THE STARTER SHACK
Hello Golfers,
We have Phil playing dice in the tunnel to number 16 at TPC Scottsdale. The golfers who play Pinnacles are the real winners. Gary Player's son is a loser (his words okay, our words). And the PGA Tour continues to partner with tech companies...welcome to the 21st century boys. Finally.
Scottsdale - Future Home of the Tournament Player’s Casino
“I want a hamburger... no, a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake...oh, and put a five spot on Rickie Fowler making a birdie on 16 today”.
That’s right, legalized sports gambling is coming directly to TPC Scottsdale and the Waste Management Open
The details are like Robert Allenby’s details of his night in Hawaii...murky:
- partnering with Draftkings as the sportsbook operator
- a permanent retail/mobile sportsbook operation to be constructed onsite
- a 19th hole vibe with “great food and a great sports atmosphere”
- operational in 2023 to coincide with Super Bowl and the WMPO
- no word yet on a $4.99 prime rib dinner special
Initially this sounded like an excuse to take advantage of gambling opportunities only for the PGA Tour’s WMPO. Not so. This is going to be a permanent sportsbook operating year-round for any sports betting.
The choice of TPC Scottsdale seems apt here. Take the Gladiator-like entrance to hole 16’s tee box. You walk through the entrance and on the other side you lose all track of time and all sense of normal human behaviour, just like a casino.
This is a way to attract more casual golf fans as well as enriching the experience for more hard-core golf fans. Imaging some of the bets from those drunken hooligans:
- hitting the green in regulation
- KP for the group (or KP for the entire day)
- betting on three putts, long putts, chip-ins
- How many beers Tad from Tempe can crush while Jon Rahm walks to the green
Maybe this will be an impetus to bring back the caddie races; they can be handicapped and promoted daily just like the annual races at Churchill Downs.
Not lost here is the huge potential for the PGA Tour’s desire to show every shot at an event.
Having this level of visibility to Tour player’s hole-by-hole (or shot-by-shot) performance is just the kind of access that gamblers crave, especially as the daily sports betting moves to a more mobile environment.
There is no word on whether they will be televising Three Card Monte in the tunnel walking to the 16th tee.
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- PGA Tour partnered with WHOOP: we discussed two weeks ago how we might start seeing a player's heart rate in real time as they stand over that knee-knocking 4 footer...we were right, it's happening.
- Srixon is a tire company: Sumitomo Rubber Industries. This is all.
- Lydia Ko with the KO: It seems as though the lost have been found with Speith, Stricker and now Ko in the winners circle.
- Cink didn't sink a lot: on Sunday at the RBC Heritage, Cink's longest—made—putt on the front nine was 2 feet 3 inches.
- Brouhaha at Harbour Town: SI Woo Kim waited 55 seconds for his ball to drop...was a lot like Tigers chip in at the 16th at Augusta but 54 seconds longer.
- Gary Players son banned: the son of a Masters Champ has been banned from, well, the Masters for ballsy advertising.
The winners and losers of the golf ball industry
You can’t complain about beer prices when your $3 dollar swing is costing you $15+ dollars a round in golf balls.
You pay $65CDN for a shiny new box of Titleist ProV’s. You step up to the first tee. Quick stretch...'cause that helps. And proceed to smash a $5.50 piss missile into the bush.
You’re at the golf ball industry’s mercy.
You can’t continue to play unless you have another ball. Golf balls, like tees, are 100% consumable...eventually. More so for some golfers than others.
It’s been stated that roughly 300 million golf balls are lost per year.
In 2016, Titleist sold $543,000,000 in golf balls, as per their financial report.
- $323 million of which were premium golf balls...aka Pro V’s
- Golf balls accounted for 33% of net sales in 2016.
Three facilities collectively produce over 1,000,000 golf balls per day. PER DAY! Thank you baby Jesus, 'cause I lost 4 on the back nine yesterday.
If our information is correct (remember, we are not investigative journalists), it costs:
- Titleist roughly $10CDN to produce a dozen golf balls.
- They wholesale at roughly $45 per dozen
- You buy them at $65 a dozen
- You lose them at an alarming rate
We’ve effectively helped Titleist generate well over $4.5 billion (as of 2016) since 2000...just from the Pro V line itself.
The real winners here are the guys that seed the trees with Pinnacle Golds over a six hour round and then load a 60lb golf bag weighed down with premium golf balls they found while in the bushes into their ‘97 Datsun.
Actually, Titleist/Acushnet is still the real winner here. They also manufacture the Pinnacle golf ball line. From Pro to Joe they dominate the premium ball market share at 37.4%.
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It’s a real buzzer-beater on the 18th green!
Apparently, not all golf fans want to sit for hours and watch a full telecast. Weird.
Buzzer, which is not at all a golf term, has recently joined forces with the PGA Tour to offer up its “micro viewing” technology to golf fans, coming in May of 2021.
With Buzzer’s technology, one no longer needs to be glued to the television in order to catch the page-turning action from that day.
Buzzer has mastered:
- condensing the “good” action into bite-size clips for today’s attention deficient youth/adults
- customizable alerts are directed to the user’s phone
- these clips can be downloaded, if desired, and viewed for a small fee (e.g. 99 cents)
- this technology is expected to grow at least 23% by 2023
The advantages to the consumption of the golf in this manner:
- only get desired highlights of the round or watching live snippets on demand
- customizable so Robert Streb fans can view all his shots during the day
- no more listening during the inevitable downtime(s) during a telecast
- eliminates the constant TV remote switching between different channels that have become commonplace for sports fans for years.
- weight gain, plugged arteries and outgrowing your good sweatpants are minimized
Younger fans are more inclined to catch highlights over full games or the year-long race for the FedEX Cup.
Having the bite size clips of live action to watch gives sports fans their fix. It also removes the FOMO that comes with waiting to catch highlights later in the day.
It’s win-win, unless you still pine for that butt groove you've worked into your recliner.
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Piss Missile: a low screaming drive that has been given the full send!
"Da-amn, that piss missile is going to roll for miles!"
Have you had a "Bushwood" Experience?
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