The U.S. Open begins today at the Congressional Country
Club in Bethesda, MD, with most eyes on Tiger Woods and his
quest for a second straight major championship. Yesterday
fans wishing to watch practice rounds at Congressional
"waited in long lines for as much as 2 1/2 hours for shuttle
busses to take them from satellite parking lots" to the
Bethesda club (Shapiro & Bowles, WASHINGTON POST, 6/12).
MORE LOGO TALK: Nike's logo for Tiger Woods, which was
unveiled Tuesday, was developed by Nike VP/Design Gordon
Thompson. The red, black and white logo will appear on
Woods' sleeves and back-neck of the apparel, the heel of his
golf shoes and the back of his cap (iGOLF, 6/11). Nike's
site on the World Wide Web at Nike.com takes users to a
section entitled "Keeping Up With Tiger," a children-
oriented look at Woods, written in a child's handwriting,
which mentions upcoming youth golf clinics and has a place
for kids to send "advice" to Tiger. The new Tiger Woods
logo is also shown, next to the words "Not sure what it is,
but I'll ask around and try to find out" (THE DAILY).
AROUND THE COURSE: In DC, Roxanne Roberts writes on the
corporate presence at the Open under the header "Open
Invitation -- But Players Won't Party" (WASHINGTON POST,
6/12). The WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL's Karen Lundegaard
writes that merchandise sales of $10M are predicted for the
tournament. The merchandise pavilion has been developed by
Izod Club Golf & Tennis, a division of NY-based Phillips Van
Heusen and Congressional. Congressional has a contract
with the USGA that allows the Congressional/Van Heusen
"venture to control all merchandise sales at the club and
within 75 miles of the course. In return, the USGA
"receives an undisclosed royalty on each item sold"
(WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL, 6/6-12).
TV TIME OUT: The golf business was examined on CNBC,
where Ladenburg Thalmann's Joseph Teklits said that '94
estimates showed that roughly $16B was spent on golf and he
estimated that in 2005, "roughly" $26B will be spent on
golf. CNBC's Bill Griffeth: "Much of the growth is expected
to come from the apparel sector. A recent study by
Ladenburg Thalmann sees companies like Ashworth and Cutter &
Buck leading the pack. And golf equipment sales are
expected to continue to be very strong" ("Market Wrap,"
CNBC, 6/11)....CNBC's Sue Herera reported that Jack
Nicklaus's Golden Bear Golf, Inc. "is getting hammered on
Wall Street." Golden Bear stock had risen from its IPO of
$16 last August to a high of $21 1/8, but has since dropped
to around $11 today. CNBC's Greg Miles added that Golden
Bear "has missed ... deadlines and earnings forecasts. And
Golden Bear's stock price has also been hurt by the small
dollar size of its public stock offering. That kept out
many stable institutional buyers, and it attracted more
volatile retail investors" ("Business Tonight," CNBC, 6/11).
