Relative to Nike's big three – running, basketball and soccer – Nike Golf is a mere putt-putt in terms of revenue.
The annual sales of that troika amounted to $9 billion in the past fiscal year, nearly half of the $20.8 billion in Nike Brand wholesale revenues. Nike Golf accounted for $791 million in the fiscal year ending in May.
Despite its stature, Nike Golf remains a high-visibility segment within Nike – and, executives point out, its sales have grown between 9 percent and 10 percent over the past three years. The value Nike places on the segment was on full display Thursday at the Tiger Woods Center on the company's headquarters campus in unincorporated Beaverton, as the company introduced a range of footwear, apparel, clubs and balls for 2014.
"The new products are designed to unleash the athlete in every golfer in a way that only Nike can," the company said in a news release.
More than 70 golf bloggers and journalists were invited to the campus from across the United States, China, Japan, Europe and Canada. Many will be traveling Friday to Las Vegas to test the products.
Thursday's event featured Nike Golf executives, designers and four company-sponsored professionals: Jhonattan Vegas of Maturin, Venezuela; Kyle Staley of Gig Harbor, Wash.; Kevin Chappell of Fresno, Calif.; and Paul Casey of Cheltenham, England.
U.S. sales of golf hard goods and apparel amounted to a total of $2.6 billion in more than 15,000 independent and on-course shops in 2012, said Tom Stine, co-founder of Golf Datatech LLC of Kissimmee, Fla. The figure – $1.6 billion for clubs, balls and other hard goods and $1 billion for apparel – doesn't measure sales at larger retailers that sell golf gear.
Nike Golf is the leader in apparel sales, both in the U.S. and globally, said Merritt Richardson, Nike Golf vice president of apparel and footwear.
Product improvements in apparel, footwear as well as hard goods are based on consultation with Nike-sponsored golfers, she said.
"Nike is about listening to athletes and making athletes great at what they do," Richardson said.
Richardson and other executives also made the case Thursday that Nike Golf is valuable to the company in ways that aren't measured by revenue figures. Nike Golf provides marketing value to the entire company, they said, as its athletes display the Swoosh in televised, high-profile events before an audience with disposable income.
In the same way, the Nike Pro TurboSpeed skinsuit that Nike-sponsored sprinters wore in the 2012 London Olympic Games also provided prestigious exposure for the brand, said Richardson, who oversaw Nike's Olympics effort.
The big difference between a skinsuit and the Nike-sponsored professional golfers' duds, Richardson said, is that a television viewer can "see what they're wearing and can go out and buy that as well."
Golf apparel and footwear developers at Thursday's event said product development is keeping pace with the athleticism of contemporary golfers.
"Some of the most explosive athletes in the world are playing golf," said Eric Schindler, men's product director for Nike Golf apparel.
While it has dabbled in footwear and apparel for three decades, Nike's golf lineage doesn't go back nearly as far as its ties to running or other sports.
It started with the creation of a business plan for golf in 1984, followed the next year by the signing of golfer Seve Ballesteros of Spain. The brand ratcheted up its game after the 1996 signing of Tiger Woods, which was followed by the introduction of Nike's first ball in 2000 and first clubs in 2002.
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