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The golf industry is known for good manners and collegial relations, but you’ll still hear pointed criticism when a person or product seems deserving of it. In the case of Club Champion, the 12-year-old equipment fitter and retailer, hunting around for a knock or a bad word seems to lead nowhere. The Willowbrook, Illinois, company founded by Nick Sherburne will elicit quibbles about being “a little pricey.” Otherwise it’s on the receiving end of widespread admiration.
“Club Champion is established globally, we’ve got a record of success and we’re growing aggressively, but we’ll always take a cautious and methodical approach,” company CEO and president Adam Levy said. “We’ve made acquisitions in the U.K., Australia and Canada as part of our growth plan, and those acquired companies could have as much to teach us as we have to teach them.”
When Club Champion expands domestically, the company insists on scouting upscale neighborhoods and retail complexes where its oak-lined shaft cases and posh decor will fit right in. Then comes the hiring and orientation process, which sends new recruits to Club Champion University, a unique facility at Chicago headquarters where they’ll be housed, fed and trained for a full 30 days before heading into the field.
“We’re a specialty-luxury-experiential retailer, to put it all in one label. We don’t do anything else besides fit and build premium clubs, with a system that allows for 35,000-plus equipment combinations a customer could try. Studios are equipped with advanced analysis technology, and we do everything possible to make the customer’s experience unforgettable.” – Adam Levy
Levy developed his skills in retail growth management at Tommy Hilfiger, Refac Optical Group and Tumi, the high-end luggage and accessories company. In 2021 he succeeded Joe Lee, who became board chairman, a management change that occurred under the company’s new owners, the Los Angeles private equity group LLCP.
The mid-2020s, in Levy’s estimation, will see the company enlarge its footprint quite dramatically. “We’re at 93 stores in the U.S. now, and by year’s end we’ll be right around 110,” Levy said. “The runway in front of this company is very long. Right now we’re in the second or third inning of our growth game.”
In hindsight it makes sense that a dominant player such as Club Champion would establish a fit-and-build niche at the premium end of the golf gear ecosystem. If you’ll recall, the first wheeled fitting carts from club companies such as Henry-Griffitts, Slazenger and Titleist floated a novel idea about off-the-rack clubs: They were very likely contorting your swing motion into a series of compensations for a poor fit. Eventually that concept took hold, causing weekend golfers to stop insisting “it’s the Indian, not the arrow,” as they had reflexively stated for so long.
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As a result, buying pro-line golf clubs without being fit went from standard behavior to its present status – an unwise move nobody in your Saturday foursome would make. All those look-chat-waggle-and-buy transactions went away, touching off a major market opportunity. Evidence of the attitude shift comes from a recent survey by Proponent Group that shows how skepticism about customization has eroded. Asked about the less-skilled golfer’s notion that custom-fit clubs benefit only the better player, 26 percent of surveyed clubfitters said “average golfers seldom voice that opinion to me,” while 67 percent said “average golfers still voice that opinion, but they’re easily shown that it’s incorrect.”
High-tech launch monitors, simulators, ground force plates and the like have enabled premium golf equipment sales to move off-course. Country clubs and higher-end public courses do plenty of outdoor clubfitting that gives a visual on the full flight of the ball, but the indoor version of modern clubfitting is viewed as either equal or preferable to fitting on the open range.
Essentially, any successful golf equipment retailer today is inheriting portions of the old off-the-rack dollar volume. Club Champion is the market’s top-shelf player, with a product, a process and a selling environment that makes it both a problem-solver and a feel-good experience. A typical purchaser of a $3,500-to-$5,000-plus set – the “full-bag fit” in company parlance – gets going on his or her first store visit, spending an average of two hours with the fitter.
“We’re a specialty-luxury-experiential retailer, to put it all in one label,” Levy said. “We don’t do anything else besides fit and build premium clubs, with a system that allows for 35,000-plus equipment combinations a customer could try. Studios are equipped with advanced analysis technology, and we do everything possible to make the customer’s experience unforgettable.”
The building part is not to be passed over lightly. Sherburne, seemingly descended from pipe-smoking Scottish cleek-makers, burnished his reputation in clubfitting and game-improvement to the point where top execs at the major manufacturers sought his opinion regularly.
“We’re incredibly proud of our build capabilities, and it speaks volumes that we’re able to have a component account with all these OEMs,” director of marketing Cassandra Bausch said. “They trust us to not only fit their products and educate golfers on their designs, but also to build out the clubs – trust that comes in great part from the relationships Nick Sherburne has built with OEMs over the years.”
Not surprisingly, golf nuts from the world of sports and entertainment have been outfitted by Club Champion and sing the brand’s praises. They include quarterbacks Boomer Esiason and Mitch Trubisky, kicker Robbie Gould, film star Samuel L. Jackson and the NFL’s three Watt brothers – J.J. of the Arizona Cardinals and his two younger brothers, Derek and T.J., who both play for Pittsburgh.
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The company even makes hay in the corporate-event arena, a one-time mainstay for resorts and golf academies that faded after 2007. It turns out that the fitting studios of Club Champion are where corporate spending on golf is hiding in plain sight.
“We have group events all the time, and we work with corporate partners to provide an awesome event experience, with custom clubs as a souvenir gift for their guests,” Bausch said. “It’s a really interesting and effective way to engage customers and employees.”
Top-quality golf clubs are expensive in general, and at Club Champion the proposition is that you’ll pay a little more and get a lot more in value. But as Bausch is quick to point out, the clientele is demographically diverse. “Club Champion fits all golfers,” she said. “Every skill level, every budget. Every age, gender, what have you – any golfer who wants to shoot lower scores.”
She’s implying that the business model fails to address people who don’t want lower scores. That being the case, it’s a fine strategy all the same.