TaylorMade-adidas Golf has “clearly been gaining market share against its rivals,” announcing that Q1 sales surged 32% percent to $508M compared with the prior year, according to Mike Freeman of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. This “raised a few eyebrows” as golf has been “a stagnant business for years, with few new players taking up the game to spark growth.” TaylorMade-adidas Golf President & CEO Mark King said of the growth, “I think one of the things we have done since the fourth quarter (of) 2008 when the world became kind of afraid, we have gotten more aggressive. While a lot of our competitors and a lot of industries are contracting and cutting expenses and doing those types of things that make your business shrink, we have been investing because we believed we could steal market share and grow.” TaylorMade in March acquired Adams Golf, and King said of the brands coming together, "We sell a lot of products to people who aren’t zero to four, but the voice of the company and the inspiration for products comes from [the] zero to four handicap golfer. Adams Golf, although they make products for tour players, the focus of their company isn’t the top of the playing pyramid. It’s the middle of playing pyramid. So when we put these brands together, we [are] going to talk about how we have the number one brand in golf, TaylorMade, and we have the number one friendliest brand in golf, Adams” (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 6/2).
