Just like Tiger Woods, TaylorMade CEO David Abeles is having a great few days.
Abeles told Yahoo Finance that online sales since Woods’ big Masters win on Sunday have surged almost three times the normal average. Abeles expects Woods’ return to the pinnacle of golf to have a profound impact on the sport in coming months.
In short, excitement around Woods could lead people back into the sport (and in the market for equipment), similar to the effect during Woods’ heyday in the early 2000s.
Talk about a major win for the TaylorMade team.
“My time over the past 24 hours has undeniably been busier and more intense around this victory than in my 25 years in golf,” said Abeles.
The irons Woods used on Sunday to shape some of his amazing shots: the TaylorMade P7TW. That’s right, not sticks made from long-time Woods sponsor Nike, which decided to exit the golf equipment space in 2016.
“I do anticipate golf retail specifically to pick up,” he said. “We’re seeing it within our own e-commerce business right now where we are seeing 2-3X the volumes come to our website to express interest and ultimately purchase P7TW products.”
Adidas sold off TaylorMade to private equity firm KPS Capital Partners for $425 million in 2017. KPS Capital Partners has particular expertise working with manufacturing companies, which has helped Adidas focus on product engineering.
Abeles said that being spun off from Adidas has helped the company be more aggressive with its sponsorship deals and land stars like Woods in the first place.
TaylorMade signed arguably the sport’s biggest legend to a multi-year endorsement deal in January 2017. Some three months later, Woods underwent a risky spinal fusion operation to relieve years of back pain. Woods’ return to golf was highly uncertain and consequently, his ability to promote TaylorMade’s equipment was also in question.
Fast forward to present day, Woods secured his first win in more than five years at the Tour Championship last September. He is now a Masters champion again and will tee it up at the PGA Championship in May the odds on favorite to win the year’s second major.
TaylorMade has moved quickly to capitalize on Woods’ Masters win. On its homepage, the company is letting consumers buy the clubs Tiger used in his win. The company is offering the P7TW irons for a cool $1,999.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @BrianSozzi
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