Teeing Up Brand
Every brand that emotionally connects to its customers, and all the successful brands do, has a duality at its core. Since brand is everywhere, this is true for companies, products, people and especially sports. One example is NFL football. NFL football has a combination of physicality and raw emotion.
Those who play the game are physically gifted. They are elite athletes who can run faster, jump higher and are bigger, stronger than the average human. Professional football players are amazing athletes. This is what the game features. The emotional aspect for its customers, the fans, comes from what Donna Cavanagh pointed out in an article she wrote in the Bleacher Report, “Why Do We Love NFL Football.”
She wrote, “I believe it is the momentum of football that drags me in. Momentum transfers easily from players to fans. We almost feel what a player feels when he makes a great catch in the end zone, or a great tackle that stops a first-down conversion. We feel a player’s pain when he drops the pass that might have saved the game.”
Professional golf is another sport populated with elite athletes. They have a combination of athletic abilities that include strength, flexibility and balance that few people have. And yet, it is the mental or emotional side of the game that often dominates the sport.
The mental gymnastics of the sport came to the forefront the last two weekends. First was the Bay Hill Classic one weekend ago, and the Player’s Championship this past weekend. Englishman, Lee Westwood noted for for his consistency, and is one of the few golfers who has won tournaments on five continents – Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Oceania – including victories on the European Tour and the PGA Tour. In both recent tournaments, he entered the final round in the final pairing.
At Bay Hill, Westwood hit a magnificent drive on the 18 hole only to have his ball roll out into a divot. He hit a decent shot to the green, but still lost by one shot because he didn’t get it close enough to make birdie and force a playoff. Fans began to post online that he should have been able to take a free drop rather play it as it lies. Westwood has now responded online and it seems although a free drop would have favored him at Bay Hill, he is happy with the current rule: “Just got to shrug it off and get on with it. The game was never meant to be fair. That’s the mental challenge.”
On the past weekend, at the Players, Westwood was bested by one stroke by Justin Thomas, who incidentally was born in the same year as Westwood turned pro. “This week was huge to win a big championship like this in front of fans again, which is incredible. It tested me mentally, physically, emotionally, and I’m very proud of myself for getting it done.”
A footnote to Westwood is his caddie and fiancée, Helen Storey. “Obviously I get on well with Helen,” Westwood told reporters during the 2019 Open Championship. “She doesn’t know too much about golf but she knows a lot about the way my mind works. So, she keeps me in a good frame of mind and focusing on the right things at the right time. There’s more to the caddying than carrying and getting the wind direction.”
