Where Have All the Golf Equipment Websites Gone?

I was recently looking at my old web bookmarks from a few years ago and noticed that when I clicked on the links to websites like Warrior Golf, Ranger Golf and golfclubs.net, they no longer worked. Many of these sites used to be selling non-branded golf components and clones. In past years, the web was ripe with hundreds of websites selling custom-built golf clubs.

Regardless of your preference for brand-name equipment or golf components, in the food chain of golf equipment retail sales, you’ve got the big dogs like Golfsmith, Golf Galaxy and The Golf Warehouse at the top. You’ve got the Nevada Bob’s, Austad’s, Golf USA and other smaller golf chains in the middle. Under them you’ve golf component sellers like Pine Meadow, Hireko, Diamond Tour and others selling their own equipment. At the bottom are the lampreys of golf; the sellers that have their orders drop-shipped from the aforementioned retailers and don’t manufacture anything.

My point here is that as the big brand names struggle for sales, the websites at the bottom of the food chain are disappearing in droves. What it tells me is that there is not enough business to go around for anyone. No one is making money and a clear sign of a health market, lots of competitors, is disappearing.

The economic realities are obvious in today’s market, but like a health food chain in nature, a healthy golf market can’t function without a lot of smaller retailers, websites and manufacturers. Each retailer caters to a different customer and if the smaller retailers can’t survive because no one is buying, that shrinks the market for everyone and its effects reverberate up the chain.

With the troubles at MacGregor Golf and the recent layoffs announced at Callaway and Taylor Made, it is only a matter of time when one of the big brands will decide to throw in the towel. Based on today’s economic realities, we’re in a state of denial if we think that all the major brands will still be in business come 2010.