David Abeles Podcast #325 – TaylorMade SIM 2

Worldwide Golf Shops Insider Podcast

Worldwide Golf Shops INSIDER PODCAST #325! In this installment, we chat with the President of TaylorMade Golf, David Abeles! David talks TaylorMade Golf's NEW SIM 2 Series of Driver, Fairways, Hybrids, and Irons! Please Enjoy this INSIDER Podcast PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Tom Brassell Welcome to the worldwide golf Shops insider podcast. Episode 325. Greetings everyone. Tom Brassell here. Happy New year again. 2021 is here and it's here on full throttle here on the worldwide golf Shops Insider podcast. The guest list this year will be second to none, once again, and it starts with our special guest today. Always great to catch up with our good friend TaylorMade Golf's David, Abeles. David, how are you my friend? David Abeles What a what? A crazy ride. This has been a rollercoaster Tom hasn't it? and yeah, it feels like we're still Dealing with it a bit here early in 2021, but I'm doing well. I appreciate having some time on The podcast is always and spending some time with all the fans of worldwide golf. So this this time of year is always an exciting one for me to have the opportunity to reengage with you and the team and share a few thoughts about golf and certainly TaylorMade. Tom Brassell Yeah, this is kind of our state of the Union. Let's turn the Clock back David. I mean, it was about what 10 months ago and Everything kind of hit. I think the Big East tournament got stopped at halftime and The Players Championship was going to take us back to what You were doing when all this happened and how it kind of started. David Abeles Yeah, you know, I'll even backtrack beyond ten months ago because it was March 13th or 14th on Friday when Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour suspended play and then ultimately canceled The Players Championship withstand really started to. Create what I call the lever pulls in golf all the different decisions that were being made around our great game sport at the professional level. At the amateur level, and certainly the businesses that's when things started to migrate, but we had had some level of awareness to a virus in China back at the end of last year. Had no idea Was coronavirus had no idea that it was epidemic of sorts at the time that could ultimately manifest itself or develop into a pandemic, but like many like many of us in this industry, we do some work with Asia based entities, some in China and we started to see A little bit of absenteeism and some of the facilities, and so we weren't sure what that was, so we paid very close attention to that.ˇSoˇweˇweˇgot a sense that something unusual was happening at the end of last year. Really. The beginning of this year and then once the media started to get engaged in the Public Health Committee, started to engage both nationally and internationally. We found out like everybody else That there was this epidemic happening in Asia, that ultimately has become coronavirus on a worldwide basis.ˇSoˇwe had a little bit of a notion that there may have been something unusual, although we really didn't know what that was. In our companies. One that I alwaysˇprioritizesˇhealth and safety and everything we do absolutely everything comes its people, customer health and safety. First that tailor made Soˇwe're very cognizant of it then then really to the Genesis of your question, Iˇactually duckedˇout with my family For a couple of days on a holiday inˇmid Marchˇand that's when the news started to break that this isˇseriousˇand we were obviously like every other company going to take this very seriously. And then The Players Championship was suspended. the NBA was suspended. I'm silvers and the NBA suspended the NBA season and then things you know started to ramp so Over the past ten months, there have been a series of actions and decisions that have had to be made on behalf of our sport On behalf of the business and certainly all the people involved, that has been a bit surreal to be honest with you,