JH:, You mentioned Tiger. Any regrets on letting him go?  
WU: Well, we didn’t let him go. It’s a free-enterprise market.  

JH: OK, try harder to keep him.  
WU: It was economics. Nike is a big company. Let me answer the question by giving you our perception of the changes that have taken place in the industry over the last ten years. They are profound.
Six seismic changes have taken place. Number one was the arrival of the deep-pocketed sporting goods companies. Before the arrival of Nike and Adidas, we were a big company. We’re not a big company any more. Nike is $20-25 billion. Adidas is $15 billion. That is a meaningful change on the golf industry landscape.
The arrival of the 1.62- to 1.68-inch ball change brought about the arrival of Bridgestone on an international basis. These are deep-pocketed Japanese industrialists. Bridgestone is a $30 billion company. They are here for the long-term and there is nothing we can do about that.
Then there is the cluttering of the patent landscape we have already talked about. It’s hard to explain 2,000 patents in a product category that is already adequately regulated.
Lastly, there has been regulatory suffocation over the last 10 years. The boundaries have been drawn in the sand, firmly and rigidly. Whether it is the statement of principles, or the capping of the COR, or the capping of moment of inertia, or the size of clubheads, or the length of the club, or the roll back of the overall distance standard, or the upcoming grooves changes, those are six meaningful and material events in the history of regulation. All of which changed the golf industry today.
We are a $1.5 billion company. It’s going to be challenging for us to compete with companies that have ten times that in sales. That’s the way it is. We are the Oakland Athletics playing the Yankees.
Our tactics have always been more about pluralism than populism. We are the most played. And no one player is bigger than our brand. Only when we don’t need anyone else will we be prepared to pay $15 million to one player. When that happens we’ll go the other way.  

Photo: © Courtesy of Titleist Uihlein watching the process of balls being manufactured

JH:
Have you sent a shorter ball to the USGA for them to look at?  

 
WU:
In response to the 25-yard rollback, we sent them combinations of balls and drivers that will produce the same benefit. It isn’t just the ball. We felt that both club and ball should be addressed. They understand our position. They want us to submit some additional balls and we’re working on that. It isn’t the most important thing in our queue, but we’re working on it.  

JH: Have you tried any of them?  
WU: We had some players hit them.  

JH: Did you?  
WU: I have.  

JH: What’s your handicap?  
WU: Five.  

JH: What difference did it make to you?  
WU: The ball curved more. So if you are not playing that well, the impact of off-center hits is more marked.  

JH:
Did it ask more of you as a player?  

 
WU:
That’s a leading question.  

JH: Of course it is, that’s my job!  
WU: It was different. The ball felt different. It was no different from being in a fast car, then going to a slow one. When you step on the pedal, you notice the difference.  

JH: So it made a difference at your level?  
WU: Yes. But whether it was a performance difference or an aesthetic difference, there was a difference.  

JH: And at the top level?  
WU: We haven’t tested it with them. Until they use it under the gun, they’re not going to be able to test it properly.  

JH:
I watched Geoff Ogilvy using an old Toney Penna 3-wood at Kingston Heath last year. He hit it beautifully and I asked him if he would consider using it in a tournament. His reaction was, “Wally may not like that.”   

 
WU:
No one likes to be singled out as the whipping post.  

JH: He only used your name because he is contracted to Cobra.  
WU: But I’m the whipping post of technology. But I only adopt that role because the equipment can’t speak for itself.  

JH: You have had more grief than anyone else.  
WU: It’s not a position I covet. But, at the same time, I inherited it because we are the technological leader. And we have also made cogent and rational arguments in response to certain positions or allegations, whatever you want to call them.  

JH: Would you make a wooden 3-wood for Geoff Ogilvy and let him use it in a tournament?  
WU: We’ve always taken the position, with all of our players, that anything that helps them put the ball in the hole in the least amount of shots, we will provide.  

JH:
So if he came to you and wanted a 3-wood, you would make him one?   

 
WU:
We would. But we would caution him by saying that there is no telling, with today’s balls, how long such a club would last.  

JH: Time isn’t an issue though. You could always make him another one.  
WU: A persimmon 3-wood? (laughs) I’ll call you to grow the trees.  

JH: But you wouldn’t stand in his way.  
WU: If he came in and explained that a particular course required him to shape the ball more or that he needed a softer, higher flight on his fairway wood shots, that is certainly a discussion we could have. But I’d want to know what the endgame was.  

JH: He’d have more fun.  
WU: I’m not suggesting he wouldn’t. But he is part of a very select community.  

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Image Uihlein embracing his son Peter after he won his Walker Cup match at Merion last month.

JH:
Another leading question: who does the best job of running golf—the R&A, the USGA, the PGA of America, or the PGA Tour? Or are you running golf? I’ve accused you of that before.  

 
WU:
I know you have. And when you do that, you hit on a key issue. There is no global czar. Unfortunately, golf is lacking that. Which is good and bad. The good part is that we have a number of parties who should be working together to protect the game. You’ll notice I said “protect” rather than “grow” or whatever.
I don’t think the manufacturers are running the game. I do think the professional game has become golf’s chamber of commerce. We have to be careful not to confuse the professional game—which is entertainment—with the game that we all play.
There is a big gap between the amateur and professional games. But the latter is an entertainment. Which is why we pitch our advertising the way we do. We don’t have players saying, “I play this, you should too.” We’re not saying you should use our equipment just because the professionals do. But we want you to take note of the fact that so many do.
Now, that may make us a little anachronistic. But we take the view that their using Titleist is a pretty good endorsement of the quality of our products. Professionals don’t use stuff that isn’t going to make them play better.
Marketing approaches can go into one of two buckets: the “how many” or the “who?” Most companies employ a “who” strategy. We go the other way. They are different messages. “How many” is more subliminal and sophisticated.
But you are never going to get me to agree that the manufacturers are running the industry. Not when I’ve just sat with the ruling bodies today and told them I am out $1 million in capital expenses, and $400- to 500,000 per year, because we are coming out of the most activist phase in the history of the regulatory landscape.  

JH:Are there too many people involved in running the game?  
WU: The interests are too disparate. While everyone may claim they are rallying around the same axis, I don’t think that is the case. Those in the professional game are in the entertainment business. That is altogether different from those of us who rely upon the number of golfers and number of courses and number of rounds played and how much discretionary income is being spent on the enjoyment of the game.
I can sit here and tell you how many golfers there are around the world, how many courses there are, and how many rounds are being played. By country. By facility. But I’m not sure some of the other bodies can.
Another sidebar: five, ten years out, we have to decide in advance how much money we want to invest in plants. We’re not dealing just with tomorrow. So it is important for us to understand why the U.S. had a participation level of 10 percent. And what that rate is in places like Sweden and Germany.
Four things drive those rates and determine their levels. One, you have to have a middle class, broadly defined. Two, the presence of a teaching structure. Three, available places for play and practice. And four, the presence of a professional game that titillates the population and makes the game exciting to watch and inviting to play.
We have studied countries to see how deeply rooted those variables are. And we have tried to share that with other bodies. But they look at us as if we are speaking Greek or Latin.  

JH: What do you think your next job will be?  
WU: Hopefully retirement. My next job will be spending time with my family, even if they have no desire to spend time with me. So, no next job.  

JH:Your son [Peter] is a good player [a member of the U.S. Walker Cup team], what has been your approach to guiding him?  
WU: Hands off. My father-in-law was a club professional in the Baltimore-Washington area. My wife was an accomplished player. So Peter was swinging a club at a young age. He played locally and regionally. He played with Rory McIlroy in the under-10 group at Doral, his first national tournament.
At age 13, he went to the IMG Academy in Florida. My wife moved down with him. My elder son, who is two years older, stayed with me. So I’ve been hands off with Peter since then.
Peter Kostis and I are best friends. His kids are the same age as mine. We discovered long ago that none of them listened to us. So I used to talk to his kids while he talked to mine. So, from an early age, Peter’s golf guidance has come from other parties. But I’ve handed him off to good people.
I’m happy to say that, whatever Peter has accomplished in golf, he has done by himself. He calls me with equipment questions. I watch him on weekends when I get the chance. So it has all been a lot more hands-off than people imagine. And, for me, quite a difficult thing.  

JH:
Did your cancer change you as a person?   

 
WU:
It’s true when you are first told that you are looking down a gun barrel at your own mortality that your life flashes before you. I was 55 when I was diagnosed, and all those years flashed in front of me.
I’m a big believer in preventative intervention. We think we have one of the more progressive corporate wellness programs in America. Our goal is to get 100 percent of 4,500 associates having an annual physical. Keeping healthcare costs down is all about preventative intervention. I was thrilled that in the 12 months after I told everyone I had prostate cancer, our number of PSA screens went up by a huge percentage.  

JH: Confronting your own mortality is never easy, though.  
WU: It’s like watching your name being taken off the leaderboard. My goal in life is to look up at the end and think I did something to improve the situation. But, while my illness was revealing, I don’t think I have changed.  

JH: How much should Titleist care about what is good for the game?  
WU: We do care.  

JH: That isn’t in question
but how much? 
WU: It’s not that we pick our fights, but we need to be benevolent when appropriate. For example, we looked after Moe Norman at a time in his life when he needed help. I was at the back of the teaching summit in 1995 watching Craig Shankland making a presentation. He was using Moe as an example of how to swing. Everyone was transfixed by his accuracy.
I asked Craig afterwards about Moe and discovered he was sleeping in his car. So I went back to the office and arranged to give him $5,000 a month for the rest of his life. We got no commercial benefit from that. Nor did we want any. We just did it on behalf of the industry.  

JH:
Moe was a golfing freak.  

 
WU:
We have pictures of him swinging from all angles. Until him, we had never had a guy on the launch monitor with zero sidespin. That should not be humanly possible. He was the first person to master a swing that produced perfect backspin and no sidespin. From an efficiency point of view, he was at 110 percent.
It was all about what happened in the last 18 inches before impact. He was riding the railroad track you see in instructional articles. The club reached its lowest point and rode into the ball horizontally. You can’t teach that.  

JH: Last question. Where do you think the golf equipment industry will be in five years time?  
WU: I think there will be fewer tertiary-level companies. If you are not at $100 million and don’t have some meaningful niche, you are not going to be able to afford the advertising and promotion and the R&D to just stand still. Distribution costs are going up too.  

JH: Won’t you save money now that the ball can’t go any farther?  
WU: (smiles) No. This groove change is opening up a whole new re-optimization of players. It will change the type of ball they play.
Bifurcation doesn’t work because the golf industry worldwide is not in a position administratively to enforce two sets of rules. First of all, we have to re-fit about 400 pros around the world. And what about all the club pros and amateurs who enter the U.S. Open? Are we telling them they have to buy new sets of clubs? It’s not going to happen. So we remain opposed to bifurcation. We are saying that, if changes have to be made, let’s make sure we encourage a continued connection between the professional game and the marketplace.  

JH: Will the players all go to higher-spinning balls in the wake of this change?  
WU: Take it to the bank. As I said, their first request will be that we get back half the spin they have lost with a softer ball, leaving them free to determine how much distance they are prepared to lose. It’s a balancing act.
Their next stop, of course, will be to the driver guy. They’ll be asking how much of that distance they can get back with longer shafts or whatever. Don’t worry though. This game will never be mastered, even if it beguiles us into thinking it can be. Which is where we come in.  

• Previous
• Part one of the Wally Uihlein interview

1 comment
_________________________

Click here to signup or login below.
Email:
Password:

ronald s. montesano --- Oct 25th, 2009 08:56 am

What an enlightening interview. I'm wondering if John sat down with Mr. Uihlein at the Walker Cup for it. Kudos to the reporter for not backing down when challenged; kudos to the subject for answering all questions (it seems)in an enlightened and courteous way. My guess is, both parties are closer to each other than they are farther apart.