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Thieves are smashing into golf stores and grabbing pricey equipment. The Edwin Watts Golf store chain hopes a reward will catch the thieves.
By RICHARD DANIELSON
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 3, 2001
PALM HARBOR -- Tired of being hit by smash-and-grab burglars who come in with a plan and a shopping list, the Edwin Watts Golf store chain is offering a $100,000 reward for help catching the thieves.
The latest in a series of similar robberies took place about 6 a.m. Jan. 25 at the Edwin Watts Golf store at 32257 U.S. 19 N.
Someone used a car, perhaps rigged with a makeshift battering ram, to bash a 2-foot-wide hole in the rear door of the building.
The thieves then slipped in and stole 67 top-of-the-line Callaway Hawkeye VFT woods that sell for $400 each. They also took 11 complete sets of Callaway irons valued at $900 to $1,200 a set. The total value of the haul was about $40,000, store manager Dave Martin said Friday.
The forced entry immediately set off an alarm, and the alarm company called the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. But it was too late.
"I think they got in and out in under three minutes," Martin said.
Now, as a result of that heist and others like it around the country, the Edwin Watts Golf chain has offered a $100,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the thieves.
Corporate executives in Fort Walton Beach said the chain has been hit by about 10 similar thefts in the past three to four years and has sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. The chain has 49 stores in 10 states.
"That's why we're offering such a large reward," vice president for marketing Lincoln Cox said. "We're tired of it happening over and over again."
Company founder Edwin Watts has said that the stolen clubs may be sold over the Internet, by mail order, by unscrupulous retailers or to overseas buyers.
"We do believe it is an organized group that is most likely selling these goods to some retailers around the country," Cox said.
Martin said the Palm Harbor store alone has been hit three times in nine years by smash-and-grab thieves.
"They're very selective," he said. "They always take Callaway equipment. . . . Whatever the current model woods are, that's what they grab."
On Friday, the company noted that Callaway has begun to put serial numbers on its clubs to make them easier to trace if stolen.
Sheriff's investigators believe the thieves used a red Mazda 626 to smash through the lower part of a reinforced steel door at the Palm Harbor store, spokesman Cal Dennie said. Detectives are pretty sure of the make, model and color of the car because it left red paint scrapings on the concrete block building and lost a hubcap and a Mazda 626 emblem at the scene.
Martin said investigators told him that the car might have had a tire or some other object on the front to help push in the door. It was not known, however, whether the thief or thieves had a larger vehicle used to carry away the clubs.
The Edwin Watts Palm Harbor store recently doubled its size to 10,000 square feet, and the store is designed with security in mind. The front door and windows are secured by heavy metal strips, and the Callaway clubs are in a rear corner to discourage anyone from trying to grab them quickly.
Based on the speed of the robbery, Martin said he thought the thief had been through the store beforehand and knew exactly where to go. "We definitely got cased," he said. "They knew exactly where to go, what to do."
Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Edwin Watts Golf's corporate office at (800) 874-0146, ext. 127, or Pinellas County sheriff's Detective Mike Weaver at (727) 582-6900.
- Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Staff writer Richard Danielson can be reached at (727) 445-4194 or danielson@sptimes.com.