Where Did the Tariff Refunds Go?

Gianni Magliocco | gianni@bigswingmedia.news

In a single quarter this year, DICK’S Sporting Goods received approximately $59 million in tariff refunds. That’s a substantial amount of money coming back through the door. But did it make a new driver any cheaper?

The refunds covered DICK’S wider retail business, including $2 million attributable to Foot Locker. They were not $59 million in golf-equipment refunds. Still, they offer a useful starting point for a question facing the industry.

After the Supreme Court ruled that tariffs imposed under a presidential emergency-powers law were unlawful, importers began getting their money back. Titleist parent Acushnet said it had received all its refunds. Callaway had collected $42.6 million by the end of September.

But the tariff bill kept coming.

As one set of duties was refunded, others remained or took effect. Both manufacturers continued to face import costs, and Callaway cited selective price increases as one reason its profit margins improved. It did not link those increases to the refunds.

Big Swing also examined prices on six Titleist and Callaway products. Some equipment became more expensive, including a replacement driver launched after the Supreme Court ruling. But there is a difference between establishing that prices rose and establishing why.

So where did the returned money go? And is there any evidence it reached the golfer standing in front of the price tag?

Why the Refunds Happened

A tariff is a tax on an imported product. When a shipment of golf clubheads reaches a U.S. port, the importer files a customs entry showing what arrived and the duties owed. That paperwork matters when the government later has to give money back.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, did not give President Donald Trump the authority to impose tariffs. Customs stopped collecting those duties four days later.

The Court had not outlawed tariffs generally. It had ruled against the law used to impose these particular ones.

The U.S. Court of International Trade subsequently ordered refunds. Customs built an online system called CAPE, short for Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, to handle the enormous volume of claims.

By October 2, approximately $126 billion in duties and interest had been sent to the Treasury for payment, according to the trade court. Customs had estimated that $166 billion in IEEPA duties had originally been assessed nationwide.

But the tariff bill did not disappear.

On February 24, a new 10% surcharge took effect under Section 122, a different trade law. A trade court ruled that surcharge unlawful in May, but the ruling was stayed on appeal. Collection continued until the surcharge expired on July 24.

Meanwhile, the government strengthened tariffs on certain imported metals and products made from them under Section 232. New Section 301 duties took effect the same day the temporary surcharge expired, covering imports from numerous trading partners, with exemptions for certain products.

The government was returning money collected under one tariff program while continuing to collect duties under others.

For an importing golf company, a refund on an earlier shipment did not necessarily mean lower costs on the next one.

The Manufacturers: Acushnet and Callaway

Both manufacturers recovered substantial amounts while continuing to face tariff costs. But neither company’s financial disclosures established what those refunds meant for the price a golfer paid.

For Acushnet, the parent company of Titleist and FootJoy, the money was already in the bank by August. Chief Financial Officer Sean Sullivan said the company had submitted and received all its IEEPA tariff refunds.

But receiving money and reporting a benefit to profits are different things.

By the end of September, Acushnet said the refunds had added approximately $33.8 million to adjusted EBITDA, a measure of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, with certain adjustments. That figure included the effect of additional employee incentive compensation tied to the company’s results.

Sullivan expects the full-year net benefit to settle at approximately $30 million.

The expected decline reflects additional incentive-compensation expense still to be recorded.

There was another side to the company’s tariff story, however.

Even with the refunds, Acushnet reported an approximately $29 million headwind from higher tariff expense in the first nine months of 2026.

The two amounts measure different things. One is the net accounting benefit from refunds; the other is a cost the company continued to face. They cannot simply be subtracted from each other. Asked to break down the $29 million by tariff authority, or distinguish costs incurred before and after the IEEPA ruling, Acushnet told Big Swing it had not broken out those figures.

Callaway, meanwhile, had received $42.6 million in IEEPA tariff refunds by the end of September.

The company recognized $44.3 million in refund-related benefits through September, including approximately $1.7 million in interest.

Unlike Acushnet, Callaway excluded those benefits from its adjusted earnings, which remove certain unusual items to give investors another view of underlying performance.

Meanwhile, the company expects approximately $43 million in gross tariff expense for 2026, compared with $34 million last year.

There is an important distinction from Acushnet. In its latest filing, Callaway said the refund benefit recorded against the cost of its products had more than offset incremental tariff costs through September.

The company also pointed to cost reductions and selective price increases as contributors to its improved margins.

The Retailer: DICK’S

DICK’S gives us the clearest look at what can happen once tariff money reaches a retailer. Even here, though, the number needs unpacking.

During its second quarter, DICK’S Sporting Goods received approximately $59 million in refunds across its wider retail business, including the Foot Locker operations it acquired in 2025.

About $57 million related to the DICK’S business, which includes Golf Galaxy. The remaining $2 million related to Foot Locker. None of those figures isolates golf equipment.

From there, the accounting becomes more complicated.

DICK’S also reports adjusted results, which leave out certain unusual benefits and expenses. It excluded approximately $38 million of the refunds from those results because they related to tariff costs recorded in the previous year.

That left approximately $21 million included in its adjusted second-quarter results.

Merchandise margin is what a retailer makes on the goods it sells after paying for those products, but before other business expenses.

Of the refund benefit included in adjusted results, approximately $19 million helped the merchandise margin of the DICK’S business. Another $2 million benefited Foot Locker’s merchandise margin.

A more useful answer came from Chief Financial Officer Navdeep Gupta, who explained what happened next.

“We have reinvested these benefits into the business to remain competitively priced,” Gupta said. He added that the money helped offset higher fuel, supply-chain and other inflationary costs.

CEO Lauren Hobart separately said the refunds, alongside contributions from other parts of the business, helped absorb promotional pressure in athletic footwear and apparel.

That does not mean the refunds were handed directly back to shoppers, and DICK’S made no such claim. It also does not tell us what happened specifically in golf.

What it shows is that a refund can have more than one destination. At the retail level, it can support margins, absorb another rising cost or give a company more room to compete on price.

Whether any of that showed up on a driver or iron set is a different question.

Did Any of It Reach the Shelf?

The obvious place to look is the price tag.

Big Swing examined six Titleist and Callaway products: a driver, an iron set and a premium golf ball from each manufacturer. We compared launch prices with dated pricing evidence from the tariff period, where available, then checked prices or replacement models in early November.

The historical prices Big Swing could verify showed no uniform increase during the tariff period.

Callaway’s Elyte driver launched at $599.99 in January 2025. A Golf Galaxy promotional email archived in August 2025 was still advertising it at that price.

Callaway’s Apex Ai200 irons were a possible exception. A standard seven-piece set launched at approximately $1,400, while an October 2025 Callaway promotional email advertised the model at $1,449. However, the advertisement did not specify the set configuration, preventing a direct comparison.

Titleist’s 2025 T150 irons, introduced after the tariffs were already in force, remained essentially unchanged from their roughly $1,499 launch price.

The driver comparison, however, tells another story.

Titleist’s GT2 launched at $649. Its replacement, the GTS2, reached stores on June 11, 2026, after the Supreme Court ruling, at $699. That was an increase of nearly 8% for a standard flagship driver.

Callaway’s Elyte was replaced by the Quantum Max, priced at $649.99, also approximately 8% above its predecessor. That price had been announced in January, before the ruling.

The golf balls offer an equally interesting comparison.

Titleist’s 2025 Pro V1 launched at $54.99 per dozen. By early November, Golf Galaxy was advertising that same generation at $57.99, an increase of approximately 5.5%.

And Acushnet’s own third-quarter filing provides another piece of evidence. The company reported higher average selling prices for its Pro V1 models compared with the same quarter last year.

That is what Acushnet received on average for those products, rather than what a golfer paid at retail. It also does not establish when the shelf price changed, or whether higher average selling prices reflected list prices, discounting or sales mix.

Callaway’s Chrome Tour reached the same $57.99 price through a different route. Its previous generation launched at $54.99 per dozen, while the new version arrived in January 2026 at $57.99.

Two competing premium balls had reached the same price, although Callaway established its new price before the February ruling.

These comparisons have limits. A replacement driver isn’t identical to its predecessor, a product’s manufacturing location doesn’t necessarily establish its tariff exposure, and six examples cannot represent the entire market. Nor do the prices establish that manufacturers passed tariff costs on to golfers or withheld the benefits of refunds.

Still, the observable price increases are real. What remains unproven is their connection to the money returned.

There was also a notable absence from the companies’ latest earnings calls.

Neither Acushnet nor Callaway was directly asked whether its tariff refunds had lowered retail prices for golfers. Neither company volunteered a connection between the refunds and cheaper equipment.

Callaway discussed selective price increases, but not as a consequence of receiving the refunds.

The money moved through the companies’ accounts. The retail evidence does not show a direct path from those refunds to lower shelf prices.

The Unresolved Wrinkle

Even after billions have been returned, the refund story is not finished.

By early October, approximately $126 billion in IEEPA refunds had been sent to the Treasury for payment. But the government is appealing court orders extending certain refunds to importers who never brought their own cases, particularly where their customs paperwork has already been finalized.

Acushnet, which has received all its IEEPA refunds, declined to say whether it considers them final and not subject to repayment, or whether it has filed its own action at the Court of International Trade.

On October 8, the Court of International Trade certified a class of importers who had not sued individually. That opened another possible route to recovering their money. It did not award them refunds.

And there is a second set of tariffs in dispute.

The 10% surcharge introduced under Section 122 in February was ruled unlawful in May. An appeals court put that ruling on hold, allowing collection to continue until the surcharge expired in July.

Unlike IEEPA, there is no established general refund process for those payments. That appeal remains unresolved.‍

What Comes Back, and What Doesn’t

The refunds went to different places. At Acushnet, they boosted adjusted earnings while other import costs remained. At Callaway, they improved reported results and more than offset incremental tariff costs through September.

At DICK’S, including Foot Locker, the benefits helped support merchandise margins, competitive pricing and other costs across a much broader retail business.

What this reporting could not establish was a direct reduction in the price a golfer pays.

Washington returned the money. That, by itself, did not put cheaper clubs on the shelf.