As the rain fell during Friday’s early round action at the Ryder Cup, the US uniform rain gear apparently failed—big time. The players were soaked, and rumor has it that team officials were running to the merchandise tent to buy replacements. No loss, really. Those rain suits were hideously ugly.
And then at PR Newswire, I spotted this hilarious press release from Gore Tex.
ELKTON, Md., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/—In response to news reports at the Ryder Cup regarding the malfunction of the U.S. Team’s rainwear, W.L. Gore & Associates today issued the following statement:
“It’s unfortunate that the U.S. team at the Ryder Cup was not wearing uniforms with the GORE-TEX® brand, especially if the faulty gear ultimately interfered with performance,” said Yvonne Erickson, marketing leader at W.L. Gore & Associates. “Gore has rigorous uncompromising standards in place to ensure that our products are of the highest quality, to back up our Guaranteed to Keep you Dry® promise to consumers. Gore and Sun Mountain Sports parted ways in 2006 and, therefore, GORE-TEX® brand technology was not used in the rain jackets and pants worn by the U.S. team this morning. We hope that the U.S. Ryder Cup Team will be wearing uniforms with GORE-TEX® product technology in the future.”
Very good move by GoreTex. Sun Mountain’s press release was weak today, and their business will suffer for this.
GoreTex needed to get a clear message out there that this is not a failure of their product. Because of the past connection of the two companies, surely a lot of consumers might think that this product had GoreTex to it. This immediately slams SunMountain, and gives a boost to any company using GoreTex.
What in the world was Sun Mountain thinking sending this product with the team to Wales of all places? And who designed these awful suits? It looked like an NFL jersey with Popeye’s pants.
There seems to be a rule that Ryder Cup clothing must be hideous.