PGA Tour store expands even as others collapse
Interactive element has retail venture in the swing
U. S. Army veteran Matthew Hutcheson almost never goes to shopping malls and rarely likes to drive to stores for anything.
Like millions of consumers these days, Hutcheson prefers the convenience of online shopping and home delivery.
There still is one store he wants to visit regularly, and he’s willing to drive 40 minutes to get there — PGA Tour Superstore, a golf equipment and apparel chain that has become an outlier of sorts in the retail industry.
While thousands of retail stores have closed in recent years, PGA Tour Superstore has expanded and taken over buildings that were deserted by bankrupt chains Sports Authority and Golfsmith.
“You can try it all there,” said Hutcheson, 42, who likes to visit the PGA Tour Superstore in Kennesaw, Ga.
This experience — trying and fitting the equipment before buying it— is particularly important to golfers. It’s one of the big differences between this retail chain and other brick- andmortar outlets that have struggled to stay afloat. As shoppers migrated online for the sake of cost and easy access, more than 7,000 major U. S. stores closed in 2017, which is the most since at least 1999, according to Core sight Research and Credit Suisse estimates.
The retail store graveyard has gotten particularly crowded with sporting goods chains. Sports Authority, Golfsmith, Sports Chalet, MC Sports, Eastern Outfitters and Gander Mountain all have fallen into bankruptcy in the last three years. Academy Sports + Outdoors also announced more than 200 layoffs since last year, citing a need for strategic realignment “like many brick- and- mortar retailers.”
Meanwhile, PGA Tour Superstore is moving in the other direction. Since 2011, the chain has more than tripled in locations, from nine to 32. It plans to open about five more this year alone and hopes to increase to 50 locations by the end of 2020.
The chain’s CEO, Dick Sullivan, said he has been scouting several old Toys R Us and Babies R Us locations that are up for auction after Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy last year.
“There are hundreds of them out there that are available and the perfect size for us, usually around 37,000 square feet,” Sullivan said.
PGA Tour Superstore is part of The Blank Family of Businesses under Arthur Blank, the co- founder of Home Depot and the owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons. The Superstore borrows successful strategies from that giant hardware chain — an assortment of products, expert service — and adds an interactive element that can’t be replicated when buying golf products online.
This is what helps get customers off the Internet and into the doors of an actual store: indoor virtual driving ranges that cost $ 10 to $ 15 for 30 minutes, indoor putting greens and even indoor golf lessons that cost $ 69.99.
The Superstore reported more than 100,000 custom club fittings last year and said nearly 50,000 participated in lessons, clinics and other initiatives to grow the sport.
“That’s a big draw for us,” said Rebecca Fecteau, a customer who also frequents the store in Kennesaw. “You can hit, but then while you’re there, you say, ` Oh, Iwant to look at clubs’ or ` Why don’t I trade in my clubs because these new ones came out?’ ”
“Now I have a 3- year- old who loves to golf. And when you’re trying to find ways to entertain him that don’t include TV, it’s ‘ Let’s go to the Superstore.’ ”
Such in- store engagement is what differentiates this chain from other struggling retailers, said Bruce Clark, associate professor at the D’AmoreMcKim School of Business at Northeastern University.
He said the PGA Tour brand also boosts the store’s appeal. And the store does the same for the Tour. The PGA Tour is a minority owner of the chain. About 7.5 million customers visited the Superstore in the last year, Sullivan said, exceeding the attendance at Tour events.
Yet there are still risks with expansion.
“While the future looks bright for the Superstore, this will also be an easy retail concept to over- expand,” Clark told USA TODAY Sports. “There are probably only so many locations that can support a large, golf- themepark kind of store.”