TaylorMade Golf—a sports equipment company that designs and manufactures high-performance golf clubs, balls and accessories—chose Evansville as its North American distribution center in 2017. Today, the facility houses and ships 5,000 products for TaylorMade Golf and 3,000 products for Sun Day Red by Tiger Woods.
Jessica Delgado, associate director of PMO and NAM operations, spoke with Inside INdiana Business about raising awareness about the distribution center on Garrison Avenue and the facility’s expected growth.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about TaylorMade Golf.
It was started in 1979 by a gentleman named Gary Adams out of his home. Since then, we’ve always been a private company, and with our current owners in South Korea, we’ve now been owned around the world.
We are up for sale, hoping to stay within that private equity firm. We pride ourselves on attracting the best athletes—Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood—over the years.
Tell me about the distribution center in Evansville.
In 2019, TaylorMade decided to close down six facilities that were spread out between Canada and the U.S. and create one distribution center for our customers. They were shipping golf balls, clubs and accessories out of several different buildings. And we weren’t giving the customer the relationship that we wanted. We wanted you to be able to order gloves and a golf ball, and they would come to you within the same day. You’re talking to the same people.
So we created the distribution center in Evansville in 2019. We’re a little north of 300,000 square feet, and we’re pushing the envelope. We ship all our products out of here. So it doesn’t matter if it’s a bag, a golf ball, a head cover, a club, a glove—it’s all coming out of this facility, no matter what state you’re in.
Why was Evansville chosen as the location for the centralized distribution center?
I like to say it’s because we’re the crossroads of America. Logistically, it was smart. We recently did an evaluation of our customers from wholesale to e-commerce and looked at the graph of where people are buying from, and we can get to 82% within a two-day range. So, to basically try to be Amazon, this was the best location for us.
What kind of growth do you expect at the distribution center?
This year, we got the exciting opportunity to partner with Tiger Woods and launch Sun Day Red. So we have a Sun Day Red launch line on site, and our goal for that was not even to get into the wholesale world until next year. That came super fast.
We want to take more golf ball shares. We want Sun Day Red, now that it’s in wholesale, to keep growing. We want our clubs to stay where they are: number one. We’re excited for the future, and we hope to see that growth year over year that we’ve had since we opened up.
We are definitely expanding. We’re adding constantly. We are looking at adding on to the building for more square footage because we are having to tap into some off-site storage, because we can’t fit it all in. We’re also looking to add more jobs.
What should people do if they’re interested in applying?
We have all sorts of positions posted. They can go to our website, and all of our positions will be listed there. They would need to filter if they wanted to stay within the Evansville region. We also post our golf ball positions in South Carolina on there as well. And our HQ positions at our headquarters in Carlsbad, California, are listed on there.
Will the sale of TaylorMade Golf affect the distribution center’s expansion in Evansville?
No, it will not. We were looking for the next buyer. We want more capital investments. We are looking for that partnership that will supply that for us and meet those needs, which is great. Our executive staff does a fantastic job of making sure we have the right fit and that TaylorMade can still keep driving and doing what they’re doing year over year.
What do you want people to know about the Evansville distribution center?
We are here! When we started up in this building, we were using a third party, [Warehouse Services, Inc.] They were fantastic. They controlled the labor in the building. We had management staff in the building who were TaylorMade, but our headquarters is in Carlsbad. So we took over the labor. We thought it was best for TaylorMade. We still lease the building from [WSI], but it was best for TaylorMade to be in the building.
Now, with us controlling all the hourly labor, we want to be known in Evansville. We are like a hidden gem. We’re behind the old Whirlpool building, so no one knew where we were. We ran a tent sale for the community that went fantastically. We saw 3,000 members in the community within 16 hours in July buy our products at a huge discount. If they didn’t know we were in southern Indiana before, they definitely do now.
We want to invest in this area. We love Evansville. The businesses in Evansville have been absolutely amazing, even when you talk to competitors. We talked to all of these companies, and they all said the same thing: we work together, and we’re sticky. Once you’re in this area, it’s sticky. You can have good people and find good talent here.
What was the reason for the tent sale?
We’ve never attempted a tent sale before. We’ve done them in our headquarters. We didn’t know whether the population would be interested in it here, and we were busting at the seams. We have started an initiative to try to be more well-known in this area. All of those attributes played a role in it. This was the best idea for us.
What are the most popular products right now?
Everyone loves our driver right now. Our putter is flooding the market. Our golf balls are pretty cool with the customization that we’re doing. TaylorMade is really getting into the customization, whether that’s on the clubs or golf balls. You can order your face on a golf ball with your initials if you want.
Our P790s are amazing. The Q Golf product is fantastic. We have Sun Day Red; that’s super hot right now. The training shorts are amazing. We just launched shoes for Sun Day Red. They’re fantastic. And we’re slowly breaking into the women’s market for clothes as well.
Do you plan to have another tent sale in the future?
We will see. It was, without a doubt, fantastic. We used Square for checkout, and we didn’t have a survey or anything. All of a sudden, we’re getting these 10 out of 10 reviews. We didn’t realize it, but it was automated through Square. And the comments we were getting from the community were like, “Your employees were so helpful. They carried my stuff to the car. Your staff was amazing.”
It wasn’t even about how cool it was to receive a product at such a discount. It was about the smiling faces and the people they interacted with during our tent sale.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I started working for the company about six years ago, and it’s been a fantastic switch. I came from foods and then global chemical products. I love sports, so being in the sports industry helps. Our culture is second to none. Our primary defense is our people. We take care of our people. Once you work here, you are taken care of. Your needs are met. It’s a good culture to have and to be a part of. You like waking up every day to go to work for this company.