Interesting Golf Digest Online Surveys

Golf Digest Online or GDO as it is better known as here in Japan recently released an all new Free magazine called GDO Style Book. This magazine focuses more on trends in the golfing world and the lifestyle aspects of both professional and recreational golfers. Volume 1 which just came out has Ai Miyazato on on the cover with her mom and dad as part of a feature in the magazine on pros lady golfers and their parents.

Also included in the magazine was a part of GDO’s recent online survey which I also took part in back in July. GDO not only asked 5000 golfers about equipment, but also food, tv shows and cars and lifestyle related questions. The results were interesting so I thought I would share some of the results them here with you. (I won’t show the food or tv or other Japanese lifestyle related results)

Players with average scores UNDER 80 were asked what they considered to be the best brands for specific clubs and the results came out as follows:

As always Taylormade shows it has a strong following in Japan and the results give Taylormade Japan good reason to continue to market and focus on developing Japan only market products for the demanding golfer.  US brands TM, Callaway and Titleist all show their strong presence in Japan giving big Japanese brands like Tourstage and Mizuno a run for their money. Royal Collection, long been known to make the best woods and utilities still ranks in the top 5 and Fourteen, best know for the wedges places strong in that category.

The above results were base on the answers of single digit handicappers and scratch golfers. If you look at the overall results including all level players the results do change very slightly with XXIO a top brand for the average golfer really helping Srixon move up in the rankings:

GDO asked all the survey participants who their favorite pro golfer is and the results were as follows:

1. Tiger Woods 2. Ryo Ishikawa 3. Ryuji Imada 4. Azuma Yano 5. Shingo Katayama 6. Hideto Tanihara 7. Shigeki Maruyama 8. Tommy Nakajima 9. Keiichi Fukabori 10. Phil Mickleson

GDO then the showed results of what was in each survey participants bag based on who their favorite pro is:

So who your favorite pro is does not seem to affect whats in your bag in Japan. GDO then showed results on what kind of CAR a golfer wants to own based on the driver in his bag:

The last results I’ll post here is how much on average a golfer spends MONTHLY on golf related expenditures (converted to US Dollars based on a 93yen dollar).

43.6% $215.00 to  $538.00
35.9% Under $215.00
8.7% $538.00 to $860.00
8.0% $860.00 to $1075.00
2.1% $1075.00 to $1613.00
1.7% Over $1613.00

So 43.6% of the golfers surveyed spend $2580.00 to $6456.00 a year on golf.  A small 2.1% spend $12900.00 to $19356.00 annually and a 1.7% spend over $19356.00 a year. When you think of it though even 1.7% of 5000 respondents is  85 people. Golf is definitely an expensive pastime but one that Japanese golfers won’t hesitate to pay for.