What Best Buy once was for gadget lovers, Golfsmith is for this city-dwelling golfer.
I am a traditional shopper, the try before you buy type. Online shopping requires patience, trial and error and discipline, especially when returning unwanted goods. Cluttered with piles of charity donations, my home contains items I do not love enough to keep but never bothered to return. In my opinion, shopping online is a skill, a talent I do not have. There aren’t enough qualifying facts to help aid the process of elimination and I do not want to interpret reviews.
I like walking into a brick and mortar store, I am bound to the selection. Either you have what I want or you don’t. Guided by three of my five senses, sight, touch, and sound (no one wants to hear a swishy jacket), being in the store simplifies the process of elimination, assuming you are not indecisive like me. A focused shopper can determine what golf club is too heavy or if that high-quality leather glove fits too snug around a wedding ring. God forbid you remove it for golf. It will cause the greatest argument ever, what did you really do for 5 hours?
Anyway, Golfsmith filing bankruptcy and closing locations is a sad moment. In a random conversation about golf, I asked retired NBA player Herb Williams what he thinks happened to the game. He shared an honest perspective, “Tiger Woods brought a lot of people to golf. More people watched tournaments and that increased the purse (prize money).” I nodded in agreement, Tiger sparked my curiosity and that encouraged me to register for a 1 credit course (see my first post).
The gentleman sitting next to me chimed in and said, “They built up courses and stores too quick and there’s not enough demand.” Perplexed I said, what if golf becomes extinct? The gentleman said frankly, “Then it has to fail.” I hope the golf industry will self correct like the stock markets because I could not imagine life without golf.
