Results: MGS Brand Stock Ticker Survey

First, a quick thank you to everyone who participated in Round One of the MyGolfSpy Stock Ticker Survey.

As you may recall, we asked readers to tell us if they believe each brand on our list is trending up, trending down or staying pretty much the same relative to the start of the season.

These initial results will serve as our baseline. As we continue to run this survey and collect data over time, we’ll establish trend lines and something more closely resembling a stock ticker. As we progress, we’ll take your feedback and add (or remove) brands when it’s warranted.

The charts use a simple scale where a score of 1 equals trending up and -1 is trending down. Results are based on the average of all responses. We consider anything between -.25 and .25 to be mostly flat.

Equipment brands

From the readers: Golf manufacturers must keep quality and pricing in mind when releasing new ranges that seem only cosmetically altered with no real advantage for the consumer.

Trending up

In June, a long-time Carlsbad insider told me that, as far as he could tell, L.A.B. Golf was the only thing that was hot this year. The company has absolutely blown up over the last couple of seasons so it’s not surprising to see PXG, Evnroll and others rolling out their takes on non-traditional putter designs. Will L.A.B. suffer from competition or benefit from raised awareness?

By reputation, anyway, PING is one of the steadier brands in the golf equipment world. For our money, it produced the best 10K driver offering of the year. We’d be remiss not to also mention things like Ballnamic and PING’s Co-Pilot fitting tools, some of which, like the wedge tool, are forward-facing. Arguably, nobody is doing a better job of giving consumers the ability to make more informed decisions at point of sale without needing to visit PING fitter.

Trending down

We can probably chalk up Snell’s performance on this survey to a disappointing MGS Ball Lab result. Behind the scenes, the company is trying to reestablish itself as a DTC leader after TaylorMade’s purchase of the Nassau ball factory forced it to seek new suppliers.

It’s a little surprising (to me, anyway) to see Toulon near the bottom of the list. My hunch is that the downward trend is related to the company’s separation from Callaway and the high price point of its limited-edition offerings.

Apparel brands

Your interest level in the finer details of the apparel side of the golf industry remains a bit of an unknown for us. That said, here’s what we learned.

Trending up

Among the upward trenders, Rhoback is absolutely everywhere these days and, by just about every account, the product is excellent.

Malbon is the most buzzy of the apparel brands due in no small part to its relentless collabs and other cross-branding efforts.

Peter Millar is a pro shop stalwart with a massive and loyal following so it’s not a surprise to find the brand trending up.

Trending down

Frankly, if you told me Oakley didn’t make golf stuff anymore, I’d probably believe you.

Sun Day Red is still trying to find its footing after a sub-par launch and a general lack of Tiger Woods on the golf course. It’s fair to wonder if it’s five years too late.

NIKE. 🤷

For next time: Redvanly, TRUElinks wear, TravisMathew, Stitch, ECCO, Johnnie-O

Influencers

From the readers: Bryson DeChambeau’s channel is the best on YouTube

First, let’s acknowledge the mistake. Bryson DeChambeau got left off the list. That’s on me and is a perfect example of why you should only have one window for the same site open at a time.

He’d almost certainly be at the top of the list by plenty.

Moving on …

Notably, everyone on this list is either trending up or relatively flat which suggests there may still be growth opportunities in the influencer space. There is some chatter across the industry that influencers are beginning to price themselves out of the market. We’ll see.

Notable, among the rest is that Grant Horvat is trending significantly better than Good Good. Gabby Golfgirl is a strong second ahead of what we could reasonably call household names within the influencer space.

For next time: Bryson DeChambeau

Pro tours

From the readers: Pro golf sucks, except for majors. Rather watch YouTube golfers, more relatable.

Trending up

The one meaningful takeaway from this is that the LPGA is killing it right now.

Everyone else

The PGA Tour is trending down a little. LIV is trending a bit more downward still. The takeaway from your comments is that the current mess needs to get sorted out before everyone but the diehards lose interest.

Perhaps there’s no better metric for the state of interest in the pro game than the recent Creator Classic. The competition among largely YouTube and social media influencers peaked at 118,000 viewers during the live event and has amassed 2.2 million views on-demand through YouTube.

It was the Tour’s most viewed, liked, shared and commented-on video of 2024.

By way of comparison, a recent PGA Tour Sunday telecast of the Procore Championship averaged 69,000 viewers. Standard Golf Channel programming averages 76,000 viewers.

The LIV Team Championship had 89,000 viewers. The most viewers LIV had for any given event this year was just over 400,000, which came on a Sunday when the PGA Tour got washed out.

It’s abundantly clear changes needed to be made.