Golfer Sam Ryder Poised To Go Trucking Up The PIP Leaderboard

In golf, caddies sport their player’s surname on the back of their bibs in bold block letters. So, Sam Ryder has been a walking subconscious advertisement for the Florida based logistics and transportation giant that shares his sobriquet years before he inked a deal to put the trucker’s logo on his polo.

Ryder, now in his sixth season on the PGA Tour is well respected by his peers as a hard worker who always brings his maximum effort to the course but he’s hardly a household name. The 33-year-old, currently 60^th in the FedEx Cup standings and 206^th in the Official World Golf Rankings, has amassed $5,872,335 career earnings in his time on golf’s top circuit and slides a little under the radar.

But to a trucking company seeking to increase their visibility and brand awareness in a sport favored by their supply chain solution seeking clientele, the bearded journeyman currently leading the tour in putts from three feet in (golf’s ‘last mile’ so to speak), seems like a perfect vehicle to bolster their customer payload.

“We had been looking at golf for a little bit because it indexes pretty high against our target market,” Karen Jones, Ryder’s CMO and head of new product development, explains.

There was a meet-cute serendipity behind how Sam Ryder in particular, instead of another player on tour was enlisted. A good friend of Jones’ just so happened to be flying on the same flight as Sam and he made a lasting impression on her.

“This fine young man helped her put her luggage up in the overhead compartment and they got to talking,” Jones says. After he told her his name and occupation, his turn of courtesy stowing her bags would beget one in return. The connection to the marketing team was made with a sponsorship deal solidified in Q3 of last year.

It’s one thing to close on a slice of Sam Ryder’s shirt real estate. It’s quite another to decide to put the golfer front and center in a multi-million dollar campaign that includes television spots set to air on NBC and Golf Channel the week of the Masters, The Open and The Ryder Cup.

The self-aware campaign features Ryder and his fictitious agent played by comedian Brian Dunkleman who once co-hosted American Idol. In the goofy and lighthearted advertisement, the duo ponder the rationale behind why the logistics giant took an interest in Sam Ryder, echoing the real life surprise the golfer felt when the opportunity fell in his lap.

“I was surprised for sure and I don’t have acting experience. When I was reading the scripts, I was nervous. I was more nervous getting ready to film than I am getting ready for the final round of a golf tournament when there’s the chance to win. It was definitely new territory for me,” Ryder explains.

It won’t be the first time all eyes of the golf world settled on Sam Ryder. At last year’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, Ryder’s pin-hunting tee shot on No. 16 took a couple hops before dunking into the cup. The ace took place on what is aptly known as ‘the loudest hole in golf,’ overlooked by a triple-decker grandstand packed with 17,000 fans. When the ball dropped on the first hole-in-one witnessed on the par-3 in seven years, jubilant fans erupted, causing the contents of adult beverages to rain down on the turf with green quickly blanketed in a sea of aluminum cans.

The raucous beer shower scene will never be replicated in exactly the same manner. In the name of public safety, the PGA Tour has put into place new measures for this week’s tourney. Namely, replacing cans with green commemorative beer cups along with signage in hospitality areas warning of zero tolerance for throwing objects onto the course.

“The cups look cool. You can probably throw a cup but the liquid is going to fall out before it gets too far but it won’t come in like a torpedo from 60 feet away,” Ryder, says adding that the fun factor of the hole will continue on. He applauds the new safety measures as when fans were celebrating his wild moment last year, at the back of his mind he was concerned about the potential for someone to get hurt from all the hurled projectiles.

The spotlight turned to Ryder again a couple weeks back at the Farmers Insurance Open where he finished tied for 4^th but earned more headlines thanks to fashion flack directed his way by John Daly and Phill Mickelson. The golfers mocked him on social media for wearing cranberry joggers that in their eyes, maybe showed a little too much ankle.

“It’s all in good fun in my opinion. There’s nothing really personal. I didn’t feel the need to go into a battle with these guys on Twitter. I had a good week and was more focused on that,” Ryder says.

Many fans came to the defense of Ryder’s sartorial choices. Asked about jogger-gate, Xander Schauffele, the No. 6^th ranked golfer in the world, offered supportive words as well.

“I don’t know if it’s just people taking shots because there are certain ways to stay relevant in the game but those people have all tried to wear ‘fashionable’ things, whether that’s a button-up looking like he’s going to go into a cubicle ‘Phil’, wearing joggers like he could go to the airport right after his round ‘Ryder’ and the wearing loud, out-there clothes ‘John Daly’. To each his own,” Schauffele said.

Anyway you crunch it, Ryder’s newfound visibility will certainly raise his stock in the $100 million Player Impact Program standings, especially if he parlays the confidence boost of the Ryder campaign into a career year, something that may just be in the offing.