The Golf Entrepreneurs: Big Bertha Is Better

In our first two articles on The Golf Entrepreneurs, we focused on the cataclysmic change the late Gary Adams made by founding TaylorMade Golf and popularizing the oxymoronic sounding metalwoods, and the Aussie, Tom Crow, who invented a famous utility club, The Baffler which was the start of Cobra Golf.

Now, we’re going to look at the man who made it big, really big, when he created Big Bertha.  The man, of course, is Eli Callaway.

Callaway had a long and illustrious business career before creating Big Bertha.  The long and short of it is that he was passed over for chairmanship at Burlington, a fabric/ textile company, and so he quit.

He went to California and bought a vineyard which became Callaway Wines.  That was eventually sold to Hiram Walker, and Callaway was left with a pile of money.  He was looking for something to do.

At the same time, three men, Richard Parente, Dick De La Cruz, and Tony Manzoni, who owned a company called Hickory Sticks, were looking for investors.

Callaway was a golfer as far back as his boyhood days.  He became interested and eventually bought them out.  The company became Callaway Hickory Sticks. The clubs had hickory-clad steel shafts.

The initial clubs they made were the first, second, and third lob wedges, and I was eventually gifted a set. They were intended to throw the ball high in the air with little effort by the user.

The ball would then land on the green softly.  Perfect for getting out of grass bunkers or hitting to elevated greens.  The third wedge was not bad out of the sand.  Wedges No. 1 and 2 escaped to bags of other golfers, likely my mother and dad, but wedge No. 3 is still in my possession.

Callaway then began making other hickory over steel-shafted clubs, including some woods. One of those may still be in my garage, a gift from Ely Callaway. It has a pale wood color shaft and a matching clubhead.

The company became Callaway Golf in 1988

Then, in 1988, the company became Callaway Golf and started making a line called S2 H2 with traditional shafts but a different kind of hosel.

But things really changed at the 1990 west coast PGA Merchandise Show.  Callaway Golf debuted something really revolutionary: Big Bertha.  Ely Callaway said he named it after a powerful gun from the world wars.

Giving Big Bertha the google treatment, I found it was actually a large, German-made howitzer that could fire approximately one-ton shells nearly eight miles and was used originally in World War I and in limited capacity in WWII.

Regardless, Big Bertha, the driver, changed everything and not just at Callaway Golf.  Drivers of all manufacturers became larger. The USGA ended up maxing out all clubheads at 460 cc, although until that happened, there were some larger than 460.

There are still a few driver heads in excess of 500 cc, but they are not legal in USGA conforming events.  One, called the Behemoth, is 520 cc.

Most golfers and golf manufacturers quickly followed the Bertha and created their own versions.  Today, Callaway’s drivers are the Epic and the Rogue. However, there is also a 460cc Big Bertha.

Now, while Ely Callaway debuted a lot of things in golf, he is also known for taking a golf company public.  Callaway Golf debuted its public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 1992.  It still trades under the symbol ELY.

In a strange quirk of fate, in 2001, Callaway was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, just as Gary Adams had been ten years prior.

Unfortunately, Callaway died within months of the diagnosis.  Still, he left an enormous legacy for the business side of golf.  In addition, he was a historic change agent when it came to golf equipment.  His personality was big, too, like the drivers Callaway Golf created.

Today, every golfer on the PGA Tour, as well as on every other tour around the world, uses a large format driver, thanks to Callaway.