Road Noise from Disney

Editor’s Note: GOLF CHANNEL business reporter Casey Bierer hits the practice ranges, putting greens and tour trailers of professional golf to speak with company owners, tour reps and players in this new series, Road Noise.
 
This week, Casey reports recent business and equipment news from the Children’s Miracle Network Classic presented by Wal-Mart at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
 

CLEVELAND GOLF
On October 30, Quiksilver, Inc. announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to sell 100% of the stock of its Cleveland Golf Company, Inc. subsidiary to SRI Sports Limited, based in Japan. SRI Sports Limited controls Srixon.
 
The transaction value is $132.5 million and the transaction is expected to close during the fiscal quarter ending January 31, 2008. Net proceeds from the sale will be used to repay existing indebtedness. Quiksilver originally acquired a portion of the interest in Cleveland in its July 2005 acquisition of the Rossignol Group. The remaining interest was acquired in a separate transaction in September 2007.
 
This transaction resulted from Quiksilver’s initiative, first announced in June 2007, to explore strategic alternatives to reduce its exposure to the hardgoods manufacturing businesses. Robert B. McKnight, Jr., Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Quiksilver, Inc., commented, “We are very pleased to have reached a compelling transaction with SRI Sports. While we believe that Cleveland is the best up-and-coming brand in the golf market with significant growth opportunities, it is not a strategic asset for us as we strive to maximize our core businesses and brands.”
 
Ryochi Sawada, Chairman of the Board of SRI Sports Limited, commented, “We are very excited to add the Cleveland brand and business to our operations. Cleveland has a clear position of dominance in the important wedge market and a fast-growing presence in drivers and irons. We believe that this business will prove highly complementary to our own. We are looking forward to demonstrating Cleveland’s full potential to the market and believe that the business can benefit greatly from our stewardship.”
 
Greg Hopkins, President of Cleveland Golf Company, Inc, commented, “We are excited by the many positive aspects of this deal, including the combination of a great brand in golf with a new organization that is completely and solely devoted to the sport. Significantly, their operating model is set up to anticipate and respond to the seasonality and other specific requirements of the golf market. We believe that this singular focus will benefit the entire Cleveland organization in a number of ways. Each of the three companies involved - Cleveland Golf, Quiksilver, and our new parent SRI Sports benefit in significant ways as this transaction will positively affect the futures of all three companies.”
 

NIKE GOLF, Rob Burbick, PGA TOUR Representative
We have had a fantastic year where professional golf is concerned. It wasn’t easy to top last year. Last year was a record for us in wins and so many Nike guys being successful. This year Lucas Glover was great for us…did so well in the President’s Cup. Chad Campbell and Justin Leonard back in the winner’s circle. K.J. Choi has had an incredible year. That’s huge for us. Tiger – it goes without saying – he had another amazing year. We’ve brought some exciting new equipment out here on TOUR that will be released to consumers over the course of the next few months and that is always exciting. When you see stuff tested out here by the best players in the world and then eventually that same equipment makes its way in to the hands of the golfing public, that is just great. We like to see that. And, most exciting for us as a group – the team of Nike Golf tour reps – we have just brought our brand new tour van out on the road. I think you guys are going to do a story for TV soon on that so we won’t tell your readers too much about it. But, this is our second week out on TOUR with it and it has been really enjoyable. So, each year Nike Golf just gets better and better and we are all very much looking forward to 2008.
 

UST GOLF SHAFTS, Jim McIntosh, PGA TOUR Representative
It’s been another outstanding year for UST. We’ve had nine driver wins this year. Sixteen total wins on the PGA TOUR with players using UST shafts. The V2 is still very strong as we saw in the President’s Cup and in the majors. And we’ve had some fun stories this year. Like Chad Campbell in Mississippi, for example. He’s been fighting his driver left for quite some time. He had a 65 gram shaft in there and it really wasn’t working for him. So Rob Burbick from Nike Golf and myself had an idea how we might be able to help Chad. We decided to go a little bit heavier in gram weight in the shaft. We tried the new AXIV in the 75 gram weight. As you know, Chad loads the club a little bit differently than some other players do. He tends to be a little bit quicker on the downswing. So we thought if we could create a little bit of extra lag – and the extra weight in the shaft does that – the clubface would stay open for him just that spit second longer. And low and behold, the first couple of drives he hit with it the ball went right and he had a huge smile on his face. Then a couple more drives and Chad got the feel for it and just started bombing the ball but with no fear of going left. And he ends of winning the tournament.