Sun Mountain Apology

[Danny Noonan]

I'm big on Sun Mountain gear. Love it!

So whats this all about? I only caught a little bit of the Ryder Cup, unfortunately, so I do not know what happened.

http://www.sunmountain.com/

October 5, 2010

Sun Mountain Sports is very sorry for the way our rain suits performed at the Ryder Cup.

We will apologize to Corey & Lisa Pavin and the U.S. team at our earliest opportunity, and hope they will accept our heartfelt apology for the stress this must have caused.

We are evaluating what happened. Our RainFlex, introduced in 2006, has been extensively and successfully used by over 150 tour players, the 2009 Presidents Cup team, the 2007 and 2009 Walker Cup teams and thousands of PGA professionals.

We believed, as Corey must have, that our RainFlex, built with quiet, stretchable, breathable fabric would be an advantage to the U.S. team. That it was not is a great disappointment. It just was not enough for the torrential rains at Celtic Manor.

Sincerely,



Rick Reimers
Owner, Sun Mountain Sports, Inc.



My apologies, if this was already posted or discussed elsewhere.

[Clambake]

I easily understand how you missed it, as it was a pretty obscure story only covered by extensively by ESPN, Golf Channel, NBC, USA Network, network news, Sky Sports, and the AP and Reuters stories were only picked up by small newspapers (those with circulations greater than about a thousand readers). [end sarcasm here]

Seriously, just use search here on TST for "Ryder Cup Rainsuits" or Google and you'll be deluged by far more than you ever wanted to know.

[sean_miller]

http://www.pgatour.com/2010/r/10/08/...der/index.html

[MSchott]

http://www.pgatour.com/2010/r/10/08/...der/index.html

Based on this link the issue was hugely overblown and it was very gracious of the owner of Sun Mountain to take a mea culpa when apparently he did not need to do so. It angers me that the press and in particular NBC made this a story when it seems that it was not.

[Clambake]

http://www.pgatour.com/2010/r/10/08/...der/index.html

I have one issue with this article and that is how the writer interpreted the player's quotes, indicating that those were some proof that there wasn't a problem or that it wasn't as bad as indicated. This seems OK if one just reads what the player said. But I watched a lot of the coverage, including those players quoted in the article (plus some others) and while their words said one thing it appeared pretty clear to me that some were just being good corporate PGA citizens and backing up their Captain and his wife - their body language and how they said those words seemed to speak a different story. I could certainly wrong, but over 30 years in business and exec management has helped teach me to look for the non-verbal cues as well to figure out what the real story is, and I remember thinking with each one of those interviews "wow, they ought to be in a corporate PR department!".

Also note that the writer is the "PGA Tour Fashion Insider" and he writes for (and is presumable paid by) the PGA Tour. It is logical to expect that PGA tour would want to be supportive of the Captain and a major company like Sun Mountain and not throw them both under the bus. I may be cynical here, but my belief is that this was an orchestrated article to help defuse the overall problem. Again, years of working with PR departments and helping craft hundreds of press releases has given a lot of insight into corporate spin control.

[ghalfaire]

I don't know anything about Sun Mountain rain gear but have used their bags, 3 wheeled carts, and wind shirts and found them to be good value. So I believe there was a problem at the Ryder Cup but it may have been an anomaly or a lot related problem as I do also think they manufacture quality products in general.

[DDSeabolt]

They must be talking about the reverse rain suit problem they had at Celtic Manor. Instead of the rain being kept out it was kept in and two members of the US team almost drowned. It was scary but luckily they are strong swimmers and barely survived.

[dunstert]

Based on this link the issue was hugely overblown and it was very gracious of the owner of Sun Mountain to take a mea culpa when apparently he did not need to do so. It angers me that the press and in particular NBC made this a story when it seems that it was not.

When you had several players choosing not to wear the suit at all

in driving rain I don't think the story was overblown. The suits were a huge failure. We can discuss WHY they failed, but the fact that they were terrible really isn't up for debate.

[bong_crosby]

I've used Sun Mountain products for 20+ years and have always been happy with their stuff. I always knew of them as a smallish type company out of Missoula, MT but someone told me Callaway bought them out. Is this true? To me that would explain the screw up with the rain gear at the Ryder Cup - any time a smaller business is swallowed up by a conglomeration, the product suffers, as does the customer service - which would explain the response to my last call to SM customer service a while back.

[Clambake]

I've used Sun Mountain products for 20+ years and have always been happy with their stuff. I always knew of them as a smallish type company out of Missoula, MT but someone told me Callaway bought them out. Is this true? To me that would explain the screw up with the rain gear at the Ryder Cup - any time a smaller business is swallowed up by a conglomeration, the product suffers, as does the customer service - which would explain the response to my last call to SM customer service a while back.

No, I do not believe it is true and per Hoover's Sun Mountain Sports is still a privately held company - you speculations about acquisition-related problems are baseless.

[alo1984]

Did anyone else think that apology was poorly written and seemed a bit kurt?

[zeg]

Did anyone else think that apology was poorly written and seemed a bit kurt?

I thought it was fine. It apologized clearly. They don't need to grovel. It has a bit more marketing content than seems really appropriate, but I suspect even that is sincere. I think it's a case that the rain gear simply wasn't spec'ed to meet the kind of rain they got. There are different varieties of rain protection, which trade waterproofness against breathability, etc. Had it been less of a torrent, they'd have probably been happy to have lighter-weight rain gear.

But anyway, even with the spin, it basically says "We apologize. This is why we thought it would be acceptable. We're disappointed that it wasn't good enough." Seems ok to me.

[alo1984]

I thought it was fine. It apologized clearly. They don't need to grovel. It has a bit more marketing content than seems really appropriate, but I suspect even that is sincere. I think it's a case that the rain gear simply wasn't spec'ed to meet the kind of rain they got. There are different varieties of rain protection, which trade waterproofness against breathability, etc. Had it been less of a torrent, they'd have probably been happy to have lighter-weight rain gear.

"sorry you didn't like our stuff" is how it seemed to me. They would have been better off wearing mickey mouse ponchos.

[zeg]

"sorry you didn't like our stuff" is how it seemed to me. They would have been better off wearing mickey mouse ponchos.

I don't know, they specifically said "Sun Mountain Sports is very sorry for the way our rain suits performed at the Ryder Cup." That's all they really need to say, IMO.