It was early December of 1967. While there had been a lot of changing winds in American society that year, I was fairly oblivious to most of it because of my age. I had gone from eighth grade to high school. I was playing high school basketball and was looking forward to golf that spring.
I also had pocket money for the first time in my life. I had gotten my first job that spring, working as a caddie at nearby Beverly Country Club on Chicago”s South Side. A bastion of elitist privacy in the heart of a bustling metropolis, Beverly had about 300 teenage caddies on the roll. I caddied about 150 rounds that year and grossed approximately $750. It was a very active year at Beverly as an April tornado knocked the pro shop to its foundation. Later that summer the Western Open was contested at the Donald Ross-designed, old-style course. Jack Nicklaus outlasted Doug Sanders for the win.
Sensing an opportunity to direct and mentor all those working class kids who served as caddies, the Beverly members kicked in 25 cents every time they played, that quarter earmarked for an annual caddie dinner and awards ceremony at the end of the year.
That December evening, I was one of 100 caddies invited to the banquet. It would be a neat evening as I would graduate from the ranks of bird caddie to looper, as evidenced by my new caddie ranking of 52. The food was great, the members of the staff were gracious, but most importantly, the awards ceremony was top-notch.
All of the top-100 Beverly caddies walked away with equipment that evening. Like golf itself, it was a true meritocracy. The more you caddied, the higher you were ranked, and the end result was a better award. The No. 1 caddie received a MacGregor staff bag along with Eye-O-Matic woods and a set of MT irons. The rest of the top 10 got irons and woods. Caddies from 11 through 49 received Tommy Armour Iron Master irons. Loopers from 50 through 100 scored MacGregor Tommy Armour woods. Suddenly, my used set of Wilson K-28 woods were out of my bag, replaced by a gorgeous set of four beautifully laminated new MacGregors.
When I look back on it, the caddie banquet was a magnanimous gesture by the Beverly membership toward the kids from the hardscrabble streets of Chicago. What made the event even more special was the preponderance of MacGregor Golf equipment. Back in 1967, MacGregor Golf was the Cadillac of the golf equipment industry. Their chief club designer, Toney Penna, was a former top-20 PGA Tour pro from the Hogan-Snead-Nelson era who was considered the most innovative designer of that time largely on the basis of the Eye-O-Matic.
Penna”s brother, Charley, was a less successful tour professional who decided to walk away from the competitive side of the game to settle down and raise a family. After serving an apprenticeship under Tommy Armour at Medinah, Penna became the head pro at Beverly in the 1930s, a post he would hold for close to 50 years. Penna ran a lot of MacGregor equipment through his pro shop to the members and the caddies.
Of course, that was then and this is now. Jack Nicklaus was the premier endorser of MacGregor equipment back then. The company”s advertising slogan was “The Greatest Name in Golf.” Begun in 1897, it competed equally with Spaulding Golf for about 30 years. Then it began to get to the forefront of the industry during the early 1930s.
Tommy Armour was the name and face of the company during golf”s growth era. His Silver Scot clubs were big in the 1930s and 1940s. In the late 1930s, the company signed the triumvirate of Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and Jimmy Demaret as endorsers of their equipment. Toney Penna was MacGregor”s eyes and ears on the tour in those days. In 1939 he signed the winless Hogan to an endorsement contract for a mere $500. He also added top pros like Craig Wood and Jack Burke Jr. to the MacGregor stable of big-name major champions.
In 1945 Byron Nelson won 11 tournaments in a row using MacGregor clubs. Jack Nicklaus signed with the company for $100,000 in late 1961 and the tradition continued. Name pros such as Tom Weiskopf and Tom Watson were MacGregor guys. Johnny Miller won the 1973 Open shooting 63 with MacGregor clubs. It was the top banana in a sport that was growing by leaps and bounds in the post-World War II television era.
Yet by the late 1960s, MacGregor was starting to show cracks in its armor. Bought in 1958 by bowling giant Brunswick Corporation, MacGregor was now part of a corporation. It didn”t get the attention it had once had when it was its own single entity. Added to that was the departure of Penna in the last 1960s to start his own equipment company. Penna was a social figure who traveled in entertainment circles. His new company had the financial backing of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and others. He took with him many of MacGregor”s top-notch club makers.
Nickalus sensed that MacGregor was struggling internally, and he and major champion David Graham took on an active role as club designers. They co-designed the popular VIP irons. However, the introduction of the VIP and the super-big Response putter that Nicklaus used to win the 1986 Masters was the company”s last high-water mark.
The onset of metal woods was a major part of the problem. In 1988, the MacGregor factory produced 1,200 persimmon woods per day. In 1989, it was down to manufacturing 10 per day. MacGregor lost the competitive edge to Callaway and its wildly popular Big Bertha woods. Callaway then introduced the titanium metal wood and garnered an even bigger share of the market. MacGregor failed as an equipment company because it lacked the innovative spirit and engineering savvy to compete with PingEye2 irons, Volkey wedges, Scotty Cameron putters, and Big Bertha woods.
MacGregor was no longer the dynamic brand that it had been in its heyday. Now, it is no longer. Part of the Golfsmith Corporation, the MacGregor name may be used on clubs, but it will be on Golfsmith-made clubs. Times change, technology moves on, and impact companies fall by the wayside. That is the 100-plus-year saga of once-proud MacGregor.
