Based in Scotland while servicing the world, Druids Golf aims to become a one-stop shop for all golf apparel.
In a little more than five years, Druids Golf has established itself as Europe’s fastest-growing, most-affordable golf apparel brand for men. Building on this success, Druids recently launched an expansive women’s clothing range with 10 product categories.
Druids Golf creative director Tim Ferris spoke with Australian Golf Digest Women about his company’s entry into the discerning market of women’s golf apparel as well as its e-commerce retail model that employs more than 150 staff from an Edinburgh base where it distributes globally.
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Australian Golf Digest Women: What will we notice about your new women’s apparel range?
Tim Ferris: A big aim for this year was to give the ladies a bit more than a couple of polos and a couple of mid-layers – actually going to the same kind of aggression and energy that we’ve shown to the men… A big thing for us is having six sizes per style. I’m sure a female consumer doesn’t want to go onto a golf website and see that everything is in the smaller size, like an 8 or a 10. Being inclusive is at the heart of Druids.
By late 2025, there’ll be 150-plus products on our website for ladies, which is huge considering we didn’t have any footprint in the ladies’ market… We’ve invested heavily in it. We’ve put a lot of thought, effort and energy into the design. Our dream’s to make Druids the one-stop shop for all your apparel golfing needs.
What you’ll learn about Druids is that it’s important for us to be affordable without compromising the quality… Our ladies’ jackets are less than 100 Australian dollars. The likes of our dresses are about the same price. Our polos are less than 70 bucks for you guys… We do multi-buys. We do this thing called the Ambassador Pack. Without a doubt, it’s the reason that Druids is where we are today.
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The Ambassador Pack – so you get six products for $250. It’s all tonal, matched and colour co-ordinated?
There are tens of thousands of combinations. You can literally make it your own way… Gone are the days of having to break the bank to look good on the golf course. The other thing that you’ve got to bear in mind is that we’re all trying to grow the game… Where do you actually go to get an outfit that makes you feel like a golfer? That gives you a bit of confidence? That has whatever size you need? That has a variety of colours?
It’s for the people that have played their whole lives and want to try something new. But it’s also for those people that are up and coming in the world, and maybe don’t know how to dress like a golfer.
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One of Sir Donald Bradman’s famous comments was: “If you can’t be a cricketer, at least look like one.”
Yes, that’s it… We market differently. We’ve got lots of cricketers, footballers, all of these guys wearing our stuff because they know it’s great. But we’re not paying $3 million a year for an ambassador – for somebody to be wearing it on either PGA Tour, European tour, LIV or whatever. Everybody’s our ambassador.
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Tell us a bit about the origins of Druids Golf. How did the Druids name come about?
We were based in the Republic of Ireland. Druids can be seen as wizards, a high-ranking class in Celtic cultures. But at the same time, we see ourselves as wizards. Always pulling rabbits out of hats and making it better.
We didn’t wake up as an e-commerce brand. We had done a lot of wholesale, that kind of traditional stuff with pro shops and with your traditional bricks and mortar… The mission was to make the game more affordable because no one was doing it online. No one was giving people that value.
We’ve all grown up, played golf, worn the other brands. We like what some of them do; dislike bits and pieces of others. But the dream was really to make it our way. We spend a lot of time and energy test-driving the products. It’s good that we’re not just in this game to sell clothing and to make money. We all play golf. So it was important for us to create something that we were proud of. In a very short space of time, we set our sights on becoming the No.1 online retailer for affordable golf clothing.
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Where are the majority of your staff based?
In Edinburgh. Home Of Golf. We fulfil from Scotland. We parcel everything up there. You being in Australia, you get it within two to three days, depending on the service that you provide. So it’s not that you’re having to wait an awfully long time for you to get it.
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What have you focused upon with your women’s apparel?
Variety for us is the key thing. That’s been the secret ingredient for Druids. The good news is that for the ladieswear, we’re focusing in on the performance of it. We’ve adapted a lot of the materials that we use – a lot of the waterproof features, a lot of the fleece linings, etc.
It’s important for us to cater for all. We never want to make any customer feel that they can’t wear something because it’s too bright. Or if you’re on the other side of it, you don’t want to wear something because it’s too boring. Golf is a very individual sport. It gives people the opportunity to express themselves… If you feel like a golfer, it’s amazing what it can do for your confidence around the greens, on the fairways, out of the rough or whatever.
For us as well, it’s about being fashion conscious. It’s not about just being boring with very, very simple polo shirts. We’ve got nice splits in our mid-layers. We’ve got various little niche designs. Nice deep V-necks, all of these kinds of things.
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What’s one piece of positive feedback you’ve received about your women’s clothing?
The feedback we’ve had is it’s great to see the variety. It’s also great to see that we’re trying to mirror what we’re doing in the men’s. We haven’t just launched polos and middle layers. We’ve launched more than 10 product categories in ladies.
Our waterproof is where we see our biggest branch of positive feedback because it’s very, very difficult to get a good, affordable, 100-percent waterproof golf suit. It comes with our three-year waterproof warranty as well. Other feedback we’ve had is they like the changes we’ve done with the likes of
our buttons, with our logoing placements. It definitely feels like a female brand as well.
The good thing with us is we’ve got exotic prints, but we’ve also got that more traditional golf look… It’s not all about having one style now. We’ve got customers that are of a certain age, that are of a certain size as well, that might want to still wear the gear but not wear something that’s got butterflies all over it.
