Golf Equipment Retail Theft Becoming A Problem

[AzRoger]

Looks like the increase in popularity of golf and the rise in equipment prices is fueling a big increase in retail theft. Used to be when buying equipment off of eBay the concern was that it may be counterfeit, can now add that maybe the stuff is stolen. Seems like the easy snatch and grab items like Drivers and ProV1's are some of the more popular theft items. Wouldn't surprise me to start seeing just a few demo clubs on display and the new stuff locked up.

How a surge of smash-and-grab robberies is upending golf retail (msn.com)

[MattM97]

At my local golf chain they now have all the irons individually zip tied to the rack, most woods are locked so you now need to ask for assistance to just pick one up to put at address. Funny enough TaylorMade and Cobra are not locked due to their display setup. 

 

Sometimes certain putters are placed high up where you need a ladder to grab them, again need to ask for assistance. 

 

ProV1 balls are just empty boxes across all stores I've been to, in others it's all premium are just display boxes. 

 

Can't think what else is locked up or display only. 

[Frank Newport]

This article is absurd. Did you seriously make it past this ridiculous paragraph?

 

 

Mata could easily pass for law enforcement. Head shaved, stocky strong from his daily 4 a.m. workouts, his eyes reflect the intensity of someone in battle. He has been in the trenches fighting this issue for a quarter century but hasn’t seen anything like the current environment. In 2022, leading golf retailers (Golf Galaxy/Dick’s Sporting Goods, PGA Tour Superstore and Worldwide Golf Shops) reported 900 crime events. The value of club thefts industry-wide was roughly $6 million in 2022 or five times more than what it was in 2019.

 

They interviewed some dude who thinks he's in the CIA and loves to tell stories. He's just some rent-a-cop who still lives with his parents. The total amount stolen was $6 million dollars in all of 2022. Do you really believe that golf clubs are being fenced by drug cartels and the mafia? Even they have standards. They're being stolen by teenage employees and being sold on Ebay and Craigslist. Wake up!

[bobfoster]

1 hour ago, Frank Newport said:

This article is absurd. Did you seriously make it past this ridiculous paragraph?

 

 

Mata could easily pass for law enforcement. Head shaved, stocky strong from his daily 4 a.m. workouts, his eyes reflect the intensity of someone in battle. He has been in the trenches fighting this issue for a quarter century but hasn’t seen anything like the current environment. In 2022, leading golf retailers (Golf Galaxy/Dick’s Sporting Goods, PGA Tour Superstore and Worldwide Golf Shops) reported 900 crime events. The value of club thefts industry-wide was roughly $6 million in 2022 or five times more than what it was in 2019.

 

They interviewed some dude who thinks he's in the CIA and loves to tell stories. He's just some rent-a-cop who still lives with his parents. The total amount stolen was $6 million dollars in all of 2022. Do you really believe that golf clubs are being fenced by drug cartels and the mafia? Even they have standards. They're being stolen by teenage employees and being sold on Ebay and Craigslist. Wake up!

Seriously. That's the first thought that occurred to me. Talk about a selective use of stats.

 

"The value of club thefts industry-wide was roughly $6 million in 2022 or five times more than what it was in 2019."

 

Oh no! 5x more?!!! The sky is falling!!!! Unless you put it in context - total sales of golf equipment in 2022 was around $4.5 billion (and that is just US sales). Acushnet (that makes ProV1s) global sales of golf balls alone (forget Titleist clubs or FootJoy shoes & etc., just golf balls), was around $680MM last year. The theft of $6MM is such a miniscule fraction of that as to be nearly meaningless. I mean, good grief, the $ amount of toothpaste stolen from CVS and Target last year is probably more than the total theft in the entire US golf equipment industry.

 

Most hilarious bit? Those darn Mexican drug cartels. So - its getting harder to move their meth and fentanyl across the border (a highly question premise BTW - as all the stats say the amounts are increasing to the point that it's a serious crisis). What happens? Well naturally, a group of high level cartel bosses have a midnight brainstorming session in a hidden location in Sonora, and decide that the best alternative to re-direct their resources to in order to make up for supply chain disruptions in the drug trade is - detachable Callaway driver heads 😂. Had to check the top banner to make sure I wasn't reading The Onion. 

 

[Yes - I know the article didn't say that, only said that some involved with the cartels are also involved in retail theft rings - but if the author can take liberties with the facts and how he frames them, so can I ... heehee.] 

 

Don't know why this article was even written, but it took a lot of effort to make a little bit of something out of that much nothing. 

Edited June 27, 2023 by bobfoster