For most chief executives, a round on the golf course is a quiet Friday afternoon treat after the business of the day is done. For Nigel Oddy, the fairways and bunkers of Britain are his second office as he meets with suppliers to his American Golf stores.
The retail veteran has run Europe’s biggest golf retailer since April 2023, reviving a childhood love for the sport and making him now intent on improving his handicap. American Golf is a British company, which started life in a garden shed in Warrington in 1978 and was given its name after its founders were inspired by the vast courses across the pond.
Now, its 85 stores are staffed by golf enthusiasts. Oddy asks a sales assistant at a central London outlet his handicap. An accomplished “plus two” is the response. “Sickening isn’t it,” the executive says, smiling.
Over the sound of a customer testing clubs by powering shots into an onscreen animation, Oddy says he has asked employees to focus on the minutiae of retail as he aims to create a “one-stop shop”.
Touring the London store near the Monument – where the clientele are often City boys preparing for corporate golf events – he zeroes in on the finer details: the placement of shoes, the angle of shirts on display and the array of golf balls, precisely laid out. He quizzes the passing store manager on his items-per-basket target. “We’ve got to treat every customer as a VIP,” he says.
Oddy was hired by the company’s private equity owner, Endless, to steady the ship after a tumultuous few years. American Golf collapsed into administration under its previous owner in 2018. “Sun Capital focused on discount: you could bring in a set of rusty old clubs and they’d give you money off a new set. What are you going to do with those clubs? Not a lot.”
Two years later, with Endless now at the wheel, the pandemic shuttered all stores. But Britons’ post-lockdown freedom briefly made golf a boom sport, setting the tills ringing. It also encouraged an ambitious American Golf to overstretch its resources and record a loss in 2023.
When Oddy teed off at the company, he quickly put its six golf courses up for sale and focused on getting stores motoring. “You have to be an expert to run a golf course … I can sell stuff, but I can’t deal with irrigation,” he says.
Once the sell-off is complete, the company’s 800 employees will be focused on online operations and stores in retail parks, driving ranges and at courses – selling its big brands and own labels such as Benross and Stromberg, alongside sidelines in holidays and insurance.
Oddy hopes to grow the business both by personalising products (custom-designed balls, for example) and expanding its customer base beyond middle-class men.
“We don’t want it to just be retired guys – it should be for everyone. We want to get as many juniors playing as we can,” he says. “We sat down and said, ‘how do you get people who are almost a bit intimidated by coming into a golf shop?’”
To this end, popular Tour pro Andrew “Beef” Johnston has been enlisted to promote the brand, and it is working with disabled and blind golfers, black British golfers and an LGBTQIA+ golfing society. The retailer also opened its first concession store in a Go Outdoors in Gloucester, to tempt anglers and horse riders to try golf.
A renewed interest in the sport, fuelled by the recent Netflix sports documentary series Full Swing, has helped Oddy’s mission. This summer’s raucous Olympic competition and the row over the split created by the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf Tour has also drawn attention to the sport.
“These bring golf to the fore – it can’t do any harm,” says Oddy.
But LIV is just sportswashing, isn’t it? “I’m not a politician. What Saudi Arabia are doing in boxing, F1, golf – they are bringing new audiences. Whether it’s sportswashing or not is not my area. I want people of all areas of life wanting to play golf.”
By coincidence, Oddy grew up near American Golf’s Warrington headquarters, in Helsby, Cheshire, and inherited his vocation (and support for Everton Football Club) from his father, who ran a small womenswear business.
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After leaving school, he spent two decades at Marks & Spencer, starting on the sock counter, later becoming general manager of its much-debated Marble Arch store and spending time in the Far East building its nascent global supply chain.
He also led House of Fraser and helped devise its sale to a department store group owned by China’s Sanpower conglomerate. Oddy recalls how its chair, the billionaire Yuan Yafei, chain-smoked through an intense daylong negotiation over the £450m deal at Claridge’s hotel. “I came out, my eyes were red and my throat was awful,” he recalls.
Oddy grew tired of monthly summons to Nanjing to report on trading, but efforts to seek a quiet life didn’t last long. In 2018, he was tasked by the founder of The Range, Chris Dawson, to prepare the homewares chain to float on the stock market, before the self-styled “Del Boy”-like billionaire ditched the idea. New Look came next, with Oddy navigating Covid and a refinancing which was sandwiched between two painful restructuring processes. He was also dealing with the loss of his brother, mother and father in quick succession.
Another colourful retail tycoon, John Hargreaves, persuaded Oddy to take a six-month deal to secure clothing chain Matalan’s future. Oddy quickly got caught between Hargreaves and the chain’s lenders in a battle the former lost.
His dealmaking experience could soon prove handy for Endless.
Oddy has brought the company back into the black, with an underlying profit of £4.4m in the last financial year, on revenues of £145m. This year, he expects to remain in profit and beat last year’s sales despite a soggy summer having depressed golfers’ appetites to hit the greens.
After an unusually long six years in situ, is Endless getting itchy feet? “There is no pressure to sell the business … They’re quite happy with it. But if the right offer came along … I would imagine [Endless] would want to talk to you.” Oddy puts his bet on a trade sale, rather than a flotation in a stagnant market.
Oddy shows no sign of heading towards the 19th hole of his career. “My wife doesn’t believe I’ll ever stop working. I just love it – next week I’m playing on the Trump course in LA. It is work – trying out new clubs.” Sure, Nigel, sure.
CV
Age 64
Family Married with two sons.
Education Helsby grammar school.
Pay Undisclosed equity stake in the business.
Last holiday Algarve, Portugal.
Biggest regret “I was very loyal to M&S but if I had my time again, I wouldn’t do 23 years in one business. Now it’s about the experience you bring from working with a number of brands.”
Best advice he’s been given “Be yourself and treat people as you would expect to be treated.”
Phrase he overuses “Retail is detail.”
How he relaxes Playing golf, running.
