Dick's Sporting Goods No Longer Blaming Golf For All Problems

I love the shopping experience at Dick's Sporting Goods, but longtime readers know how revolting I found it that the chain of sporting goods stores blamed the state of golf after going all-in on Taylor Made's three-drivers-in-one-year strategy.

So it was nice to see them at least not dump on the state of golf in their latest conference call and even suggest that the lowly "sport" of hunting was the real drag on sales (as golf stabilized). Overall, Dick's is taking a huge stock price hit and may still be feeling the karma after-effects for having blamed golf for all world problems.

From Tomi Kilgore's story, whcih was accompanied by, quite charmingly, a Callaway ERC II. Nothing like featuring turn-of-the-century drivers! (Thanks reader John for sharing this.)

The sporting goods retailer’s stock DKS, +0.51%  plunged 12% in active afternoon trade Tuesday, putting it on track to close at the lowest level since January 2012, after the company’s disappointing results and outlook. The stock has tumbled nearly 40% since the April 4, 2015 record close of $58.98.

Same-store sales at its Golf Galaxy stores declined for an 11th-straight quarter, but the company said that overall, sales of golf equipment and apparel increased and golf margins improved.

Chief Executive Ed Stack explained on a Tuesday conference call with analysts that while Golf Galaxy “ran a little behind” the results seen in Dick’s branded stores, Golf Galaxy represented only about 3% of the company’s total business, according to a transcript provided by FactSet. Stack said he saw reason to be optimistic on golf, given strong sales of new products, such as the M1 driver from TaylorMade and Callaway Golf Co.’s Big Bertha.

Stack said the golf business still won’t be a big growth area, “it’s just we think we’ve stopped the bleeding, so to speak, but it will be much more profitable.”

That's better!

Forward Press: Next Wave Of New Media Golf Content?

With music mogul Irving Azoff capping off an impressive first season of Callaway Live Tuesday at 9 pm ET, I explore the ambitious first season as well as the possibility of other manufacturers getting into the content business.

Taylor Made is rumored to be looking at doing a similar show, while Titleist, PING and Cobra are already doing quality video content for their websites. Considering how much of Golf Channel's inventory is now devoted to live tournament action and with Back9 network long gone, viewers may have their appetite for talk, equipment design insights and lifestyle entertainment fed by the people who sell them clubs.

Also this week: Golf Channel's Jordan Spieth special and woohoo, opening day for the PGA Tour.

Flash: "Proof! CEOs hurt companies by golfing too much"

CNBC's Jeff Cox files the stunning revelation coming out of University of Tennessee and Alabama labs confirming what we all feared: excessive CEO golfing can lead to weaker returns.

Of course, any CEO who still turns in scores at this point will actually confirm something about them to their shareholders, the researchers dug deep into handicap info to expose this disturbing finding.

Using the records from 363 chief executives in the S&P 1500, the study drew some conclusions sure to scare more than a few of them off the course.

For one, it found that executives who use their time to lower their handicaps also often lower their firms' returns. The study also concluded, not surprisingly, that these same executives who play more often than their peers are more likely to lose their jobs.

"Top traders want to know everything they can about a company before they get involved in a name—down to where its C-level executives dined the night before a big day of investor meetings, for example. You never know how an overdone steak or disagreeable conversation will affect their mood after all, and inadvertently the stock price," New York brokerage Convergex said in a note that unearthed the study from August 2014.

So that's what it's come to, eh? So it's dachshund racing in suits?

In companies where the CEOs played more than 22 rounds of golf a year the return on assets was about 1.1 percentage points lower than firms where the top executives played less frequently. That's significant because the average ROA for the sample was about 5.3 percent, so the performance was equal to about 20 percent lower.

"Some CEOs in the database play in excess of 100 rounds in a year!" the study said. "While some golf rounds may clearly serve a valid business purpose, it is unlikely that the amount of golf played by the most frequent golfers is necessary for a CEO to support her firm."

Here is the deeper analysis from CNBC...