The Beckett Blog

Reading Pepper’s post regarding the Upper Deck 2001 golf cards brought back some very clear memories for me.

I was working in sales for UD at the time and the golf set was a major priority, all due to the steadily rising popularity of Tiger Woods. Had UD not signed a deal with Tiger, the set would have never happened. Even that early in his career, for many, including a majority of collectors, it was all about Tiger.

The UD sales team was hosting a distributor meeting in Carlsbad when the meeting took place with Tiger. In attendance with Tiger were his parents and his IMG agent, Mark Steinberg.  UD put on the full court press with the executive team led by Richard McWilliam, Bill Dully and Mike Gardner. The meeting took place at a Marriott Courtyard near his parents’ home in Cypress, California.

After the meeting Mike came back with some interesting tidbits from the meeting. Tiger walked into the hotel with a big bag of food from McDonalds and a large drink. He ate a couple of quarter Pounders and a large order of fries during the meeting. I am not sure that is a big part of his nutrition plan anymore.

Tiger’s Mom was very interested in all of the UDA product samples that were presented. In fact, she asked if she could keep most of them. I wonder if she has an ebay account?

During the presentation there was a demonstration of UDA’s PenCam, the patented pen used to sign memorabilia that utilizes video of from the pen’s view. Tiger was intrigued and began to sign the UD presentation booklet while watching the camera to see how it worked. Gardner noticed that when the meeting was over, Tiger left the presentation booklet. So he rushed to the table and picke it up, giving him the first sigs ever penned by Tiger using the PenCam. Later he opened the booklet to see that Tiger, instead of signing his name, had written, Jack Daniels. Sorry, Mike.

Tiger agreed, in principle, to a deal that day but it was over six months later before product was released. During that time, the mad scramble was on to sign up other golfers for the set. UD reps Dan Bruton and Rob Gamboa became PGA TOUR regulars getting players signed up. they felt their biggest failure was not being able to get a deal done with Phil Mickelson. His agent was tough. But, in hindsight, it worked out for the best because it gave UD a marquee “rookie card” for 2002.

In 2003, it was about the rookie cards of Annika Sorenstam, Natalie Gullbis and Nancy Lopez. That really did not create much excitement among collectors and it was apparent that the sets were about only a small hand full of players, in terms of collecting value. They were no  pleasantsurprises to bolster the collectibility of the sets. The list would be:

1. Tiger Woods
2. Tiger Woods
3. Arnold Palmer
4. Jack Nicklaus
5. Phil Mickelson
6. Byron Nelson

It didn’t last long, but for a couple of years, UD’s golf sets created a lot of excitement for collectors.