When Buick dropped Tiger Woods (or was it the other way around?). Mrs. GolfBlogger wondered aloud if Cadillac would drop Fred Couples—a favorite of hers.
It’s happened.
While Fred surely makes a pittance compared to the Striped One, I guess with the slide of the car industry, every dollar counts.
Couples has been with Cadillac since he won the 1992 Masters, and I think its going to be a bit weird seeing his shirt without the Cadillac crest.
Tiger and Couples losing their sponsorships is surely just a sign of things to come for professional golf. If these two prominent golfers can’t deliver sufficient return for the dollar, you know that the second and third tier players are also on the chopping block. I think its possible you’ll see players dropped from various golf product sponsorships. The big boys—TaylorMade, Titleist, Callaway, et. al—likely will remain in the game because they want to be able to claim that they’re they Number One Driver In Golf, and so on. But the little guys could very well go the Tour Edge route and eschew sponsorships as a strategy. I also think its possible that the big guys could refocus their efforts. Callaway, for example, might figure out that it’s never going to be the number one driver on Tour and instead focus its efforts on irons.
It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
Interesting Couples trivia: He roomed with Jim Nantz in college.
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I can see the Buick Tiger thing- I don’t think it makes sense for GM to let Tiger go, but maybe it would have made more sense to move him to Chevy, Pontiac, or GMC. The Buick sponsorship might make more sense in China where the Park Avenue is, I think, a pretty popular sedan.
The Couples thing is more mysterious though. It can’t be that much money to keep Fred, he is very popular, and he is just about to go Champions. When he does, I think we will see a lot more Fred that we have the last couple years.
My guess is that Fred will turn up with a Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, or Mercedes logo on his shirt, and I think that is a shame. (not for him, but for US.)