Once Hoeflich and his team had a general idea of what they wanted, Hoeflich went to California to work with R.G. “So we incorporated the cavity back on the long and mid-irons and, at the 8-iron, we segued into the traditional profile you’d see in a Wilson Staff or a MacGregor.” Scribbles, Wax, and a Porsche In other words, a better-looking PING Eye2. I said, ‘if someone doesn’t buy the PING, what are they looking for?’ He said, ‘something that looks like a traditional-shape short iron instead of something that looks like a propeller on a steamship’.”
NICKENT 3DX IRONWOOD SPECS PRO
“The pro out there was Tom Wilcox and I asked him how many sets of PINGs he sells in a year. “Before we developed the tooling, I went to a club in Chicago – Sunset Ridge,” he said. 1 iron in the game was the PING Eye2 so Hoeflich figured he’d start there. His first assignment was to develop a new iron.
In 1985, Hoeflich was promoted to VP of Marketing. Would it surprise you to learn the man who designed the Tommy Armour 845s started out teaching high-school English? Would it also surprise you to learn he was not an engineer or even an experienced club designer? The 845 was John Hoeflich’s very first effort at designing a golf club. PGA Golf had been a mostly unspectacular performer throughout its history, but that former English teacher we mentioned was about to shake things up but good. A deal was finally struck in July of ’85 and, after working out a deal with the Armour family (Tommy Armour died in 1968), PGA Golf officially became the Tommy Armour Golf Company. Subsequently, PGA-PGA TOUR Properties wanted out of the equipment deal with PGA Golf and spent the better part of the next three years trying to get its name back from Morton Grove. The PGA TOUR officially adopted that name in March and both sides agreed to create a PGA-PGA TOUR Properties group to sell soft goods under the PGA label. The decades-long struggle between the tournament players’ group – now the PGA TOUR – and the club pros’ group – the PGA of America – was reaching another turning point.
Troubled waters started churning for PGA Golf in 1982. Both companies dabbled in golf (balls and electric carts), and together they created the Victor Golf Company, a division of Victor Comptometer.īy 1977, Victor Comptometer was purchased by Kidde, Inc., a New Jersey-based maker of everything from Jacuzzi bathtubs and Farberware housewares to lighting fixtures, fire protection equipment, and hydraulic cranes.
In 1961, Comptometer merged with the Victor Corporation, another Chicago adding machine company. By that time, Burke was marketing clubs under the name PGA Golf under a licensing agreement with the PGA of America. From there, the journey takes some pretty crazy twists and turns.īy 1959, Burke sold out to the Comptometer Corporation, a Chicago-based adding machine company. The company we came to know as Tommy Armour actually started in Ohio in 1910 as the Burke Golf Equipment Company.ĭuring the next several decades, Burke made and marketed golf clubs under a variety of names, eventually moving operations to Morton Grove, IL. MacGregor introduced the Tommy Armour Silver Scot Tourney in the 1940s, predating the Tommy Armour company by nearly40 years. The very first Tommy Armour irons weren’t made by Tommy Armour at all, but by MacGregor, and for a very good reason: there was no Tommy Armour company at the time.