It’s generally accepted that nine out of every 10 drivers sold come from Callaway, TaylorMade, PING, Titleist and Cobra – the so-called Big Five. It’s a ratio that hasn’t moved much, if at all, this century. Sure, there have been individual clubs that have stood out for a season or two but, by and large, the status quo remains unthreatened.
The Big Five’s domination is so complete that there’s precious little room at the table for the “challenger brands.” Companies such as Wilson, Cleveland-Srixon, Mizuno, PXG and every other company that makes drivers are fighting and scrapping for just a sliver of that last 10 percent of the driver market.
As far as the Big Five are concerned, the challenger brands are more of an annoyance than anything else.
Against that backdrop, Tour Edge’s five straight years of record sales and 33 straight years of turning a profit are, on the face of it, remarkable. At the very least, it’s worth a deeper dive to find out why.
Tour Edge: A Little Background
David Glod started Tour Edge in his garage outside of Chicago in the mid-1980s. A college teammate of Lee Janzen and Rocco Mediate, Glod was equal parts golf pro and entrepreneur. Like any good entrepreneur, he found a large gaping hole in a lucrative market: high-quality, low-cost clubs for the average recreational golfer. By 2000, Glod decided to expand into premium equipment aimed at the better player and in 2005 introduced the ultra-premium Exotics line.
