While the game of golf is played by a relatively small segment of our society, it is nonetheless a multi-billion dollar business with multiple streams of revenue. When you go to your local golf course, you normally pay a green fee to use the course that day. You might also decide to rent a motorized cart to get around the premises. Normally you find yourself in a relatively well stocked pro shop where you can purchase all sorts of golf attire running from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, with items such as caps, shirts, pants and shorts, socks, and even replacement golf cleats. You can purchase golf balls and tees, practice ball retrievers, yardage books, and golf umbrellas.
If you were to take a golfing field trip and go to the 36 hole golf facility at Haggin Oaks in Sacramento, you would be treated to a pair of well designed municipal courses with the older of the two courses laid out by Alister Mackenzie (Augusta National, Cypress Point, Pasatiempo), one of the godfathers of American golf course architecture. Haggin Oaks has close to 100 stations on its practice range with all sorts of information regarding how far you hit the golf ball, its spin rate, the elevation of the shot, and on and on. The main pro shop has golf clubs galore, lots of clothing options, and other items necessary for the avid golfer. The secondary pro shop is filled to the brink with golf shoes. The staff at Haggin Oaks can fit you with a new set of golf clubs based on your height, swing speed, and ability level.
Major manufacturers are active in the golf business. When I was a kid who was first starting to play golf in the 1960s, the major equipment producers were Wilson, Spaulding, Dunlop, and MacGregor. That market has expanded rapidly to include companies such as Taylor Made, PING, Callaway, Mizuno, and Cobra. Titleist has always dominated the golf ball market and is now very active in the world of golf equipment. Yes, there are a lot of corporations out there making big money at the game, from the courses you play to the clothing you wear, and to the equipment you use.
Most golfers have metal woods (an oxymoron) in their bag of clubs and the vast majority of those linksters cover their metal woods with head covers to prevent denting and clacking. Head covers come in all forms with some promoting the type of club while others are simplistic knit affairs with the number of the club on them. Because I like the look and because I am old-school, my two woods have head covers with pom-poms on them, an item that was popular in the 1960s when Jack Nicklaus carried them in his bag. One of the more intriguing head cover styles one can purchase is called Daphne Head Covers. Daphne Head Covers are unique in that they are almost toy-like replications of leprechauns, lions, elephants, cartoon characters such as Superman and Thor, and all kinds of others. My daughter Liz, a dog lover, has head covers of a dalmatian, a black lab, and a beagle. The story behind this multi-million dollar aspect of the golf industry is not only interesting, but it also points to how the pros can help promote the game and its businesses just by playing on national television.
Way back in 1973, Jane Spicer was a teen-ager living in Phoenix. She had just gotten her driver’s license and she had her heart set on buying her first car, specifically a red Volkswagen. She had a creative side to her and she decided to make puppets and sell them so that she could make her car purchase. However the puppet business wasn’t as lucrative as she had hoped for. The very people who play with puppets, little kids, didn’t necessarily reach into their pockets to purchase a puppet. That’s basically because little people don’t carry around a wallet filled with money and with credit cards. It’s the parents of that six year old who buy the puppets. As a consequence, Jane had lots of inventory but limited sales.
A friend of Spicer’s mother was an avid golfer and made a suggestion to Jane. Perhaps she could go from making puppets and instead design golf head covers that entailed the puppet design. Jane thought that might be a good idea and she came up with new and varied designs. She started making her brand of head covers and was able to get the golf pro shop at the Arizona Biltmore Golf Club to stock them. Word of mouth and popular appeal allowed Jane to expand her business and have her product featured at golf shops in Arizona and Southern California. The new style head covers were popular with junior golfers and with women and suddenly Jane Spicer realized she was on to something. She had founded a niche business and was successful on a small scale in her small corner of the world.
Then it all changed in a way Spicer couldn’t imagine. In 1997 a young golf professional from Southern California burst upon the golf scene and won the Masters in most dramatic fashion, overwhelming the rest of the field by an amazing 12 strokes. The golfer was Tiger Woods and his Titleist driver had one of Jane’s head covers on it. It was a tiger. From the moment the Masters ended until December 31st of 1997, Spicer received orders for 30,000 tiger head covers from all sorts of customers and companies. The business quarter after the Masters saw her small company increase its revenues by 400%. My son Nick was one of those 30,000 customers who bought a Tiger head cover that summer, most notably on one of our trips to Haggin Oaks.
In the year 2023, Daphne Head Covers is a multi-national business. Different locales have differing interests in her brand. For instance, Spicer’s company sells a great number of giraffe head covers to golf shops in Africa. A Daphne Head Cover carries a lifetime guarantee and you can buy one for your driver, your fairway wood, or your hybrid. Currently there are more than 200 different types of head covers in the Daphne catalogue and Spicer is well over the million mark when it comes to selling animal themed head covers. Nowadays Spicer is a remarkably successful business woman who donates big money to animal rescue programs. Her company is also very active when it comes to donating her brand of head covers to charity golf tournaments.
Jane Spicer has turned her niche business into a highly successful corporation that is recognized world-wide. As for those of you who might wonder about her quest for that red Volkswagen, I can only tell you this. Nowadays she drives a Porsche.
