Golf Instructor Puts His Tips on Tape, Chips In a Winner

Bob Mann is a 51-year-old lifelong physical fitness fanatic who would rather stretch, bend, flex, lift, push, pull, strain and sweat than almost anything--except, possibly, strike a golf ball.

Mann, a professional golf instructor, pays close attention to his physical appearance partly because he makes videocassette tapes of himself in his business, but mostly because he loves exercise and all that accompanies it, with a passion.

It wouldn’t be unusual to see him roller-skating from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes, about 20 miles, or pedaling a knobby-wheeled bicycle along the Pacific Crest Trail, which he has traversed in stages from Canada to Mexico.

Mann has a 650-square-foot gym in his Lake Elizabeth home that rambles through four rooms, where he works out 2 1/2 hours daily.

“I love to train,” he said. And, happily for Mann, his almost obsessive life style--which may have contributed considerably to two divorces--finally is paying off in the highly competitive world of videocassette sales.

If Bob Mann’s name carried the commercial impact of, say, Jane Fonda’s, sales of his TV videocassette products--like the actress’s workout tapes--surely would be skyrocketing.

Now, they are merely booming and have been for some time.

Expensive, full-page color ads in sports magazines pitch his videos on karate, isometric exercise, weight training and golf.

His latest video, on weight training, came out this month, and more fitness-oriented programs--bicycling, bowling, fitness testing at home and overall body toning--are on the drawing board.

“Automatic Golf,” his most successful video, is the top-selling golf instructional tape in the United States, with more than 450,000 copies sold. It has consistently ranked No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s sports and recreation chart from its inception.

Recently, his book bearing the same title and a photo of him on the cover was published by The Body Press of Tucson.

Still Relatively Unknown

Such national exposure, it might be assumed, would tend to make Mann famous, but he remains relatively unknown.

However, contrasted with his obscurity only a few years ago, when he poured his life savings into a “tough-sell” notion that has developed into a 24-hour-a-day video-producing business, he might now be labeled a celebrity.

“I took them out and sold them one at a time, a store at a time,” Mann said, recalling how he started his business in 1982. “I spent six months promoting myself. It was a horrendous experience.”

At the outset, Mann’s golf cassette sold for $69.50, and the video stores might take three--”one rental and two for the showcase.”

“But nobody would buy them,” he said. “They would rent it, then come back and buy one. And the stores would get letters (praising the video) from golfers.”

Lowered the Price

However, it wasn’t until he lowered his price (eventually to the current $14.95) and began distributing the tapes to specialty shops that his business “turned the corner.” He now distributes about 85% of his cassettes directly to chain outlets, such as K mart, J.C. Penney, Wherehouse Entertainment and others.

With the lower price, the tape has become a top-seller in video stores as well.

“The only other one that has sold even close to that is Jack Nicklaus’ ‘Golf My Way,’ ” said Michael Williams, manager at the Tower Video store in Los Angeles. “But that’s a lot more expensive so it doesn’t sell as much.”

Mann launched his company, Video Reel, in an 800-square-foot building in Canoga Park, but last year moved to a much larger facility in Valencia, where he employs 27 people.

He said his company produces 2,800 tapes daily--half of them “Automatic Golf.”

Nonetheless, a random check among Southland golf professionals and others connected with the sport disclosed that, whereas Mann’s business may have “turned the corner,” he remains in mid-block in terms of recognition.

For example, Hillcrest, Wilshire and Riviera country club pros know little about him or his techniques as an instructor, although Riviera’s Ron Rhoads said club members have been impressed with his video.

“Johnny Miller has one out, Jack Nicklaus, Mark O’Meara and others,” said Rhoads, Riviera’s head pro for 14 years. “The list goes on and on, but the one I hear most about is Mann’s.”

Competition Not Intimidated

But the people who market Nicklaus’ tape aren’t exactly shaking in their shoes.

“We don’t sit around here saying, ‘What is Bob Mann doing?’ We never felt we were competing with him,” said Jerry Rettig, a senior vice president for World Vision Enterprises. “We have a tape with the greatest player the game has ever seen. We’ve sold well over 100,000 tapes for $85 and it is the highest grossing golf tape.”

In an April 6, 1987, review of instructional sports videos, Sports Illustrated offered this opinion of Mann’s tape: “ ‘Automatic Golf’ is certainly not prospering because of its production quality. One leading retailer of instructional videos says, ‘Mann’s tape has kind of a living-room quality to it. I moved it out.’ But many other retail outlets have moved it in. In Mann’s defense, his instructions are clear and concise.”

Rhoads had a similar view.

“I was prepared not to like it because I confused Mann with someone else,” he said, “but I did like it. He was really trying to keep his tape simple, and I think that’s tremendously important.

“He must have swung the club 100 times. He was not only telling how; he was showing how. He put together a fine tape.”

Mann, who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., started playing golf at age 13.

“My dad took me out on the course,” he remembered, “and I saw that sucker fly. I was hooked on the first shot.”

Only three years later, at 16, he joined the professional circuit, competing as an amateur. He played on three winter tours.

“I had to qualify with the pros every Tuesday,” he said. “I never came close to winning any tournaments, but I played a respectable game.

“On a hot round, I’d shoot about 71, and a cool day a 76. All that was on my mind was to become a touring pro.”

Instead, he met a young woman, married at 19 and was faced with the responsibility of making a living.

A few years earlier, Mann had received a set of weights as a gift and had worked out in the basement of his home three times a week. So he responded to a newspaper ad and was hired as an instructor by an Atlanta health spa. Tossing his golf clubs into a closet, he went to work with renewed ambition and interest.

“I loved it,” he said. “I liked the fact I had plenty of time to train. I started studying karate, yoga and weight training.”

Influenced by Book

He recalled reading a book that, he said, deeply influenced his life style--Gayelord Hauser’s “Be Happier, Be Healthier.”

“It was the book that started me on my concerns about diet. I have never stopped having an interest in physical fitness.”

But his marriage, meanwhile, was suffering. After seven years, the couple divorced, and Mann was subsequently reclassified 1-A in the Army Reserve. He went on active duty for a time, got out of the service and resumed swinging golf clubs. Before long, he was manufacturing them in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Backed by family loans totaling $15,000, he started his own company in 1968.

“It looked like the national war debt,” he said of his first investment. “I had these design ideas (for clubs). One idea ultimately became patented.”

A driver he designed, the Bomann Bomber, is still manufactured, but not by Mann.

Based on his projected 1987 sales of 2,500 of the custom-made drivers at $120 each, Mann’s share (he splits proceeds evenly with the manufacturer) will be $150,000, “a small part of the business.”

He also designed a putter that proved popular at the time, mainly because of its name.

Sales Gimmick

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had come up with a unique musical sound about two decades ago, and Mann capitalized on the band’s sweeping popularity by naming his putter, made out of brass, the Tijuana Brassie.

“I had a sense for marketing,” he said, readily acknowledging a lack of modesty. “There are great engineers who have no ability on their own for marketing. You have to ask yourself, ‘Hey, what is the marketing approach that will sell this? What is the hook?’ ”

Meanwhile, he had gone through the Professional Golf Assn. qualifying school and had turned pro, but, instead of joining the tour, he began teaching the game.

He traveled extensively, conducting seminars in hotels and clubs all over the country.

“I grossed about $300,000 a year,” he estimated, “which paid for an assistant and travel and promotional expenses. I was comfortable, but had no net worth. It was a one-shot deal. I would run an ad, collect $35 at the door and give a 2 1/2-hour golf lesson.

“Then, in 1982, someone said, ‘Hey, Bob, you ought to put this on video.’ I started hearing video, video, video. . . .”

So, late in 1982, while conducting a seminar at the Disneyland Hotel, Mann taped the lesson.

“It became the first half of the ‘Automatic Golf’ video,” he said, “and it still is.”