I put this under the retail equipment thread, because it affects availability of equipment. Our local Titleist / Cobra rep, I am told, was let go due to downsizing. My understanding is that the territory will be handled by the Philadelphia area rep (I live in central PA), which is about 100 + miles away, and southeast PA is saturated with courses, which already keeps him busy, I am sure. Our rep, who had the territory for almost 20 years, was a very good guy and hit most of the demo days and would bring the launch monitor out to the area clubs for fittings.

It seems to me that the demo days will certainly take a hit, as they seem to be held in the first month of spring, and one rep or team will not be able to service such a large territory. One less opportunity for manufacturers to get their product in the hands of potential customers. I will add that central PA, while certainly impacted by the sour economy, is fairing OK relative to other parts of the country. Real estate prices are holding relatively steady, unemployment is currently holding at about 6%, and no major businesses have pulled out. Seems it would be one of the "better" areas to try to hold market share.

Any other parts of the country hear of any Acushnet cutbacks (or any other golf cutbacks, as a matter of fact).

Yes they did the rep in central Kentucky that way last week. I knew him for quite a while. He used to be a club pro.

I don't think my Titleist/Cobra rep was let go, but I know my TM rep only has 50 demo days for over 200 stores.

I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of this in 2009.

Foreleft,

Where are you from? I know the individual you are talking about and it it is a shame he was let go, he had a lot of years in with Titleist.

I would not be worried about having enough demo days just because the rep is gone. They have eliminated a high paid position and they will pay $125 a day for another demo rep to do about 50 demo days. Every club company will be doing some downsizing this year. Callaway, Titleist and TaylorMade have already started. Cleveland and Srixon did it when they merged their sales forces.

No cut backs here in Asia. In fact Titleist is growing here...

No cutbacks here in Arizona that I know of....if i hear of anything I will let you know

yeah, i heard that was happening at the golf show in louisville a couple of weeks back. sucks.