MacGregor, one of the most storied names in golf, met its end as an independent company recently when the name was bought by GolfSmith. Its demise was a result of market changes, unfortunate timing, poor business decisions and just plain bad luck.
GolfWeek has a nice retrospective on the rise and fall of MacGregor.
I actually have a good degree of hope for the MacGregor brand in the hands of GolfSmith. I like the company’s in-house products, and have faith that their club design abilities—most often shown in their component lines—will serve the venerable MacGregor line well.
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Interesting article – thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, when I began playing back in the early 1960’s, the average golfer did not wield a persimmon driver. Our drivers used laminated maple heads.
For anyone less than an accomplished golfer, any wooden driver was difficult to hit long, high and straight. Most of us would not want to return to the days of wood clubs now that we have experienced hitting modern over-sized drivers.
bkuehn1952 – what in the world do your comments have to do with this blog? back in my day we played with stick and rocks, and shoes werent allowed.
BKuehn—were the laminated maples the frugal option, or was there another reason for them over the persimmon?
Dave H. – glad to hear you now can afford shoes, although you probably miss the days of chasing rocks.
GB – Laminated maple was the frugal or affordable choice. Naturally, manufacturers tried to make the clubheads look like persimmon but the vast majority of club heads were maple. When you hear someone wax nostalgic about their persimmon driver they were either very good, very wealthy, or saved a lot of money to indulge themselves in a luxury purchase.