PGA Tour Superstore
Golf retailer has been adding store locations
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 brick-and-mortar 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 bank-
rupt 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-and-mortar 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 announced more than 200 layoffs since last year, citing a need for strategic realignment “like many brick-and-mortar retailers.”
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 five more this year and hopes to increase to 50 locations by the end of
2020.
The chain’s CEO, Dick Sullivan, told USA TODAY he’s scouted several oldToys 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 the giant hardware chain — a big assortment of products, expert customer 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 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 for a single adult.
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.
“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.’ ”
“That’s a big draw for us,” said Rebecca Fecteau, a customer who frequents the store in Kennesaw. “You can hit, but then while you’re there, you say, ‘Oh, I want to look at clubs’ or ‘Why don’t I trade in my clubs because these new ones came out?’ ” Fecteau otherwise often shops online.
“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,’ ” she said.
In-store engagement differentiates this chain from struggling retailers, said Bruce Clark, associate professor at the D’Amore-McKim 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 past year, Sullivan said, exceeding the attendance at tour events.
There are still risks attached to expansion, especially in brick-and-mortar retail.
“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.”
Rebecca Fecteau