Following weeks of speculation, Tiger Woods and TaylorMade Golf last night officially unveiled Sun Day Red, a new golf apparel and lifestyle brand.
The partnership is a landmark move for Woods, who last month split with Nike after 27 years with the sportswear giant.
“This is an important transitional part of my life, and I want to have something that I can be proud of and a brand I’m proud of going forward,”
Woods explained to the small, invite-only crowd assembled at The Coach House, a private event space within the commercial hub of Palisades Village.
The space typically acts as showroom for the classic car collection of billionaire owner Rick Caruso, who was in attendance for the brand launch,
but yesterday it instead featured a collection of Sun Day Red merchandise. The new apparel brand’s name is a play on the red shirts Woods has worn on Sundays throughout his career,
while its Tiger logo has 15 stripes, one for each of Woods’ major championship wins. It was suggested that the logo will be redesigned should Woods win another.
In a Q&A led by Fox Sports broadcaster Erin Andrews, TaylorMade Golf President & CEO David Abeles recalled the moment several years ago when he first got an inkling his company had the chance to pursue a more meaningful partnership with Woods, who began playing with TaylorMade clubs in 2017. It was over a “very cold bagel and a very cold cup of coffee” with Excel Sports Management managing partner and Woods agent Mark Steinberg outside St. Andrews in Scotland. “One of my dear colleagues that runs our sports marketing function, Eddie Erkmanis, and I were looking at each other as we were talking to Mark, and he was suddenly intimating that there may be a chance down the road that Tiger might consider expanding his relationship with our company,” Abeles recounted.
“And number two, that perhaps there was the potential … in apparel and footwear.” Abeles said the TaylorMade team quickly focused on the idea of launching a new lifestyle brand with a focus on Woods’ legacy, a plan they would ultimately pitch to Woods during a meeting in Jupiter, Fla. “I’ve never seen him lean in the way he did, and the simple words he shared with us were, ‘You simply get me,’” Abeles said.
Despite its launching in partnership with TaylorMade Golf, Abeles insisted that Sun Day Red will operate as a standalone business with its headquarters in San Clemente, about half an hour up the California coast from TaylorMade’s Carlsbad HQ.
The new brand will be led by President Brad Blankinship, who previously oversaw the Quiksilver and RVCA brands across four years at action sports lifestyle company Boardriders. Sun Day Red merchandise will initially be available online to shoppers in the U.S. and Canada beginning May 1, and the brand’s longer-term plans include targeting international markets, expanding to retail locations and adding women’s and kids’ product lines. Woods said he’s been intimately involved with the product design process and that, while the apparel is tailored to his personal tastes around things like sleeve tightness and the angle of his glove’s strap, he’s hopeful other pros will want to join the brand down the road. “It would be exciting if other players want to wear the product,” Woods said. “But it’s up to us to get the product right first.”
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Source: CNN
