Mark King Still Blaming Golf For His Awful Decisions

Business schools have many far more important things to study, yet they should embrace the opportunity to study the audacity of former Taylor Made CEO Mark King who still...still!...has the intredipity to blame the sport for his and Adidas' decision-making.

Add him to the list of business minds blaming the sport for not embracing a grand vision of consumers replacing $500 drivers and $1200 sets of irons on a bi-annual basis. Or, in the case of Taylor Made circa 2013, tri-annual.

Speaking to Yahoo's Daniel Roberts about the Taylor Made sale, King is so eager to blame golf for Adidas' tired approach on most fronts, that he's even indirectly talking down TM's recent recovery from the depths of his wake to validate a warped view of how often folks should buy new stuff.

"I think the decision was made to sell it," King says, "because the company has realized that we should be focusing on the biggest growth opportunities. And the biggest growth opportunities are in running, training, basketball. And we have a lot of runway in those. As opposed to being in something that is harder to focus on."

Harder to focus on? In other words, golf equipment is a bad business these days (despite Hainer's insistence to the contrary)? "It is," King says. "And that was the realization."

Or just a short-sighted and greed-driven approach to business by those unwilling to adapt to, gulp, a changing marketplace?

There isn't much of a "runway" for those trying to peddle three drivers in one year. Or, who gave up on what was seemingly a positive effort to brainstorm new ideas.

Roberts writes:

As the former TaylorMade chief, King has had a hand in the many efforts to attract new fans to the sport of golf and change the downward trend. Two years ago, along with the National Golf Foundation, King helped launch Hack Golf, an open invitation to innovations that might grow the game. The most notable of those was a larger, 15-inch hole (about the size of a pizza box) that some hoped would lure young kids to try an easier version of the game. It was met with ridicule in some parts of the sport.

Yes, they dropped Hackgolf like a hot potato before any kind of attempt to test the ideas, or spend more than a sliver of the $5 million Mr. King committed to this seemingly noble brainstorming session.

Hackgolf.org, RIP.

So what does the way forward look like? "I just think any category runs its play until the play doesn’t work anymore," King says. "And then it’s forced to ask, Do we need to do things differently? Tennis did that. Bowling did that. Skiing did that. And I think that's where the game of golf is today. It needs to change some of the entry points to the game to attract new consumers. And I think golf will find a way to do that, whether that takes five years or 10 years."

Adidas can't wait that long to see if the industry will improve. It will remain on golfers' shirts and shoes, but it's looking to get out your bag of clubs, pronto.

It is somewhat understandable that someone who apparently liked the game at one time, is so willing to trample over it to keep raking in a check. But talking golf and the business down as his company would presumably like to find a buyer for Taylor Made?  Perhaps even a buyer who could continue to employ people and make stuff that people enjoy buy?  Irresponsible and pathetic.

Hopefully many consumers will note the Adidas view on golf and business when they make future apparel purchasing decisions.