at the time). * It could potentially function as a very good entry-level strategy for Wilson that could provide a steady and natural consumer "feeder system" for their more premium offerings that their current strategy desperately needs. In the Chicago Tribune article, Wilson Golf President Tim Clarke outlines his prediction that The Nexit "is a huge opportunity for us." I would propose that the better path of "not wasting a good crisis" (of which The Nexit is only one component) would be to devote serious time, energy and resources for the brand on disrupting the category in the wake of Nike by developing and introducing a line of recreational equipment as one component, while trying to absorb share of the "legacy consumers" in his current plans. Oops, gotta' go, my cell phone just rang with 773.714.6400 as the caller ID, that must be Tim on the line now... n September 2016 http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-wilson-golf-equipment-0904-biz-20160901-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-wilson-golf-equipment-0904-biz-20160901-story.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - September 2016