Breaking: Tour Edge Hires Tim Clarke as President

Tour Edge is announcing this morning that it’s naming long-time industry veteran Tim Clarke as its new president.

Clarke spent the past year serving as executive vice-president of Perry Ellis International’s golf division. He managed the apparel operations of the Original Penguin, Callaway, PGA Tour, Nicklaus and Perry Ellis brands in the U.S. He has spent the previous 25 years with Wilson Golf, including the last 17 as its president.

“This couldn’t be a better fit for me,” Clarke tells MyGolfSpy. “Perry Ellis is a world-class operation, but the soft-good world is different from the world I grew up in, which is golf equipment.”

In his new role, Clarke will oversee worldwide sales, strategic planning and operations for Tour Edge. David Glod, who founded Tour Edge in 1986, moves into the role of CEO and will remain the majority owner and chief club designer.

“We’re getting one of golf’s most respected and well-liked leaders,” Glod said in a release. “This is a total coup for us to get Tim and it should have a huge impact for us moving forward.”

Tim Clarke’s journey

Clarke’s 17-year run as Wilson Golf president is one of the longest leadership tenures in recent golf memory. Wilson was at its nadir when Clarke took over in 2006. The longtime industry stalwart had been in steady decline and bottomed out with a market share of less than one-half of one percent in irons, a category it had dominated for decades. Even worse, Wilson Golf was losing upwards of $15 million annually. Ownership was seriously considering shutting down the golf division.

That was the situation Clarke inherited.

“The Wilson journey was really a turnaround,” says Clarke. “I had a great team around me.”

While Wilson likely will never return to the market share levels it enjoyed in the 1960s through the 1980s, the brand did return to relevance and, more importantly, profitability during Clarke’s tenure.  

What kind of a ship is Clarke taking over?

Clarke says the Tour Edge business model, energy and product positioning are very similar to what he experienced with Wilson. While he admits the past year in soft goods was a great learning experience, he says he’d much rather be talking 5-irons and titanium drivers than yarn, buttons and collars.

“I’m super-excited to get back on the horse,” says Clarke. “I already know this customer base really well, so it’ll be great to reconnect with them without my soft goods hat on.”

It’s been fascinating to watch Tour Edge evolve through multiple personalities over the past decade. The original Exotics line was premium performance and technology at a premium price and very well may have been the first fairway wood to crack the $300 threshold. Today, Exotics is still premium performance and technology but it’s priced below mainstream OEMs. Its drivers, fairways and hybrids are traditionally strong performers in MyGolfSpy’s annual testing.

The Hot Launch line is designed for higher handicappers and beginners and is what the industry calls “value priced.”

Tour Edge does all of its assembly at its Batavia, Ill., facility, which also features a state-of-the-art fitting center. It’s over 55,00 square feet and the company says it’s well positioned logistically for substantial growth.

“David runs a great ‘back of glass,’ meaning he has great operations and systems inside the building,” says Clarke. “Where I can bring value is with 27 years of customer relationships. Those relationships give you a chance to identify consumers’ unmet needs and to bring solutions. That’s where I’m going to focus my initial time”

The Tour Edge challenge

With the COVID boom now stabilized, everyone in the golf industry is taking a breath and taking stock of where it stands. For Tour Edge, a company that’s never posted an annual loss in its 38-year history, market stability represents a new challenge.

“We have to get back to blocking and tackling,” says Clarke. “That means demo days, gaining distribution and working with PGA pros around the country to solve problems.”

Considering the immovable dominance of golf’s Big Five, Tour Edge and others are trying to thread an increasingly narrow needle. Price positioning may be the biggest challenge. Golfers complain about $600 Callaway or TaylorMade drivers but they outsell high-performing $400 Tour Edge drivers by a wide margin.

Retailers, with fewer customers coming through the door, will sell whatever the golfer wants. However, when that golfer wants the $600 Callaway, the retailer will gladly sell the bigger-ticket item. For Tour Edge, the target customer is very specific. It’s the golfer who wants performance and technology, can’t or won’t pay top dollar, and is willing to look outside the Big Five.

The growing direct-to-consumer marketplace adds another layer of complexity to the challenge.

“The fact David has the confidence that I could come in and bring value to the company that he built, that’s really cool,” says Clarke. “Any success I’ve had has been because I’ve had a great team around me. David has a great team and I think it’s a perfect marriage for what I want to do for the next 10 years and where David wants to take the brand.”