LPGA star Lexi Thompson didn’t have to attend lengthy for a brand new golf ball deal.
DICK’S Sporting Items is right this moment asserting that it has signed Thompson to an unique golf ball endorsement deal. Thompson would be the Maxfli Tour Sequence ball all through the 2024 season and, presumably, past that.
Thompson can even function a model ambassador and spokesperson for Maxfli. She’ll even be concerned within the improvement of the subsequent era of Maxfli Tour golf balls, due out in 2025.
Of us, it is a certifiably large freaking deal on many ranges. However first, let’s unpack the main points.
From Bridgestone To Maxfli
As MyGolfSpy first reported this previous weekend, Thompson and Bridgestone formally cut up after their six-year settlement concluded on the finish of 2023. The 28-year-old Thompson is a 13-year veteran of the LPGA Tour, with 11 victories and two majors on her resume.
“I’ve been testing the Maxfli Tour Sequence for a couple of months now, and the Maxfli Tour ball exceeded my expectations,” Thompson says in a ready assertion. “The ball suits my recreation extraordinarily effectively, rising my ball velocity with out sacrificing management.”
The brand new deal begins instantly, as Thompson will put the Maxfli in play this week on the LPGA Drive On Championship in Bradenton, Florida.
In a press launch, DICK’S Sporting Items says Thompson would be the face of Maxfli in its advertising and marketing efforts and can take part in product testing and innovation.
“Lexi is a exceptional golfer, and I can’t consider a greater participant to have be part of the Maxfli household as an unique companion,” mentioned Aimee Watters, Vertical Model Advertising and marketing VP for DICK’S Sporting Items. “Changing into solely the seventh girl to compete in a PGA occasion is so spectacular, and we all know there may be extra to come back.”
Why Is This a Massive Deal?
Make no mistake, it is a large deal for DICK’S Sporting Items. It marks the corporate’s subsequent step in its efforts to be a participant in golf tools. And Thompson is the primary “large title” Tour professional to place Maxfli, or any of DICK’S different manufacturers, into play.
DICK’S has put a lot effort into each the Maxfli and Tommy Armour manufacturers, rescuing each from the scrap heap of being labeled basement-level retailer manufacturers. Each manufacturers have been solid-to-outstanding performers in MyGolfSpy testing lately. And now Maxfli at the least is getting much-desired Tour validation.
In reality, Thompson’s cope with DICK’S Sporting Items might very effectively be the primary deal between a Tour professional and a retailer model since Golfsmith signed Payne Stewart and Ben Crenshaw to Lynx tools offers in 1999.
Tour validation issues within the golf tools house. Whereas there are actually high-performing balls and golf equipment that aren’t performed on Tour, each a kind of producers often faces the identical query from customers: If that is so good, how come nobody performs it on Tour?
Maxfli doesn’t must reply that query anymore.
The Maxfli Journey
The Maxfli model is likely one of the oldest in golf. Within the early Nineteen Twenties, A.E. Penfold, then working for the Dunlop Firm in England, developed the very first golf ball bearing the Maxfli title in 1922. Maxfli shortly grew to become Dunlop’s flagship and become a mid-century powerhouse as a part of the Dunlop-Slazenger partnership.
Maxfli remained a premium model effectively into the Nineties. In early 2002, Dunlop-Slazenger entered right into a licensing and distribution settlement with TaylorMade-adidas. By the tip of that 12 months, TaylorMade-adidas exercised its choice to my the Maxfli model outright. The association made TaylorMade an on the spot participant within the golf ball market. In the beginning of 2002, the corporate’s ball market share was lower than one %. By the tip of the 12 months, it had grown to 7.5 %.
TaylorMade-adidas supported each the TaylorMade and Maxfli manufacturers by means of 2007, in the end promoting the Maxfli model title to DICK’S in February 2008. TaylorMade retained the Noodle model title and all of Maxfli’s golf ball patents.
Maxfli grew to become DICK’S retailer model, promoting serviceable however unremarkable golf balls till 2019 when it launched the Maxfli Tour and Tour X strains. Maxfli was the shock performer in MyGolfSpy’s 2019 Golf Ball Take a look at and has been a consistent-to-exceptional performer ever since.
What This Means for Maxfli
Apart from Tiger, there aren’t many needle-movers in golf. Whereas her Tour success has been spotty, Thompson is likely one of the best-known American golfers on the LPGA. Whether or not this deal immediately boosts Maxfli gross sales is unknown, it does provide that a lot sought-after Tour validation.
And Thompson almost certainly received’t be the final Tour professional to signal on with DICK’S Sporting Items.
Cynics might say any deal is barely concerning the cash, and there may be loads of historical past to assist such cynicism. Payne Stewart’s famously ill-fated cope with Spalding/High-Flite within the mid-’90s virtually killed his profession. And Bubba Watson’s multi-year association with Volvik didn’t make it previous 12 months one.
However Thompson’s Maxfli deal would possibly simply be the outlier. As we’ve proven in our ball checks, Maxfli’s Tour Sequence balls carry out on par with the established names. And Maxfli has additionally scored remarkably effectively in our Ball Lab testing for high quality and consistency. So this deal isn’t a matter of a mid-level model outkicking its protection. It may be seen as an aspiration and a rising model taking the subsequent step in its journey.
Even when that model is a retailer model.
