LPGA star Lexi Thompson didn’t have to attend lengthy for a brand new golf ball deal.
DICK’S Sporting Items is immediately asserting that it has signed Thompson to an unique golf ball endorsement deal. Thompson would be the Maxfli Tour Collection ball all through the 2024 season and, presumably, past that.
Thompson may also function a model ambassador and spokesperson for Maxfli. She’ll even be concerned within the improvement of the subsequent technology of Maxfli Tour golf balls, due out in 2025.
People, it is a certifiably huge 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 break 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 Collection for a couple of months now, and the Maxfli Tour ball exceeded my expectations,” Thompson says in a ready assertion. “The ball matches my sport extraordinarily nicely, growing 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,” stated Aimee Watters, Vertical Model Advertising VP for DICK’S Sporting Items. “Changing into solely the seventh lady to compete in a PGA occasion is so spectacular, and we all know there’s extra to come back.”
Why Is This a Massive Deal?
Make no mistake, it is a huge 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 “huge identify” 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.
The truth is, Thompson’s cope with DICK’S Sporting Items could very nicely 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 definitely high-performing balls and golf equipment that aren’t performed on Tour, each a kind of producers frequently faces the identical query from customers: If that is so good, how come nobody performs it on Tour?
Maxfli doesn’t need to reply that query anymore.
The Maxfli Journey
The Maxfli model is without doubt one of the oldest in golf. Within the early Twenties, A.E. Penfold, then working for the Dunlop Firm in England, developed the very first golf ball bearing the Maxfli identify in 1922. Maxfli shortly turned Dunlop’s flagship and became a mid-century powerhouse as a part of the Dunlop-Slazenger partnership.
Maxfli remained a premium model nicely into the Nineteen Nineties. In early 2002, Dunlop-Slazenger entered right into a licensing and distribution settlement with TaylorMade-adidas. By the top 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. At the start of 2002, the corporate’s ball market share was lower than one %. By the top of the 12 months, it had grown to 7.5 %.
TaylorMade-adidas supported each the TaylorMade and Maxfli manufacturers by 2007, in the end promoting the Maxfli model identify to DICK’S in February 2008. TaylorMade retained the Noodle model identify and all of Maxfli’s golf ball patents.
Maxfli turned DICK’S retailer model, promoting serviceable however unremarkable golf balls till 2019 when it launched the Maxfli Tour and Tour X traces. Maxfli was the shock performer in MyGolfSpy’s 2019 Golf Ball Check and has been a consistent-to-exceptional performer ever since.
What This Means for Maxfli
Aside from Tiger, there aren’t many needle-movers in golf. Whereas her Tour success has been spotty, Thompson is without doubt one of the best-known American golfers on the LPGA. Whether or not this deal immediately boosts Maxfli gross sales is unknown, it does supply that a lot sought-after Tour validation.
And Thompson almost definitely gained’t be the final Tour professional to signal on with DICK’S Sporting Items.
Cynics could say any deal is just in regards to the cash, and there’s loads of historical past to assist such cynicism. Payne Stewart’s famously ill-fated cope with Spalding/High-Flite within the mid-’90s nearly 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 Collection balls carry out on par with the established names. And Maxfli has additionally scored remarkably nicely 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.
