Given the unfortunate knee injury to Tiger Woods, golf’s biggest star since Jack Nicklaus, the PGA and its sponsor companies have battled to redefine themselves to continue catering to fans who actively follow golf and see how its premier player performed each week.  With specific tournaments struggling if Woods decides not to play, coupled with lower television ratings when he either does not play or is not winning, it is clear why sponsors are cautious when entering into sponsorship agreements with specific players.  Like many other sports, the players are only valuable when they are both on the course, and more importantly, winning on it.  With golf’s individual competition, unlike a team sport such as baseball or football, choosing the right player to represent your brand is increasingly important.

 

The difficultly with golf is that many fans who do not actively watch or follow the PGA tend to lump all of the active players within a single standard: upper-class, country club members who attended Ivy League schools and were able to play on some of America’s finest courses to hone their skills for their eventual entry into the PGA, where they would play golf as their job, cashing endorsement checks from high-end clothing companies and accessory makers such as Lacoste and Rolex, luxury car makers like Lexus and Buick, or financial services companies such as the Royal Bank of Scotland or Citigroup.  Those fans who are active followers of the PGA have grown accustomed to the players and understand that if Woods is not involved, it may not be worth watching.

 

The goal for the PGA, its players, and its sponsors must then be to market to those who are not currently active watchers of golf, and who may learn to accept and appreciate the game as it is played without Tiger Woods.  Given the recent success of the United States Ryder Cup team, and specifically with Ryder Cup rookie Boo Weekley, who appears to be more in line with the average NASCAR fan than the average PGA fan, there is an obvious link that Weekley could build to bridge the gap between these two fan bases.

 

Weekley, who is known to be a NASCAR fan, is not the prototypical golfer described above.  Growing up in northern Florida, he attended Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College for one year before dropping out, and played on the Golf mini-tours for five years before qualifying for the PGA Tour in 2002.  Weekley lost his card that same year and began playing on the Nationwide Tour, which he was a member of between 2003 and 2006, after which he again qualified for the PGA Tour and won his first tournament at the Verizon Heritage in April 2007.  After winning the tournament again in 2008, Weekley made enough of an impression to be named as a “Captain’s Pick” for the 2008 Ryder Cup, where his fame skyrocketed thanks to his folksy demeanor, his obvious joy on the golf course, and of course, his Happy Gilmore-dance on the final day, solidifying his spot among the more popular players on the Tour.

 

Using his new-found fame and his connection to NASCAR, Weekley could be used to bring those exclusive fans of stock-car racing over to the game golf.  From Weekley’s point of view, endorsement deals with Outback Steakhouses and John Deere, two current PGA sponsors that also have sponsorship deals with NASCAR, would be a perfect starting point.  Because of the cross-over of both brands, Weekley would bring legitimacy to the products from the NASCAR fan’s point of view and would allow them a player to follow on the PGA Tour who is increasingly more like them than the likes of Vijay Singh, Padraig Harrington or Camilo Villegas.

 

Weekley’s ability to cross-over the NASCAR and PGA boundaries enables a marketing opportunity unseen in other professional sports in the United States, due to the vast number of “NASCAR-only” sports fans who do not see a bridge between their favorite driver(s) and specific players in the NBA, NFL, MLB or NHL.  With this unique situation, spearheaded by Outback Steakhouses and John Deere, Boo Weekley will be able to build that bridge.

Golfer Philip Alfred Mickelson was named the second top earning athlete in the United States by Sports Illustrated yesterday, one spot (and $65,530,021) behind follow-golfer Tiger Woods.  According to the breakdown provided by the magazine, Mickelson brought home $9,372,685 in salary and winnings and $53,000,000 in endorsements in 2007.  That's right, $53,000,000 for providing his face to companies in an attempt to persuade us to buy the merchandise.  Among those paying Lefty:

 

- Callaway Golf, which he uses on the Tour.

- Accounting firm KPMG (visor)

- Financial Services company Barclays (single color polo shirt patch)

- Scottsdale's Grayhawk Golf Club (Mick is a paid representative)

- Rolex (which he wears while playing golf)

- Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts (my guess is that he's never stayed in one…would you if you made $63 million per year?)

- Ford (another single color polo shirt patch sponsor)

 

I'll admit that I am a bigger golf fan than most people, but I can say without a doubt that I would never buy anything based off of Phil Mickelson's endorsement.  What the heck does this guy know about accounting and hotels?  This isn't Michael Jordan pushing Hanes undershirts, this is a golfer telling us that our Fortune 500 companies should get their audits done by KPMG. 

 

Then again, I am not exacting slugging gallons of Gatorade Tiger either…

Torrey Pines Golf Course (South Course)
San Diego, CA
June 9-15, 2008

Bethpage State Park (Black Course)
Farmingdale, NY
June 15-21, 2009

Pebble Beach Golf Links
Pebble Beach, CA
June 14-20, 2010

Congressional Country Club (Blue Course)
Bethesda, MD
June 13-19, 2011

Olympic Club
San Francisco, CA
June 11-17, 2012

Merion Golf Club
Ardmore, PA
June 10-16, 2013