...Assignment Questions - Golf Q 1. What are the defining characteristics of the golf equipment industry? What is the industry like? A 1. The defining characteristics of the golf equipment industry are product performance, innovative technology and name brand recognition. Golf companies essentially sell the same products so they must differentiate their products through technological advances. Fortunately for golf companies, the sport attracts mainly upper-class individuals so the companies can focus on quality with the assurance of high-end sales. This industry is very competitive due to the regulations placed upon it and the diminishing growth in the number of players in the recent years. The technology and research that these companies have done is so advanced that the USGA feels the need to place regulations upon the professional players to that the game is fair all around. The industry can be separated into two parts: golf and sporting goods. Golf companies usually gain brand recognition by hiring professional golfers to promote their products because this can be one of the most effective forms of advertising for a company. Companies are also focusing on creating new products for recreational players. For any company who wants to enter into this market would require significant amounts of investment. Q2. What is competition like in the golf equipment industry? What competitive forces seem to have the greatest effect on industry attractiveness? What are the competitive...
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... Is Golf a Sport? The origin of sports dates all the way back to the first Homo sapiens. However, the importance of sports on society was realized by the ancient Greeks. The Greeks used sports as a means of entertainment but it was also used to bring relief on the conflicts between major cities. The participants in these games were of the strongest and fastest athletes of their time and they were seen as godlike figures. As time has passed, modern day perception of sports and its athletes have remained the same. Athletes and sports are as popular as ever and it is because they show us things that many of us can’t do physically. The label of sport is one that brings respect and a sense of greatness for its athletes. For people to consider golf a sport is based on pure fallacy, and it does a disservice on the origins of sports and why it was created. Sports were brought about as a viewing of the best athletes fiercely competing against one another and golf is the opposite of that. Golf and its participants also take away from the greatness of true athletes that put in the hard work of mastering their sport, which is immeasurable, more complex and difficult to master. For a person to relate an athlete of Lebron James to Tiger Woods is blasphemous, and goes to show how golf can undermine what a true athlete is. Ultimately, Golf is not a sport due to a various reasons that include...
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...morning, I overlook the beautiful green fairways of the Saddle Rock Golf Course. The greens, fairways, and tee boxes all mowed with precision, not a blade of grass remains ungroomed, the course was ready for the tournament that was about to begin. Today’s tournament would be sponsored by the Toys for Tots foundation. This is an annual tournament that raises money to buy toys for children that otherwise would not be receiving any presents during the holiday season. The Toys for Tots program was started in1947 by a group of Marine Reservist that took the initiative and collected toys for the local boys and girls in the Los Angeles area. A reserve Marine Colonel named William Hendricks was the officer that started the program with the help of his wife. In the civilian world Colonel Hendricks worked as the director of public relations for Warner Brothers. This gave Colonel Hendricks access to celebrities that would help support the program. It was Mr. Walt Disney that designed the Toys for Tots logo that is still used (TFTF, 2006). It is considered a privilege in the reserves, to be part of Toys for Tots events. This is one of many events that I personally participate in every year. My job at this event is to stand on the 11th hole and talk to all the golfers. I was in uniform, and I was there to represent the Marine Corps and to thank the golfers for their donations. At 8:00 a.m. sharp, the Toys for Tots golf tournament begins. Unlike other sporting events, there is no cheering...
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...Callaway Golf Clubs Irons: Set Composition A typical, off-the-shelf set of irons will include a 3-iron through pitching wedge (advertised as "3-PW"), 8 clubs total. The clubs are identified by a number (3, 4, 5, etc.) on the sole of each club, except for the pitching wedge which will have a "PW" or "P." Other irons may be available for purchase separately, including a 2-iron and additional wedges (gap wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge). None of the additional clubs are necessary for beginners, and especially not the 2-iron. 1-irons used to be available, too, but are now virtually extinct. Iron Loft, Length and Distance As you go through the set, from the 3-iron to the pitching wedge, each iron has a little more loft than the previous, and a little shorter shaft length than the previous, so each club (going from 3-iron to PW) hits the golf ball little less distance than the previous. That is, a 5-iron has less loft, a shorter shaft, and produces shorter shots than the 4-iron; the 4-iron has less loft, a shorter shaft, and produces shorter shots than the 3-iron. The pitching wedge has the most loft, the shortest shaft, and the shortest distance in the traditional 3-PW iron set. Also, as you move through the set to the shorter, more lofted clubs, the resulting shots will have a steeper trajectory; shots will rise at a steeper angle and fall at a steeper angle. That also means that a ball hit with the 8-iron, for example, will roll less once it hits the ground compared to a ball...
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...Golf Participation in America, 2010-2020 B Y J O S E P H F. B E D I T Z , P H . D . A N D J A M E S R . K A S S NATIONAL GOLF FOUNDATION Introduction RECENT DECLINES IN THE NUMBER of golfers and golf Figure 1: Golfer Participation - year by year 35 30 25 Golfers (mm) 20 15 10 5 0 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 courses, coupled with a reduction in golf consumer spending, have many in the industry asking: “Where is the game headed?” And when we think of the game, we correctly think about amateurs, the people who play the game. NGF’s founder, Herb Graffis, said that it is these amateurs “from whom all blessings flow.” What Herb meant was that without the amateur golfer, there would be no business of golf, no tournament golf, no golf media … no golf! We have been told that American consumer spending accounts for 70% of the nation’s gross national product, or GNP. Well, it’s safe to say that American golfer spending accounts for 100% of the golf industry’s GNP. So to understand where the game and business of golf is headed, we need to understand where the number of amateur golfers is headed. From the mid 1980s to the turn of the century, the number of golfers grew by about 50% – from 20 million to 30 million golfers. That is very substantial growth – a compound annual growth rate of around 3%. But since the year 2000, the number of golfers plateaued and has been slowly declining, raising concerns about the future. Figure 2 on...
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...142-04 9/4/15 Golf and Yoga Golf is no longer just a hobby. It is a sport that requires a properly functioning body along with a clear and peaceful mind. It was not that long ago that golfers came in all shapes and sizes and working out was in the back of their mind. Nowadays, each day a golfer does not spend in the gym or in the yoga studio, they are losing ground on their competitors. Amateurs are even finding that to have a more balanced and powerful swing, they must build the muscles that allow them to do so. Lifting heavy weights is not going to add distance and consistency however. A flexible and properly functioning body is built by adding yoga to a golfer's workout plan. Yoga builds the core muscles along with adding muscle endurance and a range of flexibility, which in turn leads to more consistent and powerful golf swings. Yoga also teaches you how to breathe and relax your body and mind, which on the golf course is an absolute must. According to Michael Brantl (2014), a TPI Level 3 Fitness Instructor, "yoga creates natural improvements in functional flexibility." Brantl goes on to explain to explain how yoga improves various parameters of fitness, and how this in turn, helps your golf game. Yoga improves and increases muscular strength, muscular endurance, functional flexibility/mobility, balance, stability, cardiovascular endurance, and body composition. All of these must be working at their best to create a powerful and balanced golf swing. Golfers...
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...The Game of Golf When I started playing golf with my father at the age of seven years old, I never could have imagined how much this game has taught me about life, motivation, and myself. My senior year in high school I was playing as the number one and captain on the varsity golf team. That honor was bestowed on me, because I was supposedly the best man on the team. Which just happened to be true. It was an honor that I truly enjoyed because golf had been a hobby, sport, and passion I had worked extremely hard at for close to a decade. But playing first man also had its drawbacks. The one that I will speak of here is the style of speaking that I had to use while playing in a tournament. It was five o’clock at night on a crisp fall afternoon. A bitterly cool wind swept across the hilly landscape as the leaves blew into the air, out of the woods, and onto the multi-tiered green. I stood behind my ball to line up my ten-foot birdie putt in hopes of breaking my own personal high school record. I pick a line at the hole and step up to the putt with the confidence to make it. As the mallet of the putter swings back like a pendulum, the ball rolls and rolls right on line at the hole but then stops just inches short of a birdie. I walk up, slightly disappointed at the miss, and tap in my par putt to finish out the final match of the season. The game of golf is a game of inches, as even the slightest miscalculation or imperfection can lead to failure. Fast forward to the following...
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...Mac Koorbusch Sophomore year I was in a bubble [AW1] with a couple of my teammates between the Junior Varsity golf team and the Varsity golf team. Of course I wanted to be on Varsity so giving the last day of tryouts my all was my only option. While standing on the 9th tee box looking down the fairway I knew I was down a stroke. The cutline is 42 and I was going to shoot a 43 if I pared the hole making me need to birdie this hole. I told myself “Your going to birdie” multiple times to boost my confidence. I started off with a duck hook drive leaving myself with a 230 yard shot to the front of the green where the pin was. I needed to leave myself with at least an opportunity to get a birdie so hitting a ball at least around the green was ideal. Standing 230 yards away I bent my knees and swung at the ball[AW2] . It looked good it really did but then it started turning to the right. The ball soared in the air and landed in front of the green leaving me with a bunker shot to get this birdie. I told myself that I was going to make it multiple times during my walk to the ball. I knew how much I practiced during the off-season to be on varsity and so this was a shot to accomplish everything I wanted[AW3] . As I approached my ball I noticed that I was going to need to hit it high and with a lot of spin. This is a hard shot to do but I knew it was my time to shine. I set myself up. I looked at the pin then my ball. Then the pin and the ball again. I brought my club...
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...Strategic Report for The Callaway Golf Company Innovation through Collaboration Scott Damassa Amy MacKinnon Alisher Saydalikhodjayev April 14, 2007 Harkness Consulting Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................... 3 Company Background ................................................ 5 Competitive Analysis.................................................. 7 Internal Rivalry ................................................................ 8 Entry .............................................................................. 12 Substitutes & Complements ........................................... 13 Buyer & Supplier Power ................................................. 14 SWOT Analysis ..........................................................15 Strengths ....................................................................... 15 Weaknesses ................................................................... 15 Opportunities ................................................................. 16 Threats........................................................................... 16 Financial Analysis .....................................................16 Strategic Issues & Recommendations .......................21 References…………………………………………………………25 Harkness Consulting 2 Executive Summary Harkness Consulting has been asked by Callaway Golf to assess its strategic market position and to make recommendations for improving...
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...1) One of the primary benefits of FX-1 product is to help respond to market demand which requires Callaway to come up with a revolutionary product. With FX-1, Callaway will have the chance to pair it with FT-i driver (existing product) and attract the attention of the golfers who seek ultimate course experience .It will also increase the company's revenues and enable it to gain further market share in a market where consumers report decreasing golfing. On the other hand, the introduction of FX-1 will cannibalize comparable top-end irons in its product portfolio. Additionally, FX-1 will require one-off investments for product development, manufacturing, and pre-marketing. 2) Gross profit margin comparison: FX-1: Callaway Golf: 3) Earnings and FCF analysis for FX-1 product are as follows: 4) At discount rate of 10.5% NPV of project FX-1 is USD 910,000 taking into consideration of potential cannibalization. Given that NPV is positive, the firm should take on the project. 5) Below is the NPV for 3 different scenarios. The implication here is that assuming that the 3 scenarios are reasonable, the actual project NPV is likely to end between a range of USD -0.6 million and USD 2.66 million. 6) Assuming all other assumptions are fixed at base scenario, project will break-even at the following number of units sold, per-unit wholesale price, and per-unit manufacturing cost value. 7) Because NPV of price reduction of 10% and sales increase...
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...ENDICOTT COLLEGE School of Business and Technology THE GOLF INDUSTRY: A SUPPLY AND DEMAND ANALYSIS With: Tom Fazio, The National Golf Foundation and Pulte Homes CASE STUDY This case was prepared by students Lauren Fournier, Jacob Kidder, Nemanja Marinkovic and Courtney Holloway with Assistant Professor Margaret Sherrerd Ake. THE GOLF INDUSTRY - A SUPPLY AND DEMAND ANALYSIS With: Fazio Golf Designers, the National Golf Foundation, and Pulte Homes INTRODUCTION In January 2007, on a red eye from Phoenix, Arizona back to his main office in Jupiter, Florida, Tom Fazio, a world-renowned golf course architect, reviewed research prepared by the National Golf Foundation (NGF) on the status of the golf industry at the end of 2006. The NGF research reported that in 2006, for the first time since the end of World War II, the number of golf courses that had closed exceeded the number of courses that were opened. The news was not encouraging. Many in the industry had begun to contemplate the factors that contributed to this news. Had the supply of golf courses become too great in comparison to relatively flat demand? Or, were there other more lucrative uses for the properties on which golf courses were traditionally located? Had environmental, land, or other resource constraints hindered new course development? More importantly, how would the industry behave in the years to come? And, what...
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...Austin Cook 9/22/14 Clay Hamerick Golf History and Informative Essay Golf throughout history has, at its basics, started from men carrying sticks hitting balls on the ground and become a game with extreme depth, excitement, competition, and relaxation. Some historians believe that it was the Scottish who invented golf. Although there are two different theories, European history of golf, and Ancient Asian history of golf. Two of the most ancient regions golf-like sports have been mentioned in are the Greeks and the Egyptians dating back to 2,600 B.C. The sport dates back to the time of Julius Caesar. Although it was not the golf that is played today, it was a similar game. They played by striking a feather-stuffed ball with club-shaped tree branches. Golf was also traced back to the Song Dynasty in China during the years 960 to 1279. The games of these times were not exactly the golf that is known today; the roots of today’s game can be traced back to Scotland in 1457. The game was then outlawed by King James II of Scotland, as it detracted from the training for the military (Schwietzer, 2013). Golf became a pastime in Great Britain in the seventeenth century, and that was a familiar theme throughout the world. In 1860, the first British Open, a tournament that is still played today, had taken place. The popularity of the sport then began to spread throughout the entire world. The first permanent golf club in North America was founded in Montreal, Canada, in 1873 and was...
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...Is Golf A Sport? ?? DeVry University Is golf a sport? You could say this it would be a stretch to call this a controversial issue, but whether golf is a sport or not has been endlessly debated for as long as there have been men sitting on barstools arguing about sports. The problem is that we live in a culture that constantly turns everything into measurable tests of will power and skill. So we decide to score non-competitive activities and that leaves us to wonder if the activity is a sport. As individuals, we rely on our own bias to guide us in making a determination if an activity is a sport. Because of these individual determinations you have a lot of people that will argue that golf is a sport and just as many people arguing that it is not a sport and just a game. Both sides of this argument are correct in their assumptions, golf can be defined both as a sport and as a game. Golf is a very difficult game; it requires precision and physical ability to play at a competitive level. To be a successful golfer you need to have a consistent golf swing that requires sound mechanics and precise timing. The swing is a very complex motion that requires coordination of 17 muscle groups. These muscle groups consist of muscles located in the hands, the wrists, the arms, the abdomen and the legs (McHardy, 2005). The overall swing consists of a back swing, a down swing and an upswing. All three of these parts of the swing must work in harmony to produce solid result. If something...
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...101 8 October 2014 Definition Essay: Golf the Game Played Many Ways Golf, a game played on a large open-air course, in which a small hard ball is struck with a club into a series of small holes in the ground, the object being to use the fewest possible strokes to complete the course. A game very similar to golf was recorded to be played the first time on the 26th of February, 1297 by the Dutch. Using a leather ball and a stick the objective was to get the ball to a target many of yards away in the least amount of strokes. It is said that real golf was founded in Scotland in the 17th century where actual golf clubs were used and the players putted a ball into a hole. Golf was named by the Scottish spelled gowf in Scotland. The definition of the world gowf means stick, club, or bat. Like every sport, golf has rules and instructions. The earliest documented instructions can be found in the diary of Thomas Kincaid. In his diary entry on the 20th of January, 1687 he explains the golf stroke and the instructions behind being able to hit the ball successfully. The rules of golf were first put into writing in 1744 and can now be found in the National Library of Scotland. Golf made its way to our country in 1787 when the South Carolina Golf Club was established. Many sports have only one way to be played but golf can be played in many different forms which makes golf a sport played in many different ways. The two most common ways golf is played is match play and stroke play. Match...
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...CASE ANALYSIS Course name: Marketing Management Altius Golf and the Fighter Brand FAS Group No: E2 Name of the Students Ashish Rakheja | 15F113 | Pankaj Deshpande | 15F134 | Sarthak Chandra | 15F144 | Shruti Shukla | 15F148 | Sreeda P | 15F153 | TERM 2 – 2015 T A PAI MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, MANIPAL PROBLEM STATEMENT The recession of 2008 had badly affected the golf industry. The consumers of golf equipment were cutting down their spending and as a result the retail outlets closed at an alarming rate of 25%. The investment in golf course real estate and development sector also fell down over 40%. The sales shifted from on-course pro-shops to off-course retailers. USGA was aware of this and to halt this trend aimed at making golf more accessible. Altius Golf was an undisputed leader in the golf ball manufacturing market in spite of a long term decline in the number of golfers and huge drop in sales resulting from financial crisis. Due to lack in innovation and high priced products, the company has been losing market share to its rivals. The CEO, therefore, wants to launch a new product called Elevate to foster the next generation of golfers. With Elevate, the firm will introduce 4 balls that are more forgiving and easier to drive for distance and offer it at a price 40% below the company's flagship brand. It has now become necessary for Altius to relook into its strategy and come up with the “Elevate Strategy” to regain its market. However the question...
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