The Pellucid Perspective - September 2024 - 4

ALTERNATIVE GOLF
to " dualies " and the subsequent economic benefit to
golf course owner/operators from the expansion and
press-release-reported success of Topgolf and similar
venues. Not.a.single.one. The vast majority of research
results (all funneled through the single, same leading
industry association not coincidentally) touted the
vast universe of alternate golfers being created so that
golf's " total reach " was exponentially increasing. That's
all well and good but the primary economic benefit
of that swelling universe (which consists of " rent " and
food & beverage) had little to no accretive benefit to
the legacy golf industry participants (courses, consumer
equipment manufacturers, course equipment and service
providers etc.). There's good news and bad news here
but not " the news " that's been peddled over the past
decade. Bad news? Topgolf has not been meaningfully
or quantitatively shown to have benefitted the legacy
industry at large. This would suggest that the universe of
" dualies " is populated in majority by golfers also trying/
adopting alternate golf not the other way around. Good
news? It appears that it hasn't cannibalized the frequency
or spending of traditional golfers (which was my primary
concern/fear)
* Creating Callaway buyers - Given that the rental
equipment from the beginning at Topgolf has been
exclusively Callaway, many thought (myself included)
that Callaway would get a benefit from the " free " brand
trial for the majority of those crossover golfers to the
traditional game. I'm not sure if it's due to the fact that
there aren't many of those animals or whether the " brand
halo " didn't work but nothing in any Callaway release or
communication has indicated that they've gained any
meaningful share in the club market (no balls impact)
due to Topgolf converts
* Messaging and programs - In the beginning Topgolf
appeared to prefer being mute on the topic of how it " fits "
with traditional golf (i.e. they didn't have messaging that
said " We're the on ramp to traditional golf " or " Come try
golf here so you don't embarrass yourself on an actual golf
course " etc.). Over the past 5 years from the emails I've
received and web advertising I've been exposed to, they've
moved to a more clear, aggressive position disassociating
themselves from traditional golf. Two examples? First,
recent emails have tried to thread the needle such as
the below which offer a 3rd side to the coin (not many
3-dimensional coins) between it is/isn't golf (graphic
below).
Second and more recently, they've unveiled the Sure Thing club
and have aggressively featured it in their email marketing (graphic
on next page).
*
* Those of you who have followed Pellucid will know that
I'm not a game/tradition purist so I'm not necessarily
saying this is non-golf or bad for the game but the
messaging behind this latest marketing campaign is
found in the email headline: Subj: Our new club isn't
allowed on courses. Learn why! So basically what
they're saying is " don't go to regular golf courses, come
here so you can play with our club that produces more
fun because it breaks all those buzz-kill rules. " That's also
pretty clear that they're not an on-ramp for traditional
golf. The other finer point here is the Subject Line is
actually " fake news. " Last I checked, you can take pretty
much any type of golf club to the 1st tee of most any US
course (blueblood Privates possibly excluded) and, unless
4 The Pellucid PersPecTive
September 2024
The Pellucid Perspective - September 2024

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