Golf’s popularity has increased in recent years and during the pandemic, with new golfers and the spread of non-traditional ways of playing such as TopGolf helping to start to unravel the sport’s reputation.
Grammy Award-winning rapper Macklemore, best known for his hit song “Thrift Shop,” recently fell in love with golf but found that the clothing marketed to golfers didn’t appeal to him.
“On vacation, I got dragged to the golf course and I didn’t want to go; I definitely hit a couple of houses,” Macklemore told CNBC’s Dominic Chu at the virtual CNBC Small Business Playbook summit on Wednesday. “Finally, I pulled a five-iron out of a fairway bunker and was enthralled. Like, what was that feeling? I need it again.”
Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, said he went to a sporting goods store soon after but realized that “the profits in terms of golf fashion were very slim, and that’s being generous.”
“Golf clothing has a white male archetype in mind,” he said. “Golf is much bigger than that.”
Golf struggled to shed that perception, even during Tiger Woods’ rise to become one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.
But there’s hope that the influx of new players will help change that archetype. An estimated 3.2 million people played a golf course for the first time in 2021, 33% more than in 2019 and far exceeding the number of people who flocked to the game after Woods’ early successes in 1999 and 2000, according to The National Golf Foundation. More rounds were played last year than ever before in history, according to NGF.
While some of that momentum has slowed — rounds played in 2022 are down about 6% compared to last year — that influx of newer, younger players has helped energize the game, Macklemore said.
“There’s a whole generation of young people who got into golf in the last one or three years who don’t want to look like they’re selling real estate, and I think that’s great,” he said.
A fan of golf fashion from the 1970s and 1980s even before he became a golfer, the desire to fill the need for clothing for golfers like himself led Macklemore to start the Bogey Boys clothing brand.
The brand, which features items like cheetah-print knit vests, striped sweaters and colorful polo shirts, is designed to appeal to golfers and couture lovers alike, Macklemore said, something many of the typical brands in the golf clothing space. not consider.
“I think for a lot of other brands, it depends on people playing golf, or else you’re not going to wear these clothes,” he said. “Something that I think has happened with the pandemic and the skyrocketing of golf is that you’re seeing a pinch of golf fashion in the streetwear space; you can go to [fashion website] Hypebeast and seeing articles about golf, that’s a very new thing.”
Macklemore isn’t the first golf enthusiast artist trying to change the face of the sport. In 2011, Justin Timberlake was named creative director of golf callaway, working on the “visual representation” of the club and the clothing manufacturer. Bill Murray, famous for his role in “Caddyshack,” founded William Murray Golf in 2016. NBA star Steph Curry began creating golf apparel with under armor in 2019, leading to the launch of its golf line under its Curry Brand subsidiary.
That surge in new players and new products has been a boon for golf apparel, generally led by companies like Adidas, Nikecallaway and Acushnet-Owned by Footjoy. More than $150 million worth of golf apparel was sold in April, with 21 of the past 22 months seeing month-over-month sales increases, according to golf products industry tracker Golf Datatech.
But even if golf’s growth slows, Macklemore said the focus on fashion, as opposed to other golf-focused apparel, will continue to benefit the Bogey Boys.
“Any sport waxes and wanes, that’s fine,” he said. “The clothes will still be top notch, the quality will be great, and people will feel great and look great in the clothes.”
Source: news.google.com