Celebrity Deathwatch: Ely Callaway, Golf Club Pioneer, 82

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/golf/news/2001/07/05/obit_callaway_ap/

Golf club pioneer Callaway dies at 82

Posted: Thursday July 05, 2001 10:18 AM

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ely Callaway, who turned Callaway Golf Co. into the biggest
clubmaker in the world with his "Big Bertha" drivers and a passion to make
golf enjoyable for the masses, died early Thursday of pancreatic cancer. He
was 82.

Callaway died at 2:30 a.m. PDT at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.,
spokesman Larry Dorman said.

"He went peacefully, with his family around him," Dorman said. "There will
be a huge void felt in the world of golf."

Doctors discovered a tumor on Callaway's pancreas two months ago during
surgery to remove his gall bladder. He resigned as president and chief
executive officer May 15.

After spending nearly 30 years in the textile industry, Callaway paid
$400,000 in 1984 for a small golf company called Hickory Stick, which made
specialty clubs with hickory wrapped around steel shafts.

Callaway turned it into so much more.

>From the oversized Big Bertha to the controversial ERC driver, he was at the
forefront of some of the biggest technological advancements in equipment
over the past decade. Sales that were a modest $5 million in 1988 soared to
$800 million 10 years later.

"You can't fool the public," Callaway said in a 1998 interview with The
Associated Press. "If they are going to buy your product it has to be
better. It has to be right. It has to be truly more satisfying than the
existing product."

The Big Bertha, named after a World War I cannon, paved the way for drivers
that had a bigger sweet spot and were easier to hit. The ERC, which violated
U.S. Golf Association standards for how quickly a ball could spring from the
face of the club, led to a debate whether recreational players should fall
under the same standards as pros.

In the middle of it all was Callaway, a visionary with a high-pitched twang
who could be charming and combative.

He never boasted that his clubs caused the ball to go farther or straighter,
only that they were more forgiving and made the game more enjoyable for the
average player.

"We've sold $5 billion in golf clubs since Callaway started from nothing,
which is far more than anybody in the world has ever done," he said in
January. "And we want to keep on making clubs that are going to make people
happier."

Callaway could be feisty and accommodating, a small man with big designs who
had a devilish grin and a twinkle in his blue eyes that belied his
willingness to take on any battle, even as an octogenarian.

Callaway introduced the ERC driver -- the initials stand for Ely Reeves
Callaway -- in 1999, at first selling it only in Asia and Europe. The Royal
& Ancient Golf Club, which governs the game everywhere but the United States
and Mexico, did not declare it nonconforming.

It was a mystery club in America, and sold for as much as $1,000.

A year later, Callaway thumbed his nose at the USGA by introducing the ERC
II and selling it in America. He further shocked the establishment by
introducing Arnold Palmer, the most endearing figure in golf, as his primary
pitchman for the club.

Callaway lobbied for different rules for competitive and recreational golf,
and was delighted when the R&A said last year it found nothing wrong with
the ERC and that extra distance alone was not a threat to the game.

Because of the rift, players can use the ERC driver in the British Open or
the Ryder Cup, but not at any tournament played in the United States, such
as the PGA Championship.

Callaway was born June 3, 1919, in LaGrange, Ga., the son of a textile
executive and a distant cousin of Bobby Jones.

He graduated from Emory University in 1940 and enlisted in the U.S. Army,
serving until the conclusion of World War II. Callaway became one of the
Army's top procurement officers, which led to a successful career in the
textile industry, first with Milliken Textiles and later as president of
Burlington.

He left Burlington in 1973 after a dispute over who should be chairman, and
turned his attention to a small vineyard he had planted in southern
California. Just like everything else in his career, it proved highly
profitable.

Callaway developed his own label and sold it in 1981 for $14 million, then
turned his attention to golf clubs.

"There was no grand vision of three careers and big fortunes," he told the
Los Angeles Times in 1995. "I just started out one little step at a time and
hoped it worked. Luck was a big piece of it -- not so much good luck, but
the absence of bad luck."

The biggest break was playing golf after selling his vineyard and stumbling
across a wedge made by Hickory Stick.

Callaway bought the company because he felt it made a superior product, the
creed for his reign in the golf equipment business.

He developed "S2H2," which stood for "short straight hollow hosel," a
bore-through design that was incorporated in woods and irons. Big Bertha was
launched in 1991, and net sales increased by at least $100 million each year
from 1992 until a downturn in the equipment industry in 1998.

"I knew the first time I ever played with the refined prototype of the first
Big Bertha driver that it would be a huge seller, and would continue to be
until somebody came along and made a better one," he once said.

Callaway introduced oversized irons in 1994, added Odyssey putters to its
stable and invested $170 million in a golf ball plant last year.

The name of the company's ball is "Rule 35," a play on the USGA's 34 rules
of golf.

The additional rule: Have fun.

"In a business based on pleasure, we have developed a product which changed
the game for the good," he once said.

Callaway is survived by his wife, Lucinda Villa; a sister, Lula Callaway
Albright; three children, Reeves, Lisa and Nicholas; and four grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This mailing list is brought to you by Slick.ORG at http://www.slick.org
to remove yourself from the list, send e-mail to majordomo@slick.org
and include the words "unsubscribe deathwatch" in the message (not in the
subject).  For web-based help, go to:

http://www.slick.org/cgi-bin/majordomo

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *