We've been seeing record performing weeks: PGA TOUR Superstore CEO

Dick Sullivan, CEO & President of the PGA TOUR Superstore, joined Yahoo Finance's The Final Round to discuss business since reopening all of the PGA TOUR Superstores as well as the precautions the stores are taking to keep customers safe.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: We're going to switch gears here a little bit and talk about sports. It was a pretty big weekend for sports fans after nearly a three-month break amid the coronavirus pandemic. The PGA TOUR returned this weekend leading the way for professional sports. And I want to bring in our next guest. We have Dick Sullivan, PGA TOUR Superstore president and CEO. And Dick, it's great to have you on the show.

The return of the tour this past weekend has to be good news for your business. But I just want to first talk about you've navigated the past 12 or 13 weeks really dealing with the fact that, not only were your stores closed, but the fact that golf courses around the country were closed as well.

DICK SULLIVAN: Well, let me first say, thank you for having me on and let you know that Yahoo Finance is the only app and only website that I go to.

SEANA SMITH: We really love that.

DICK SULLIVAN: And you're number one.

SEANA SMITH: Me and RJ.

DICK SULLIVAN: Every morning, I wake up.

ANDY SERWER: Tell a million of your closest friends.

DICK SULLIVAN: I will. Futures were down 500. And I just looked. And I hadn't checked the market all day. So it obviously was a wild ride. You know, it's actually 86 days ago we closed our stores. It was March 21. And we opened back up starting in South Carolina the end of April. And then more stores opened throughout the month of April. And today, we opened our last stores in New Jersey.

So now we have all 43 stores open. And, in fact, even during this period while many retailers were closing stores, we actually opened a store in Palm Beach Gardens just about three weeks ago. But what's happened is April was and is always one of the biggest months for golf. It's almost like owning a ski resort and having January shut down. And it's hard to make that up.

But golf courses open back up in May. And the demand at golf courses in May has been phenomenal. So towards the latter part of May, we've been seeing record-performing weeks. The first week of June was the biggest week in company's history. And the second week of June was even bigger and this week with the tour starting back up. And usually the number one week of the year is Father's Day week, which is the week we're in right now.

So we expect to have real strong performance, which exciting. What is exciting is it's not just the typical golfer that we've seen the avid golfer coming into our stores. We're seeing customers we've never seen before and particularly women. We're seeing a tremendous increase in women wanting to play the game and that be families. I mean, our club business and women's, whether it be package sets, which is typically beginners, is up about 45%.

So it's really remarkable. But we started on this journey. Since our stores are different, they're more experiential, you know, with more than just the hand sanitizers and the gloves and the masks and all the shields. But we had to make sure since customers want to touch product-- they want a demo product-- that we had to do more than, say, a typical grocery store or sporting goods store.

So we've seen great success. We're really pleased. This is a big week for us. This is our Christmas, as we say in golf. And so we're excited from the prognosis of what we're seeing.

MYLES UDLAND: And, you know, Dick, if you look at the assortment of what you've sold, I thought the data on push and pull carts is interesting. People assume now that they're going to be walking more when they do get out on the course. But I want to go back just to clubs for a second, because it's kind of hard to fit someone or even just to get someone who knows what-- or they know I want this model, right, just to get them to hit it safely.

How is that process kind of played out for you guys? Are you able to try out a club in all of your stores yet or different procedures by state? And how do you see that evolving over the coming months?

DICK SULLIVAN: Yeah, now, we're really careful. We started what we call a starter program. And we put that person almost like a concierge at the front of our stores. So, you know, last year, we put on over a million grips. We regripped clubs. We won't just sell new equipment. And we didn't bring in any equipment from the outside without sanitizing it. And the same thing inside of our stores. As I said, there are large experiential stores. We welcome you all inside of our stores.

But, you know, if you're going to buy a putter, you need to practice with a putter. But we make sure we wipe down all the equipment. We make sure that we focus on physical distancing. We still believe that there should be social activities. But we believe in physical distancing. And so we're taking all the precautions. We've done all kinds of surveys with our associates-- all kinds of surveys with our customers. And our customers are pleased with the work that we're doing.

So all stores right now are fitting equipment. We have people lined up outside our Paramus store this morning before we opened. And we've sold, I think, seven sets of clubs within the first 30 minutes. So there's a tremendous amount of pent up demand. So we do know that. But, you know, there were a lot of golf courses were closed. Golf shops were closed. A lot of our competitors were closed.

And so we stayed open. And we didn't furlough even one of our associates. I think you know our company is owned by Arthur Blank who was co-founder of Home Depot, also the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, MLS Atlanta United. And Arthur, given the values of our company-- and I've been with Arthur for 28 years-- we made sure that we paid every single one of our associates. We didn't let any of our associates go during this period.

But they did a lot of online training. And we did over 39,000 online courses with our associates during this time. So sort of come out stronger and better, you know, as a result of this pandemic. That was our goal.

AKIKO FUJITA: You talked about some of the precautions you've taken in your stores. And I'm wondering what that means from a cost perspective because on the one hand, we've heard that a lot from retailers some of the additional steps they've now had to take. But you're also seeing huge demand online-- looks like you've got--what-- triple-digit growth on that front. So have you thought about maybe changing your footprint as a result of that because the cost associated with the bricks and mortar store versus the strong sales you're seeing online?

DICK SULLIVAN: It's a great question. Certainly it used to be that over 90% of the purchases in our store would go out the front door. And less than 10% would go out the back door. Again, you don't want to buy a set of clubs without being fit. So it's hard to buy certain things online. That doesn't make us Amazon-proof. But we're seeing more and more customers wanting to buy online because, A, they don't have access. And B, I mean, digital purchasing has become the norm now.

I mean, how many people before never purchased groceries or had them delivered? And I have many people I know now, they're having groceries delivered every single day. So I think that people are used to that. I think that over time if that e-commerce business becomes a much higher percent of our business, then, yes, I think the physical footprint of our stores can be reduced.