Shhhh!!! Or you could screw up Scottie Scheffler\u2019s stroke.<\/p>\n
The Masters Tournament, which began yesterday at Augusta National Golf Club, continues through Sunday when one bogey man will be fitted with the famous winner\u2019s jacket in verdant Pantone 342 C<\/a>. Considered by many the sport\u2019s most prestigious event, the contest comes at a time when Americans are playing the most golf in two decades, but some firms have found that capitalizing on the economics requires expert-level finesse with metaphorical wedges and mid-irons.<\/p>\n No Handicaps<\/p>\n According<\/a> to the National Golf Foundation, the number of players who hit the links annually in the United States has risen by more than 5 million over the past eight years. In 2025, it reached 29.1 million, within putting distance of the 2003 record of 30.6 million set during Tiger Woods\u2019 superstar peak<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s been great for course operators, with nearly 70% telling the foundation they are in \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cexcellent\u201d financial shape. For equipment manufacturers, it\u2019s more complicated, with inflation, tariffs and consumer sentiment colliding like a macroeconomic crosswind over the fairway. Publicly traded Callaway Golf and Acushnet, two leading makers of balls, clubs and other equipment, both<\/a> reported<\/a> in February that tariffs were squeezing their margins. Acushnet said it expected to incur $70 million in import taxes this year and Callaway $40 million (those figures may change since the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration\u2019s International Emergency Economic Powers Act levies). Tariffs have coincided with rising equipment prices<\/a>, and while dollar sales are climbing, unit sales haven\u2019t kept pace as consumers report<\/a> inflation fatigue. It\u2019s a tough course, but executives have made some big shots:<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Callaway strengthened its balance sheet with the sales of outdoor apparel maker Jack Wolfskin and a 60% stake in sports-gaming businesses Topgolf, repositioning itself as a pure golf play. That helped the company pay down $1 billion in debt before leaders authorized a $200 million buyback program to reward shareholders.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Callaway is forecasting 2026 sales to be roughly flat around $2.1 billion, its shares are up 24% this year amid the streamlined focus. Acushnet forecasts 2.5% to 4.5% sales growth, and is up 23%.<\/p>\n Institutional Enthusiasm: An SEC filing<\/a> this week revealed that Rochester-based advisory O\u2019Keefe Stevens boosted its stake in Callaway, with the holding<\/a> now 4% of the fund or more than Berkshire Hathaway. Given Callaway\u2019s exceptionally high 12-month trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 69, that\u2019s quite the vote of confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shhhh!!! Or you could screw up Scottie Scheffler\u2019s stroke. The Masters Tournament, which began yesterday at Augusta National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[120636,49,142469,48,16326,622,119053,82],"class_list":["post-593999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-acushnet","tag-ca","tag-callaway-golf","tag-canada","tag-earnings","tag-golf","tag-masters","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}