Crane’s Detroit Business has an analysis of the kind of economic impact that the 2008 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills might generate for Michigan’s Economy:

The 2008 PGA Championship will have a major economic impact when it visits the south course at Oakland Hills Country Club Aug. 4-10, but just how much is up for debate. Hotels and restaurants surrounding the Bloomfield Township course figure to benefit most, but entertainment venues throughout metro Detroit, from golf courses to casinos, should also see a boost.

PGA Championship Tournament Director Ryan Cannon estimated the impact at between $40 million and $60 million. The last official study done indicated the 2004 championship generated $76 million for Wisconsin, shattering the tournament’s previous record by more than $25 million, according to a press release from Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.

The Chicago Sun Times Media Critic says that as good as he is as a golfer, Tiger isn’t very good as a pitch man.

OK. So Tiger Woods is a pretty amazing golfer. But truth be told, he’s not the most compelling of performers when he’s put in front of a camera and asked to pitch a product to skeptical consumers. All right, maybe he’s a bit more compelling to his ardent fans. But to the general public—not so much.

Which is probably why Element 79/Chicago, which is still clinging to the Gatorade account, decided to cast Woods as an astronaut golfer and put him on the moon in a new spot called “Moon Shot” to promote Gatorade Tiger, a line extension that is apparently basic Gatorade with more electrolytes. Thankfully, Woods isn’t asked to say a single word in this new commercial.

I agree. Most of Tiger’s ads have been—how can I say this nicely?—less than convincing. I don’t believe for a minute that he drives a Buick. The new razor ads are ridiculous. And the less said about the moon suit ads, the better.

Still, for the enormous sums the companies are paying Tiger, they must have figured out that they’re getting a good return on their dollar. Gatorade is paying him $100 million for the right to produce Tigerade. They must figure that there are millions of golfers out there who can’t wait to consume a drink based on a chemical analysis of Tiger’s sweat.

I’ll stick to water.

There’s been a lot of speculation these past few weeks about the Tiger Woods in a spacesuit photos that have been surfacing. It turns out that they’re from the upcoming Gatorade advertising campaign. If you’ll recall, Tiger signed a $100 million deal to endorse Gatorade and develop his own Tigerade product.

You can see a clip of the ad below. I don’t have high hopes for the campaign. He looks incredibly silly in that suit.

It’s sort of a dream of mine to play golf on a course that has a well-run caddie program. Or actually, on a course that has any sort of caddies at all. Every course I’ve played eschews caddies in favor of golf carts. And from a financial standpoint, I don’t blame them. When you take on caddies as employees, you assume a massive obligation, including payroll taxes, workman’s compensation, and other liabilities.

Golf carts, on the other hand, are simply a revenue stream.

But I recently ran across a company called CaddieMaster that may help to alleviate some of that burden. CaddieMaster basically allows a course to “outsource” its caddie program. Caddiemaster handles recruitment, training, and management of caddies and caddie masters. It’s sort of like a caddie Administaff (a company which offers off-site human resources management for small busineses, and which Arnold Palmer endorses).

I love the idea, and hope that it brings caddies back to many, many courses. If there was a public course in my area that offered a good caddie program, I’d go out of my way to play.

Brandweek has an intriguing article on the new TaylorMade-Adidas television and print ad campaigns:

It’s all about performance. That is the driving message behind TaylorMade-adidas Golf’s multifaceted $35 million-plus ad push teeing off this month. The largest spend in company history, ads tout the performance aspect of new products from all golf product divisions: clubs, balls, footwear and apparel.

The article tells you a lot about the new spots, what TaylorMade-Adidas is pushing and the sort of image that the company wants to project.