Located in Carlsbad, California Callaway Golf Co. manufactures golf equipment such as woods, wedges, putters, irons and golf balls. The company also owns and manufactures products such as Odyssey, Top Flite and Ben Hogan. It was founded by Ely Reeves Callaway, Jr. Callaway, originally in the textile business, was fascinated with the game of golf and purchased a company called Hickory Sticks in 1982. The company was renamed Callaway Hickory Sticks and 6 years later the name was again changed to Callaway Golf.
Callaway Golf introduced a computer-controlled manufacturing process in 1986 which was a completely new method of club manufacturing . In that same year the company developed a driver known as Big Bertha using a very large steel clubhead. Roger Cleveland was hired in 1996 and promoted to chief club designer in 2002. He soon created the Callaway Golf Forged Wedges which were constructed from carbon steel. Shortly after the Callaway Wedge was introduced a new golf ball was developed by the company at a cost of $170 million.
In developing the new Callaway golf ball the company recruited engineers from DuPont and Boing to help design the dimple pattern of the ball. More than 300 dimple patterns were evaluated with over 1000 variations of golf ball cores and cover materials. The final result of their work was the new Callaway Rule 35 ball. It was decided by the team at Callaway to create a ball that satisfied every golfer’s need for distance, spin, feel and durability. The Callaway ball encompasses all of the most important characteristics in one ball which saves a player from having to find a particular ball to fit their needs.
In 1996 Ely Callaway resigned his position with Callaway Golf at which time Donals H. Dye became the CEO and President. He later returned to the company as President in 1998 but succumbed to a terminal illness in 2001. Ron Drapeau followed as CEO and soon announced the aquisition of Top-Flite as well as the Ben Hogan Golf Division with a total cost of $125 million.
There are many well known players that are presently using Callaway Golf equipment such as Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Rocco Mediate. Among the Senior players Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player presently use Callaway Golf equipment.
