Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993 TAG: 9309030085
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY STEVEN PEARLSTEIN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Such fantasies can become expensive. In recent years, they have led millions of golfers to trade in their old golf clubs for a more expensive set of new high-tech sticks with graphite shafts, oversized heads and beryllium copper facings. The clubhouse wisdom is that the new clubs make the ball go farther and straighter with less chance of a disastrous slice into the woods.
But golfers' "input" of new "technology" hasn't improved "output" very much, to use the economist's jargon. Although the average golfer's spending on clubs jumped markedly in the late 1980s, in response to the introduction of the new clubs, before declining again, golf scores have remained unchanged. The average handicap for the 4 million golfers who regularly report their scores held steady at 16.2, where it's been since 1980, according to the U.S. Golf Association. (In golf, the better you play, the lower your score and your handicap.)
Pro scores also have remained unaffected by the introduction of new technology. The Professional Golfers Association each year presents its Vardon trophy to the pro who ends the season with the lowest average. Since 1947, the winning scores have ranged randomly between 69 and 72, with no apparent trend.
Despite the failure of the new clubs to have much of an impact on scores, millions of golfers are convinced that they do, including First Golfer Bill Clinton, whose bag includes Callaway "Big Bertha" woods and Ping irons, the hottest clubs in today's golf market.
Karsten Manufacturing Co. of Phoenix sparked the current golf equipment craze in the mid-1980s with its cavity-backed Pings, which now easily outsell such venerable names as Wilson, Spalding, Titleist and Hogan. A set of top-of-the-line Ping woods and irons with graphite shafts runs $1,600 - more than double the price for what was once considered a good set of traditional steel-shafted clubs.
More recently, Ping has been supplanted as the "hot" club by "Big Bertha," the metal oversized woods produced by Callaway Golf Co. of Carlsbad, Calif. In just five years, Callaway has grown from $5 million in sales to nearly $200 million, to become the industry's leader. The Callaway line includes the "Seven From Heaven" 7-wood at $230 that many golfers are now adding to their traditional three-wood set.
Ely Callaway, a former textile executive who got into the golf club business as a retirement avocation, is careful not to make any claims for his clubs that he can't support.
"We say our clubs are designed to bring greater satisfaction," Callaway said. "But we do not say it will lower your handicap. We don't because we know a lot about the game and scoring is tremendously related to the emotional makeup of the player."
Others are more blunt.
"The equipment doesn't matter as much as people think," said John Powers, head golf pro at PortAmerica Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington. "Most of the time when they take out the new clubs they'll hit the ball better. And then after a month, they fall back into their old habits and the advantage disappears."
Fans of the new clubs argue that their real value is not in hitting the ball longer - "distance is vastly overrated," Powers said. Rather, the new clubs make it easier for newcomers to take up the game and less disastrous for average players when their swing is a little off.
The arrival of an era of high-priced equipment is not a phenomenon unique to golf. Like jogging and tennis before it, a sudden surge in the sport's popularity brought with it new technology, aggressive marketing techniques, new channels of distribution and a shift to higher-priced equipment. Today the golf market has grown to 25 million Americans, according to the National Golf Foundation, up from 16 million in 1982.
Even as recently as a decade ago, all golf clubs were pretty much based on the same design. Most were advertised only in specialty magazines, and the vast majority were sold through pro shops at golf courses.
Today, by contrast, various competing technologies are advertised on network television, while sales are as likely to come through mail-order companies or golf superstores such as Washington Golf Centers, based in Arlington.
All this has transformed the culture of golf. The golfers of a generation ago aspired to improve their games enough to qualify for better equipment, and those who purchased equipment noticeably above their skill level were ridiculed by caddies and other players. An old set of good clubs was considered a badge of honor.
But today the clear message from manufacturers and retailers is that you can buy a better swing.
"Golf has become a game for Mr. Everyman, who is an easy target for the marketers," said Abraham Zaleznick, a retired Harvard Business School professor and psychiatrist and 16-handicap golfer. "There is no doubt the equipment is better. But for most of us, the key to the game is really chipping and putting, and no piece of equipment is really going to change that."
And what's in Zaleznick's bag? A new set of Callaways.
by CNB