I agree that the public courses over-word their logos in the name of branding.
My question is: why? The last two posters on this thread - one who is in the marketing business - just specifically said that they DON'T buy stuff from public courses when the logos have too much branding on them (ie, too many words littering up the logo). Make it 3. I don't buy public (or even private) course shirts unless the wording is minimal.
Query: what good does all this supposed branding do if nobody buys the shirts because the logos are hideous? In other words, if a brand falls in the forest, and there's nobody there to wear it, does it make an impact?
Wouldn't most of these public courses with the bawdy, over-worded logos be better off from a branding perspective to have a cool logo with LESS wording, so that people will actually BUY the shirts and wear them and serve as the walking billboards they're suppose to?
Cost benefit analysis. I'm not saying they are right, but the thinking presumably would be this:
Would I rather sell twice as many shirts and hats, or would I rather sell half as many, but the ones I do sell get seen by every person that the buyer encounters whenever he wears said shirt or hat in the future.
If some guy goes and plays his weekly skins game with a hat with a giant steer skull on it, someone might think it was a ranching company or the local AA baseball team. But if it says TOBACCO ROAD in prominent print, then it's free advertising.
Friars Head, who we almost unanimously agree has a great logo, isn't really interested in advertising.
This thread is evidence that many of us are logo snobs. So using me as a barometer of whether or not a logo strategy is effective is probably unfair.
Just as a matter of unscientific research, I am going through my logo ball collection right now and of the 63 that have made the current cut to be on the wall, here is the breakdown:
18 of them have no club name or just initials - ALL 18 of these are private
13 of them have what I would call subtle or fringe text in them. Only 2 of these are public - Pinehurst, Grove Park, and Royal New Kent
32 have prominent text, 18 of which are public
And this is just what's on the wall. Naturally, I think we all tend to show off the stuff we like more (and that is often from private courses), so of the 200 or so balls in the basket, the majority are public.
There are only two out of all my collection, 250 or so balls, that are public and have no course name on the logo ball - Barona Creek and Hunter Ranch
One oddity was Pinon Hills (who includes their address on the thing, taking the marketing utility of the logo to the extreme)
I also think it's funny/shameless when you see courses that put "Golf Digest Best in South Carolina" or "Golfweek top 100 Modern" on their hats.
The other answer and possibility is that the people responsible for marketing decisions at public golf courses aren't that bright. But despite my design sensibilities I'd have to say that there probably is something to branding your course name.
Consider a parallel to reality television. There are tons of respectable producers and writers who work in reality television simply because it cashes the checks. Hollywood recycles a summer blockbuster for an unnecessary sequel and makes a killing, whereas genius independent fillmakers struggle to cover 5-figure budgets with excellent films.
At the end of the day, 99% of public golf facilities are in it to make money. So if they give up a little of the ideal in order to do so, I can't really blame them.
Maybe they sell a few more windshirts and hats with a better, more subtle logo, but they have probably concluded that it hinders their efforts at getting their name recognized.