For years, the top
golfer at Nike was Tiger Woods. Now
after last week’s slew of signings, Nike may not have found a name that’s
bigger than Tiger Woods, but they sure opened their checkbooks. Nike signed a trio of PGA Tour players last
week: Kyle Stanly, Nick Watney, and Rory McIlroy.
Given McIlroy’s current
position in golf, he garnered a good deal of media attention with his move from
Titleist to Nike. Many were skeptical of
the move away from the Titleist brand that McIlroy has seen some much success
with over the past few years, but a reported $200 million-plus payday is hard
for anybody to pass up.
The McIlroy deal with
Nike represents a changing of the guard on the golf scene. Tiger may be the biggest name in the game,
but McIlroy is sneaking up there. Tiger
is aging and may never win another major, while McIlroy is still only 23 and
entering the prime of his career with two majors already under his belt.
Signing Stanley and
Watney can also benefit the Nike brand.
Watney has shown flashes with two wins in 2011 and one in 2012, and he
is only 31 years old. Stanley is another
up-and-comer who is only 24 years old.
He got his first win on the PGA Tour in 2012 and also showed some
flashes of being able to win some smaller tournaments.
---
The PGA Tour has also recently
released their 2013 schedule. New Years Eve will mark the start of the Tour’s
schedule with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Kapalua, Hawaii. Tour majors will kick off with the Masters
from Augusta National on April 8 and then continue with the US Open on June 10
from Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, PA right outside of Philadelphia. Players will travel across the pond to
Scotland for the Open Championship (British Open) starting on July 15. The final PGA Tour major of the year, the PGA
Championship, will be start on August 5 from Oak Hill Country Club in
Rochester, NY.
New Nike signee Rory
McIlroy will look to repeat at the PGA Championship and also at the Honda
Classic (Feb. 25 – Mar. 3), the Deutsche Bank Championship (Aug. 26 – Sep. 2),
and the BMW Championship (Sep. 9 – Sep. 15).
Follow Kevin Rossi on Twitter @kevin_rossi.
A $200 million-plus payday is truly hard for anybody to pass up, and I don’t blame Rory for taking the bandwagon away from the brand who shares his prior achievements. I just hope he will perform even better with Nike this time, surpassing what he already accomplished with Titleist.
ReplyDeleteMike
CesarsGolfRentals.com - rents and delivers golf clubs around Florida.
Please keep on posting about This topic. I want to know more details about it. Anyway, I have read some of posts in your blog here. And all of them are very informative. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteBest Golf simulator