By ADAM SCHUPAK
Senior WriterIt wasn’t that long ago that selling a putter for $300 seemed as farfetched as a Tour pro averaging 300 yards off the tee. Then one puttermaker proved consumers would spend top dollar for what appropriately is called the money club.
In 1995, Titleist and putter designer Scotty Cameron teamed up to introduce a line of high-end milled putters and scaled a then-unreached price plateau: the rarefied tier above $200. Even Titleist officials concede they wondered if anyone would buy such an expensive club, which to their chagrin produced low margins to boot.
But buy they did, and the putter world changed.
“Scotty has opened others’ eyes to the price that consumers will pay for a really good putter,” says Steve Pelisek, vice president of sales for Titleist clubs.
Cameron spurred a host of imitators eager to harvest sales in the category’s new frontier. However, he staked the territory as his own, forcing rivals to peck away at the periphery – still seeking super-premium prices but charging less than Cameron in an effort to undercut the Titleist craftsman.
The covetous group currently includes Bobby Grace Faceoff by MacGregor, Heavy Putter, Never Compromise’s Gray Matter 2 Exchange and TaylorMade’s Rossa Inza. But now Cameron’s dominance is being challenged like never before. In a frontal assault, putting powers Ping and Odyssey are reaping sales this year with milled putters priced at a Cameron-esque $250. And Nike Golf jumped into the category with high-end offerings of its own.
This market dynamic comes at a time when putter sales have slowed with the sole exception of the category’s high-end. Research firm Golf Datatech provides evidence consumers are paying higher prices for putters. In the past two years the $200-plus tier has accounted for 12 percent of unit sales and nearly 24 percent of dollar sales at on- and off-course retailers. Hence, the bevy of pricey flatsticks.
“It’s turned into the year of the high-end milled putter,” says Rob Arluna, Odyssey’s director of brand management.
But retailers say the addition of these entries is outpacing demand. And though Cameron’s market share dwindled initially because of the new competition, it has rebounded to previous levels, suggesting that dethroning the category leader won’t be easy. (Cameron declined to be interviewed for this story.)
It isn’t mere coincidence that some of the biggest brands in golf entered the high-end milled putter market within six months of each other. As Arluna explains, Odyssey officials explored how the brand could extend its market-share lead in total putter sales with unit sales down more than 3 percent and dollar spending unchanged this year.
Their attention turned to the super-premium sector when they noticed that over a two-year period, the average selling price of a putter rose from $122 in July 2005 to $129 this year through July – a 6 percent increase. In 1997, the first year Datatech tracked such numbers, the average putter price was $84.
“You’ve got to look at that market segment and say, ‘It’s growing, and there’s just one dominant player,’ ” Arluna says. “We saw an opportunity there for us to get into it.” The move is a radical departure from Odyssey’s winning formula.
Prior to its new milled Black Series, the company neither offered a super-premium priced product nor catered to players seeking such crafted designs. The carbon-steel, fully milled putters with tungsten flange represent Odyssey’s first non-insert putter. In its first month at retail in March, the Black Series captured 2.3 percent share in unit sales at on-and off-course shops.
But that early momentum has stalled; its market share has slipped every month since and stood at 1.3 percent as of July. Nevertheless, some retailers predict Odyssey ultimately will make the biggest run at Cameron, mostly because of the brand’s PGA Tour exposure. Milled putters’ surge in popularity parallels their increased usage on Tour.
Fifteen years ago, only a handful of Tour players used milled putters, estimates Bob Bettinardi, maker of his eponymous line of milled putters sold under the Mizuno banner. “Now 60 to 70 percent of a 156-man field at a Tour event is using a milled putter,” he says. “We all know the public likes to play what the pros play.”
No one has capitalized on Tour preferences better than Cameron. Indeed, it hasn’t hurt business that Tiger Woods has used a Cameron putter throughout his professional career. The Cameron Newport 2, which Woods has used since 1999, has been the one irreplaceable club in his bag. Mark Bazley, director of golf at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla., compares the impact of that affinity with the Michael Jordan effect on sneakers.
“Everyone wanted to be like Mike with Nike shoes. Well, everyone wants to be like Tiger with a milled putter,” he says.
Even Ping, which earned its reputation casting putters, has joined the fray – again.
The company first entered the high-end milled putter category in August 2003 with its JAS line. Priced at nearly $400, it failed to gain traction in the marketplace. But the company’s second go-around may prove more rewarding: With Mark Calcavecchia paying full retail for a Redwood Anser at Edwin Watts during the PODS Championship and then winning the event, and Angel Cabrera capturing the U.S. Open with the same milled model, Ping has scored Tour validation.
The Redwood is Ping’s most played series of putters on Tour. Priced more competitively in the $250 range, it’s off to a promising start at retail, too. Since its debut in November, the Redwood series registered five consecutive months of growth, climbing to 1.7 percent before leveling at 1.2 percent in July, according to Golf Datatech.
“We realized we need to almost follow Scotty’s example and do our stuff milled,” says John Solheim, Ping’s chairman and CEO. It’s still too early to tell if any of the new competitors will gain and keep significant market share. The lack of a name designer fronting their products might undermine some of their efforts, retailers say.
Such branding has become an almost essential point of distinction for milled putter sales success. Otherwise, it’s akin to selling “$50 (per) dozen golf balls against Titleist,” says Drew Pettengill, an equipment specialist at PGA Tour Stop in St. Augustine, Fla. “It’s brutal ground.” However, Pettengill and other retailers say consumers are giving the new entries a try.
“We don’t do 50 percent of the volume in (Scotty Cameron) we used to do,” Pettengill says. “Cameron was the only ‘premium putter’ that people wanted. Now there are multiple options.” Such experimentation likely led to Cameron’s market share declining to 7.6 percent in March from 10.1 percent in November. But Cameron has bounced back to a market share of 9.4 percent as of July, sparked by higher sales of the Detour 2.5, which has a more traditional shape than the original Detour.
“It’s natural to think that others might want to enter into the market,” Pelisek says. “Whether or not their products can in the end command those prices, we’ll find out.”
• • •
Adam Schupak is a
Golfweek senior writer. To reach him e-mail
aschupak@golfweek.com.
Posted: 9/16/2007
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