Taylor Made Sale: Looking For Clues In Past Acquisitions

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Get ready to head down nostalgia lane with Golf Digest's Mike Johnson as he reviews eight recent equipment company sales, acquisitions, mergers and other bloodletting in search of clues for a possible Taylor Made sale outcome.

It's not pretty to see how many of these led to the demise of trusted (or semi-trusted) brand names in golf.

This one reminded me how a once solid brand could be unraveled pretty quickly:

Maxfli to TaylorMade 
In 2002, TaylorMade purchased Maxfli and its patent portfolio. Several issues followed as the company could not re-establish the Maxfli brand. A relationship with John Daly as its flagship spokesperson failed, while the ball’s premium reputation took a hit with less-expensive models such as Fire and Noodle making up the bulk of its market share. Six years later TaylorMade—opting to focus on its own ball business—pulled the plug on Maxfli, selling it to sporting-goods chain Dicks, while retaining the Noodle name as a standalone entity.