MISSISSAUGUA GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB, Mississauga, ON
While some shops are getting out of the business of selling hard goods, Mississaugua Golf and Country Club is going strong.
“We have a decent selection (of hard goods),” said Director of Golf Dennis Firth. “Between Titleist, TaylorMade, PING and Callaway, it’s pretty close (in sales).”
In drivers, Firth said: “The G400 is taking a bit of the market share. It’s been well received. It might not have a Tour presence, but the average golfer seems to like the look and feel of it. We’ve seen some early success with it. The M3 and M4 family, with the marketing machine behind it, seems to have a good following behind it as well.”
As far as iron sets go, Firth said: “We had our gala demo day Monday of the long weekend (in May). We smashed it there, we were literally full from 11-5. It was six hours of steady demo appointments. It was a perfect weather day which never hurts. We had the four brands and Mizuno came that day as well. Between the four big brands, it was pretty equal. The AP3s are really getting some attention from the members here.”
In hybrids, Firth said: “There’s always a good following, especially with the older members. Long gone are the days of the three to pitching wedge sets. You see more five iron to gap wedges, with the three and four hybrid fitting in there. The (Titleist) 818 has been really well received here at the club.”
In wedges, Firth said: “That’s pretty easy. The SM7, there are a couple of new grinds for golfers to take advantage of. It’s timed well here where we’ve invested just over $2 million to completely re-do our bunkers. Titleist has provided a complete demo bag of wedges; we have 25. We can send golfers out so they can try every wedge with a different grind, obviously with different bounces. A lot of members may not know about bounces and may not understand it, but once you’re able to let them take four different 56- or 60-degree wedges out, they can feel the club interact with the turf or the sand and they can see the difference.”
In putters, Firth said: “Scotty Cameron always kind of rules the roost here. We’ve seen a bit of action with the TaylorMade and the Spider Tour. We’ll see our golfers watching golf on TV. They see something work on TV on the weekend. They’ll come in the next week and see if we have it in stock.”
Titleist’s AVX golf balls are getting some action. Said Firth: “Our core members are trying it out and enjoying it. There’s a little less spin and they’re getting more distance. We’ve had it for a short time, but there’s been considerable interest.”
There’s some sales action on the TP5 and TP5x. And there’s Pro VI, as Firth said: “A Pro V guy is a Pro V guy.”
There’s not so much a market for “value balls.”
“We’re probably the exception. I don’t want to say every ball we sell here is high end. We do a bit of Velocity, but not a ton in terms of volume,” said Firth.
With a longer winter and bad weather to start the golf season, Firth said about men’s clothing sales: “It was a slow start; everybody struggled to get people in the door. FootJoy continues to grab momentum and market share. They’re getting a little deeper in their lines which is helpful. We also do well with Peter Millar. It’s diversity – the lines go from golf to apres golf. Our average male golfer doesn’t want to go to the mall to shop. He trusts the staff here; we make it easy for him to shop here. So we’re starting to see some off-course apparel – dress shirts, outwear, casual shoes.” The shop also sells Levelwear.
In women’s clothing, Firth said: “We do well with Daily; it’s well followed here at the club. It’s a nice high-end line. It’s an easy one for us. We tried to go off to some interesting areas. We dabbled in Lole – it’s a bit of golf, a bit yoga inspired. There are some crossover pieces – jackets and sweaters – that we’ve done well with.”
In shoes, FootJoy is probably the best seller.
“FootJoy would still probably be our strongest sales. The shop is also stocking Skechers.”
In golf bags, the two biggest sellers are Sun Mountain and PING.
As it turns out, anything with a logo sells well.
“We logo pretty much everything,” said Firth. “If you’ve got a logo on it, it sells. We’re lucky and fortunate enough to be in that position. We’re lucky with the history of the club and the logo.”
Levelwear hats have sold well
In sunglasses, the shop sells Maui Jim and dabbles in Electric.
Another hit for the shop: 2UNDR underwear.
Said Firth: “I like to go in the area that others don’t. We’ve developed a following with the 2UNDR. It brings in a niche market for us. They’re great. The key is to get somebody to try them on. I always offer a money-back guarantee to anybody. We ask if they’ve tried them: ‘Take this, if you’re happy I’ll charge you, if not bring them back.’ It’s bold, but I haven’t had one person bring them back.”
PICTURE BUTTE GOLF CLUB, Picture Butte, AB
Executive Golf Professional Dean Sklarenko said: “It’s been a great start to our season even though the golf course didn’t open until almost a month later (April 20) than the past couple of years. The last two or three years, it’s been the second or third week of March. We’ve done well with some of our staple brands (Callaway, PING, TaylorMade and Titleist) we’ve had for a number of years. I would say sales are up a bit as compared to previous years.
“PING tends to be our strongest iron sales. TaylorMade and Callaway dominate the driver sales. The marketing on TV is doing a lot of the work for us. When the top guys in the world are hitting Twist Face (technology), our members want to come in and try it.”
In hybrid sales, Sklarenko said: “That falls in with Callaway and TaylorMade. For whatever reason, we don’t have a lot of success with fairway woods, but driver sales and hybrid sales are big for us.”
In putters, Sklarenko said: “Scotty Cameron’s the one that catches everybody’s eye year in and year out. The Spider is one they’ve seen on TV – Dustin Johnson or Jason Day – so that’s kind of been the one for a lot of people.”
In wedges, he said: “Vokey is No. 1 for us, Callaway would be a close second.”
In golf balls: “The Titleist brand is easily our top seller. In the end, it’s Pro V1. We probably sell the most volume in the Callaway Warbird, the entry-level ball.”
In shoes, Sklarenko said: “Our top seller would be the adidas brand. We carry three or four different shoes. The adicross seems to be our top seller. We brought Skechers in last year. It was recommended and it was very popular especially with the seniors and ladies.”
In men’s clothing, he said: “We carry probably nine different men’s lines. Our top selling would be adidas or Travis Mathew. Some of the louder stuff – Levelwear or Antigua – that’s where we put our logo. We don’t logo a lot of stuff, I would say 30 per cent of it is logoed.”
In women’s clothing, Under Armour and Lopez sales have been solid.
In golf bags, it’s Sun Mountain and OGIO.
“We’re getting a lot more requests now for specific branding,” said Sklarenko. “If a guy’s playing Titleist clubs, he’s asking for a Titleist bag. We’re fairly successful in bags, actually – it’s been shocking. We don’t have a high, high volume of members. We only have about 400 here, including corporate, and we’re selling a good 25 per cent of them a bag every year.”
In gloves, it’s Footjoy.
The shop has had success with Bushnell rangefinders.
“We’ve found at times some of the satellite-driven products, sometimes with our 27-hole crossover, the numbers get swapped. It picks up the wrong hole,” said Sklarenko. “The handheld Bushnell units are better for us.”
In hat sales, Sklarenko said: “It’s interesting. Brand hats do go along with guys who are using a specific product. Casual sales, Travis Mathew, is high volume for us. Stuff like that, you can wear around town as well.”
NORTHLANDS GOLF COURSE, North Vancouver, B.C.
The shop on a golf course located at the foot of Mount Seymour has decided to stay away from hard goods for a few reasons.
“We fear the moment we bring clubs in here, we’ll get broken into,” said Golf Administrative Supervisor/Marketing Co-ordinator Curtis Johnston. “We’re kind of remote up here, it’s quite a quiet little spot that our clubhouse is located in. Add in margins and no membership and it’d be a tough sell.
“We’ve done a variety of things over the years. For a number of years, we had an exclusive deal with Callaway so we did Callaway apparel, club rentals and balls. Then Nike came knocking with a better deal. The industry in terms of hard and soft goods has really changed in the past decade. There’s no all-in-one umbrella. You could argue Acushnet with Footjoy and Titleist. We still need rental clubs and balls so we’ve signed an exclusive with Titleist on that end and Nike with soft goods.”
In golf ball sales, Johnston said: “Being a municipal course, it’s the value packs, Pinnacle, for our everyday Joe Schmoe golfer will sell like hotcakes. If we do jar balls, which we do from time to time, we’ll try to clear out some DT Solos and those go. We do sell the full Titleist lineup. When we had Callaway and Nike, over and over people would ask, ‘You guys don’t sell Titleist?’ It’s very rare somebody is looking for a brand outside of a Titleist.”
The gloves available are Nike.
Asked about stocking sunglasses, Johnston said: “We’ve done sunglasses in the past. We’ll find the odd guy who forgot his sunglasses, but nobody’s coming here to actually purchase them. We’re more a shop that deals with guys who forgot things or they’re on the cusp of needing something.”
In shoes, he said: “We have the full lineup of Nike footwear; they do footwear really well. Nike’s value shoe is the Explorer 2. We’re selling it at $100 and there are four colours. At $100, you get a brand new, really sharp-looking Nike shoe. That one’s done really well. Vapor 2, it looks really cool, that gets a lot of attention. We only brought in a small run, but we’ve almost sold through it.
“There’s a new spikeless one, the Roshe; we brought in three colours of that one. It looks nothing like a golf shoe and that one’s getting a lot of looks.”
In men’s apparel, the shop tries to stay away from logos with some of the clothing. Said Johnston: “It’s been hit and miss with the logo. We’ll get feedback, ‘Do you have anything without the logo?’ I pick and choose. I’ll logo about half the stuff that comes in, but the higher-end stuff I’ll leave blank. That’s where Nike hits it out of the park. The apparel lines they come out with are unreal.”
Women’s apparel is a tough sell.
Said Johnston: “It is a much smaller section (of the shop). Women are much more savvy shoppers than men. They’ve been a challenge since we opened. One year about a decade ago, we were bringing in yoga wear for them to see if that would sell better than golf wear. That failed. We’ve tried everything. They’ll find what they want and go online and find it for half the price somewhere. My wife’s the same way. The female shoppers will wait for the end-of-year sales and buy it at cost or below cost. We have a fairly good line of women’s Nike stuff, but it’s a tougher sell. The margins on women’s clothing are terrible, whereas guys’ wallets open a lot easier.”
In hats, he said: “We have a huge wall of headwear; we sell tons of hats.”
And, said Johnston: “We try to carry all the little knick knacks: club brushes, Advil, rangefinder batteries. We’re basically into footwear, hats and apparel.”
MAGRATH GOLF CLUB, Magrath, AB
Adam Bayne, head golf pro and clubhouse manager said: “Our No. 1-selling driver for the past two years has been Callaway. Perhaps the commitment from our territory rep – being present, engaging in the merchandising of Callaway’s line of product, as well as multiple demo days – has helped win over brand loyalty from PING, Cobra and our second-best brand, TaylorMade.”
Sales of iron sets at the club this season are so far balanced between Rogue and M4.
Mack Daddy is the most popular wedge and Callaway hybrids are also hot sellers.
In fairway woods, it’s Rogue and M4.
Most popular putters are Odyssey, Scotty Cameron and the Spider. Bayne said: “Customers opt for the high-performing, lower-price-point Odyssey line first, but we have a small base that prefers Titleist and TM.”
Levelwear is the best-selling men’s apparel line with customers liking the price and custom artwork.
Asked about colour trends for men’s clothing, Bayne said: “Our member base and our playing public often opt for more conservative, traditional colour stories: grey, off black, heathered base colours, and comfort forward material.”
In women’s clothing, Levelwear and Dexim Canada sell well.
The shop is adidas-exclusive in shoes, with the adipower Boost for men building off a successful release last year. In women’s shoes, it’s the Tech Response.
Asked about golf ball sales, Bayne said: “In 2017, the Chrome Soft, for the first time in the club’s recent history, outsold the ProV1. Value balls that continue to sell are the Supersoft, Noodle, and they’ve been joined this year by the new Superhot Bold and TM’s Project (S).
Popular golf hats include Live Lucky, TaylorMade, Callaway and Titleist brands.
The shop sells Sundog sunglasses.
In golf gloves, it’s Callaway Apex, Opticolour, TM Stratus and Footjoy.
Cart bags sell before stand bags, with the preferred brands being TaylorMade, Callaway and OGIO.
Asked what kind of a challenge it is to operate a pro shop, Bayne said: “Smart decisions and proper buying strategy with an outside-the-box approach to merchandising. Our shop at the Magrath Golf Club runs a small but profitable shop.”
