A recent Supreme Court decision has made legal manufacturer’s minimum pricing schemes—under “reasonable circumstances.” You can see articles and analysis here and here.  The short version of this is that companies will now be able to enforce their Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). Discounts could be a thing of the past.

I am sure that golf equipment companies have been fixing prices for quite a while. A couple of years ago, I started to write a series of articles comparing the prices at various brick-and-mortar and internet retailers. I abandoned the project because I found that—for most current products—the prices were identical. It seemed that the prices had been set by the manufacturers, and I was certain that it was illegal.

It was illegal at the time, but the new ruling changes the landscape. It seems likely that this ruling means golf equipment prices (and the prices of everything else) will go up, and that discount pricing over the internet (and at other discounters) will disappear. One of the apparently “reasonable circumstances” is to protect a brand’s image. Golf manufacturers are going to jump all over that one.

Brick-and-Mortar stores are going to be big beneficiaries. Now, they will be able to compete on an equal price footing with “virtual” stores that don’t have the same expenses. They also will be able to abandon—as if they haven’t already—any pretense of offering service. Since they couldn’t offer equal prices, the only way “real” stores could compete with internet retailers was to offer better service. In the past, I’ve shopped at brick-and-mortar stores when I needed service (and when I knew service was actually available), and internet stores when I didn’t.

I say “pretense of offering service,” because it has been some years since I received any real service at a retail store. I stopped shopping at J.C. Penny for clothes, for example, when a young clerk at the checkout talking on her cell phone told me to wait until she was finished talking (in a fit of pique, I tossed the $300 in back-to-school clothes at her and walked out; I’ve never returned). I stopped shopping at Best Buy when it became evident that the idiots they hire don’t know a USB port from a Firewire. I recently abandoned Circuit City for the same reason. The only place I get anything akin to service—from knowledgeable clerks—is at Mast Shoes, an Ann Arbor retailer.

The clerks at many golf stores are no better. This past spring, I went to a big local golf store and told the clerk that I was looking for a new driver. He took me to the racks and said “Cleveland makes a good one. So does TaylorMade. Callaway is good.” No mention of fitting, no questions about the state of my game; nothing resembling service. I thanked him and went home and ordered one from GigaGolf.

Manufacturers argue that eliminating discounts will actually increase sales, because full priced stores offer demos and service that encourage people to buy.

They’re wrong on this count. Now that everyone’s prices will be the same, brick-and-mortar retailers will abandon service completely. Good service is expensive. It’s much cheaper to hire minimum wage flunkies whose only job is to check you out after you’ve done all the research and picked out the items yourself. Why would my local pro shop foot the bill for demos when it can offer the same price as everyone else.

One valid complaint of retailers that may be resolved is the tendency of consumers to do their “research” at brick-and-mortar stores and then purchase the items at discount online. A golf shop, for example, might work on fitting a club with a customer, only to have him purchase the chosen club at a discount later online. But my local pro shop already has solved that problem. They charge for demos and fitting—and the price of that is taken off the final purchase. If you decide not to buy from them, you forfeit the demo price.

Again, it’s more likely that brick-and-mortar stores will just cut back on service altogether. Their profit margin is going to be more thin than the online guys because of rent, utilities, local taxes, the cost of store fixtures and in store marketing. Cutting the now-unnecessary service expenses would be an easy place to trim.

Complete loss of service is one thing. But price is where consumers will be the big losers. According to the Wharton School’s Law and Public Policy site:

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who authored a dissent signed by three other justices, said that the ruling could mean price hikes of more than $1,000 per year for the average American family. That’s likely to be “the tip of the iceberg,” according to a statement released by Gene Kimmelman, vice president of federal and international affairs of Consumers Union, an advocacy organization. “The long-run effect [of the Leegin decision] will be to undermine innovation in the distribution and marketing of goods in America.”

Consumers have benefited from two levels of competition: manufacturers competing with other manufacturers and retailers with retailers. Now, one level of that competition may be gone. It’s going to be a problem, not only with golf products, but more critically, I think, with electronics.

I can, however, see ways that discounters can fight back.  They could, for example, offer free shipping (many already do). Since time is money, in many cases, I would still buy online to avoid the hassle of driving to a store, dealing with idiot clerks and standing in checkout lines. They also could bundle “free” items with purchases. Rather than offering $50 off the retail price of a driver, they could offer $50 in balls with purchase.

In the golf world, the ruling may also offer new opportunities to smaller manufacturers who are willing to eschew fixed prices. The big boys already have been setting prices and surely will continue. So online retailers may have an incentive to start carrying and promoting lesser known lines that they can discount.

We will, of course, have to see how this all plays out. There doubtless be dozens of cases filed before the “reasonable circumstances” are clearly defined. It may not be as bad as I fear.

But I’m pretty pessimistic.

Golf Auto Air Freshener

Ridiculous Golf Item of the Week

My partner and I were playing two different courses.

We started each hole on the same tee box, but from there, our paths diverged. The course I was playing was relatively well maintained; the one he was playing was as pockmarked as the face of the moon. My course was a decent test of golf; his was designed by a madman currently committed at Arkham Asylum.

Not surprisingly, given the state of the course, Paul was not playing well. The fairways narrowed at exactly the point where his tee shots landed. On occasion, the designer had seen fit to toss a fairway bunker right on his favored line.

Where Paul found the rough, it was unnaturally long. Even the sadists who set up the US Open had never attempted anything like he found that day. And when his ball landed on the fairway, it was nearly always in a divot.

The greens that he was playing were a nightmare. Cratered by ball marks, they made every putt bounce unnaturally. Spike marks – there seemingly were a large number of players wearing metal cleats on the plastic-only facility – directed his ball away from the hole.

I, on the other hand, was having a pretty good day. I realized that I couldn’t use my driver on every hole, so I hit a bunch of three and five woods. I saw a few divots—no more than you might expect – but none of them affected my swing. The rough was longer than the fairway, but that was just another reason to stay away from the driver. Bunkers made the course challenging. And the greens that I played were just fine; I never took more than two putts.

I had been paired with Paul by chance and the starter, and I doubt I’ll ever see him again. I’m curious, though, about his game. Was he a good player having a bad day? Is he a poor player who makes excuses to escape personal responsibility? Or does he have a natural inclination to see the worse that gets in the way of his game.

All I know is that if I had to play the course he was playing, I’d quit golf.

Dynacraft Avatar Chipper

One of the fastest ways to improve your scores is to improve your short game. Your average amateur misses a lot of greens, and then has to scramble for par or bogey.

Most players, when faced with a shot around the green automatically pull out a wedge. But while that may be the club of choice for pros, there are better options for amateurs. Chipping is one. Putt before you chip. Chip before you pitch. Pitch before you lob.

I’m generally good chipping with my irons. But like any other shot, there’s a trick to it. And you need to practice.

Another option is to get a specialty short game club—a chipper. You could leave out that lob wedge that you can’t hit most of the time ... or a long iron that you never really use (for me, that’s a five iron. For some reason, I’m never at five iron distance). You’ll use a chipper a lot more often.

The Avatar chipper has several features that make it practically foolproof. First, the unique gooseneck hosel design works to help prevent shanks—Hireko claims that is shank-proof. The non-offset design makes it easy to get the ball going straight. A wide sole prevents catching the turf.

To use it, just place the ball in the middle of your stance and take a normal putting stroke. The ball will pitch up and then start rolling.

I have a (now unavailable) version of this and when my short game is not working, often will stick it back in the bag. A chipper like this is very versatile, and you can use it from a variety of distances.

USA Today has an interesting snapshot today:

Among golf’s major, the PGA Championship has produced the most one-hit wonders—champions who have won only one major in their career.

PGA Championship - 31
US Open - 23
British Open - 21
The Masters - 14

We can speculate that the Masters has the fewest because it’s the youngest. But by that logic, the British Open should have the most. It also could have something to to do with the fact that, from its inception in 1916 through 1957, the PGA Championship was a match play event. A single bad day eliminates you from match play, while in medal play, you still have a chance to recover.

Titleist NXT Tour 2007

I’m more than a little behind on this one, but I just realized that Titleist has updated its NXT Tour ball for 2007. Titleist says that the new ball has a higher coverage 392 dimple design, and a staggered wave parting line (that, I suppose is to avoid any flight irregularities caused by a straight seam). The three-piece ball also has a new sidestamp that’s supposed to help with alignment on putting.

I was a fan of the original NXT, so I’m going to have to give these a try soon.

Stop the madness.

Apparently, a group of leftist bloggers are trying to form a union of bloggers. They think it will help them to get health care benefits; they also plan on collective bargaining and professional standards.

I’m having a really hard time wrapping my brain around this one. Collective bargaining with whom? I have a golf blog because I love to write, and I love golf. I work for no one, so there’s no one to negotiate with. (OK, so there’s Mrs. Golfblogger. But that’s not a negotiation. I just do what she tells me). I have ads, but if I don’t like Google’s terms, I’ll just go to a different ad agency. There are dozens of them out there.

Professional standards? Please. Some of these people are the ones who write on a regular basis about how Bush blew up the towers. And I regularly visit the grassy knoll with the latest PGA Tour conspiracy theory.

There’s some sense in the health care benefits thing. I suppose that if enough of them got together in a pool, Blue Cross would give them a better rate. But there are already any number of small business pools they could join. If their blogs are making money, they surely count as small businesses. GolfBlogger, for example is incorporated as an Limited Liability Corporation (but that’s more about liability issues than any potential profits).

And if they did manage to pull such a thing off, I wonder if the internet would suddenly become a closed shop. Would I have to join to blog? Would I suddenly have someone to answer to? And could I belong to more than one union at once. I’m already a member of the teacher’s union (we have a closed shop ... all teachers MUST be members.)

The whole idea is just nutty. The internet is decentralized and anarchic. Once people start imposing a structure on it, it’ll lose what makes it such a great thing in the first place.