I dont think Retail stores going under are necessarily the result of it being a dying sport. Even in the good economic times of the last 8-10 years, golf retail shops were failing, I had one, I know.



An old Titleist rep once told me something that although at the time I was pretty peaved because he wouldnt open us up a Titleist account, but overall it was true. There is a "piece of the pie" theory.



The theory went that the size of the pie is not likely to change. The number of clubs sold in a particular area is not likely going to go up or down too much because of the store, the only thing you do when you bring more stores into play is slice up that pie with smaller pieces.

Few things have happened to golf retail:

1. The Internet - both as a competitor and as a vehicle for consumer information. Now before anyone buys a club, they want to see the prices online, maybe read a review or two, go onto some DB or Blog about clubs, so on and so forth. This killed the old exlcusive clubs many independent shops that were part of a franchise had. I got started in the mid 1990's working at a Pro Golf Discount, we sold an exclusive Mizuno set called the shadow, we "keystoned" it, meaning we made over double the cost, store made money sales guys made like $40 commission for set of irons and $25 for the set of 3 woods. The total set sold for like 599 in Steel and 799 in Graphite for woods and irons. Today there is just no way for that to happen for a lot of reasons.



2. Oversaturation of the club market has driven down margins. Again mid 90's you wanted a set of irons, you had about a dozen choices now in the last 2 years you could have a dozen choices from one manufacturer hitting every price point. But the problem is, most sales are on the closeouts which are good lost leaders, etc but the margins are small AND most of your indy shops, even franchise stores that are individually owned do not get to take advantage of these opportunities.



3. The internet has killed the retailer, with such small margins anyway, they just cant compete with a store that has such low fixed costs and now the major manufacturers are giving those guys accounts, where 10 years ago if you wanted an account with a big time manufacturer, you needed a legit store, decent location, at least 3000 sqaure feet, knowledgeable staff, etc.. They wanted to talk to you and see you were gonna make it or not, now they dont care.



4. MAP pricing has hurt the consumer and the little guy too. On any current model club, all major manufacturers make you agree to a Miniumum Advertised Price, so you cant advertise their clubs below a certain level, which is pretty much where everyone else is. So even if you really do have the lowest prices in town, you cant tell anyone what the prices are.



5. Perception - I think the golf public thinks that golf retailers make a huge margin, so the perception is you get a much better deal on the net. When in reality, you can find a retailer who will be in the ballpark and you know its a legit club.