The big heist - increase in thefts of golf clubs

Golf Digest, Dec, 1998 by Scott Smith

The dramatic rise in club thefts and what you can do about it there's big money to be made in golf. Not only by making golf clubs, but by stealing them. Thieves have developed a taste for titanium, and it's easy to see why: The latest generation of clubs are big-ticket items that are in high demand, easy to resell and nearly impossible to trace. "Mainly it's Callaway clubs," says Edwin Watts, whose chain of retail stores has been pilfered out of more than $500,000 worth of Big Berthas in the past three years. "But it changes with popularity. It used to be Ping irons." Says Chris Holiday, senior vice president for sales at Callaway: "The problem appears to have increased substantially in the past five years."

Retail shops are the primary targets, with many of the burglaries committed with "smash-and-grab" tactics. "I've been hit about 10 times, five times this year alone," says Bill Turney, owner of Golf USA, a retail store in Houston. In one recent latenight rip-off, thieves wielding a bat-tery-operated Saws-All cut through a door frame and two walls of Turney's shop to steal $15,000 worth of equipment. Turney figures the heist took all of three minutes. "It's a crime of opportunity that occurs within seconds, and it's not sophisticated golfers dabbling in theft, it's sophisticated thieves dabbling in golf," says Jack D. Stephens, president of Securetech Inc., a startup that has introduced a line of locking bag racks to help combat the problem.

Watts believes that many of the clubs stolen from his stores quickly make their way back to other retail outlets in what amounts to a "steal to order" arrangement. "There's no way that young kids are stealing golf clubs on this scale," he says. "They wouldn't know what to do with them, and they'd get caught. It has to be an organized ring among several different groups." Watts is offering a $25,000 reward for information that leads to convictions of the thieves.

With a driver now costing upward of $500, and with most golfers toting sets worth $1,000 and more, it's clear that plenty is at stake. Exactly how much is impossible to say. The police and insurance companies don't put golf-club thefts in a separate category or keep nationwide statistics, for thefts either from individual golfers or from retail locations. However, the scale of the problem becomes clearer with a look at how much it costs to replace stolen clubs. Gary Palmer, chief operating officer of ClaimCard Inc., which arranges for insurers to replace lost merchandise, estimates that the replacement value for stolen golf clubs totaled $100 million to $120 million in 1997. (According to Golf Datatech, a research firm, retail sales of golf clubs at on-course and off-course golf shops totaled $1.5 billion in 1997.)

Club thefts are not limited to retail shops. A set of clubs left in an open garage, the back seat of a car or on an airport-baggage carousel is a set at risk of "walking away." At public courses, these days, signs declaring "Do not leave golf equipment unattended" have become nearly as common as admonitions against slow play.

"You see the problem at private courses, too, though they are understandably loath to admit it," says Terry Andre, vice president of sales and marketing at Burton Bag Co., which earlier this year introduced the Niblock, a golf bag that locks clubs in place. "Think of a member-guest tournament, with 120 players, 60 being visitors. You have 60 carts spread out in the parking lot with people milling all over and two assistant pros managing the whole exercise. I wish we had numbers, but the anecdotal evidence is pretty strong."

Ask other golfers at your club if they've been ripped off or know someone who has, and chances are you'll get a sad story of a favorite putter filched or a Big Bertha snatched. A survey commissioned by Securetech indicates that seven out of 10 golfers either know someone who has been victimized or have been hit themselves.

"The thieves will target remote locations, golf shops or driving ranges that are off-course, but they've been so bold as to hit strip malls," says Steve Dodson, former general manager for two Roger Dunn shops in the Sacramento, Calif., area. "It seems like every two or three weeks a golf store in this area gets hit." The costs to retail shops go far beyond the lost dollar value. "We've got alarm systems, grid panels, bars on the doors and windows, scissor-gates on the doors, motion sensors inside. It's like Fort Knox," says Dodson, whose shops had been hit for as much as $30,000 at a time. "It's a tough way to run a business." Stiff competition has kept most retailers from raising their prices to off-set the losses from theft. "I don't know if I can get insurance next year," Turney says. "That's how bad it is."

So where is all this loot ending up? If you don't have reason to look in the mirror, then you may want to take a peek in your buddies' bags. "If there wasn't distribution for the thieves, store rip-offs wouldn't be happening as much,'' says Dodson. "Let's face it, golf is a luxury sport for many people. They want to get a deal, because it's something they don't necessarily need.''