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When NBC needed a golf team, some
network suit threw up his hands
and said, “Hell with it—just give me
the baseball guys and Lee Trevino.”“Now and again it’s dinner meetings, when they’ll have all of their customers
there and I’ll come in and talk.”
What sponsors want differs. Audemars Piguet, the Swiss watchmaker,
requires its players to wear its logo on the right side of their shirt. Francois-
Henry Bennahmias, chief executive and a former nationally ranked French
golfer, said it always wants that spot, to maximize television coverage.
But it does not use any of its players in advertisements, preferring to use its
golfers, including major champions like Darren Clarke and Danny Willett, for
client events it hosts around the world.
“We get our ambassadors on site when they’re already playing a tournament
somewhere and bring in usually 72 people from 15 or 20 different countries,”
Bennahmias said. “We play for one day, but it’s a three-day event where clients
get to interact with them.”
But sponsoring players is not only the realm of global companies. Sponsorship
deals often start out as marriages of convenience: A company wants to sponsor
someone for the branding opportunity and the corporate golf, and golf agents
have a list of players at all different price points.
Justin Marcus, chief operating officer at
Princeton Information, a family-owned information
technology company, pushed the company to
sponsor a player a decade ago. “A buddy brought
a golf agent to play golf with me at Bayonne [Golf
Club],” he recalled. “We hit it off. It was around 2008
and he said, ‘There are some good deals going on,
and these guys are flexible.’”
After looking at an array of players, ranging from
Nationwiders to Jim Furyk, Marcus said the company
picked John Senden, the hard-hitting Australian.
“I could have gotten a guy no one had ever heard
of for $5,000,” Marcus said. The company paid about
$60,000 to sponsor Senden and get its logo on his
right breast pocket. Marcus said the decade-long
relationship—in which Senden would come to several client events to play
and talk—has been great: “He does a little homework on the guys he’s playing
with,” he said. “He’s been awesome.”
Its sponsorship, which ended when the company was recently sold, also
helped bring employees together, which Marcus said he hadn’t expected.
For brand-sensitive businesses, there can be conflict. Think of the Tiger
Woods commercials for TaylorMade, where Woods is in Nike gear. Or Rose
doing Morgan Stanley commercials with his MasterCard logo in the shot.
Burton recalled a time when Creamer was doing a photo shoot for then-sponsor
Citizen Watches, which asked that she not wear her golf apparel with its Adidas
and CDW logos.
“Contractually we couldn’t do that,” he said. “If you’re sponsored by Adidas
you can’t be wearing a shirt that says ‘Citizen Watch’ just because they want
their athlete to wear their shirt.”
It works both ways, though. Sometimes companies will grab any piece of
real estate on a pro to get their logo in someone else’s ad.
Crawley said Morgan Stanley has been pleased with its sponsorship of Rose.
While it’s hard to quantify the return on a hat, he said internally it’s been a huge
step up from their previous placement on Rose: the back of his shirt.
“Everyone was on me because you couldn’t see it unless you got the perfect
shot,” Crawley said. “You don’t get better, more visible real estate than the front
of the hat. We figured if we’re going to do it we’re going to do it the right way.”“
While the
relationship
between
golf and
money—like
first tee shots
and mulli-
gans—can be
complicated,
it’s more
positive
than not.”
This month in
1953: While shag-
ging range balls
for Ben Hogan,
12-year-old Bucky
Jones is forced to
take four full steps
to his left to reel
in a stinger off the
Hawk’s 5-iron. A
disgusted Hogan
later apologizes
to the boy, saying
“That one got
away from me.”
This month in
1978: Strange that
the entire gallery
following Seve
Ballesteros during
a season-ending
exhibition at Royal
Birkdale consistedmostly of extras
from the cast of
Animal House.
This month
in 1984: Craig
Stadler is dis-
qualified from the
World Series of
Golf after missing
his Friday tee time
due to a guest
appearance at
the Akron Zoo’s
walrus habitat.
This month:
After a career-
best 66, I decide I
should’ve started
angrily walking off
the course after
12 holes years
ago. —Ricky Cobb