MacGregor Golf is going away. Well, sort of. Once one of the premier names in golf equipment, MacGregor golf was sold to Golfsmith International Holdings on May 20. More specifically, Golfsmith acquired full intellectual property rights to the MacGregor brand in North and South America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and Africa.
One of the oldest golf companies in the world, Macgregor golf has over 110 years of experience making clubs for all levels of golfers. Based in Albany, GA, MacGregor Golf boasts a record of 59 wins in majors, including 18 by one Jack Nicklaus. For years MacGregor was well known for making some of the best forged irons in the industry.
Being a long time MacGregor player, I can vouch for the fact that the custom club department is second to none. In fact, the Tourney Custom program was once the dream set of many good players. It entailed a trip to the Albany factory to have a set of irons hand made to your exact specifications by Don White, one of the best craftsmen in the industry. Indeed, the $2000 price tag may have scared off the majority of people, but for the purist there was nothing close to matching the look and feel of a club that was hand ground and fit just for you. A one of a kind set of forged (insert your name here) pro model irons. To many lucky and satisfied customers, worth every penny.
Since the rise of the metal wood and the game changing arrival of the Big Bertha driver, MacGregor has largely become a niche brand, struggling to compete with the marketing blitz of Callaway, TaylorMade, and Titleist/Cobra. It enjoyed a brief resurgence in the late 80s, mostly due to Clay Long’s Response putter that Jack Nicklaus used to win the 1986 Masters. To start 1986, MacGregor forecast 6000 units of volume for the Response putter. With Jack using the putter, up to the Masters they sold 20,000. The Monday after Jack’s thrilling win at Augusta, MacGregor took 5000 orders before noon. They went on to sell 150,000 that year, and 350,000 by the end of 1987. Not bad for a putter that when designer Clay Long showed to Nicklaus, he responded with “Is this a joke?”
In September of 2007 Greg Norman acquired control of the struggling company from San Francisco business man Barry Schneider. Norman helped bring Cobra golf to prominence in the 1990s, so there was much optimism that he would do the same with MacGregor. After all, Norman had built a very successful business empire around his clothing lines, course design business and even his vineyards. With Norman carrying the torch, (and the staff bag) for MacGregor, all would be good! Well, not exactly. It seems Greg Norman’s business panache didn’t carry over into the golf equipment segment. Once again, MacGregor golf struggled against the much more financially stable big three, and the emergence of other companies with newer technology like Adams and Nike didn’t help matters. MacGregor continued to struggle and late in 2007 announced that it would discontinue its tour operations, including sponsorship of PGA Tour player Aaron Baddeley.
In 2008, more signs that the company was in serious hot water started to show. In June, putter maker Bobby Grace resigned, leaving the fate of his DCT series putters up in the air. Bobby Grace burst on to the scene in the early 90s when Nick Price and Annika Sorenstam were winning with his Fat Lady Swings putters.
In early 2009, the speculation about the fate of MacGregor golf was growing. In February they started liquidating inventory by holding a fire sale. As an example, TGW.com was listing the Bobby Grace DCT putters marked down from $169 to a paltry $49 and change. The entire MacGregor line of clubs are being sold at deep discounts; a direct result of the sale. A month earlier in January, MacGregor pulled out of the PGA Merchandise show in Orlando, FL. The 11th hour decision was made partly due to the fact that MacGregor was not offering any new products for the upcoming season. In another move that raised eyebrows, MacGregor CEO Michael Setola announced that it had sold the Greg Norman Collection apparel line to the New York based Tharanco Group. Setola also joined the Tharanco Group to oversee the future of the new company. Secretly, negotiations to sell MacGregor had already begun, and MacGregor’s Asian subsidiary was sold in a Management buyout. There is no word on what will happen to the Asian company.
Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for MacGregor’s future was in March when Greg Norman signed a multi-year deal to endorse TaylorMade clubs. At this point it was clear that the company was in trouble, and Norman was clearly moving on and perhaps distancing himself from the company he held a controlling interest in. This news was followed a few months later with the announcement in May that Golfsmith had acquired the company.
According to the press release, Golfsmith agreed to pay $1.75 million for the company, payable in eight quarterly installments of $218,750. The first installment is due one year from May 20, 2009. Given Golfsmith’s favorable Q1 balance sheet, it seems that the move is one that carries low risk in this economy and in the golf industry, which is driven largely by disposable income. Golfsmith intends to relaunch MacGregor as a house brand, much the way it did with Lynx and Snake Eyes. The question many people may have is what will happen to the MacGregor legacy of making premium forged blades? Golfsmith caters to the budget-minded golfer or clubmaker, and most purists or better golfers buy name-brand equipment from the major companies. This trend leads me to believe that the MacGregor name will be relegated to game improvement clubs and discount components for the masses.
Golfsmith operates over 70 retail stores and has a huge mail-order and internet presence as well, so chances are the MacGregor name will live on for quite some time, albeit in a different capacity that we all have known for over 100 years.
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I had no idea they were in bad financial shape. One of my first sets of clubs were MacGregors handed down to me from my grandpa. I hope Golfsmith respects the legacy of this great brand.
I love MacGregor irons. Such a shame that great, classic club makers such as MacGregor and Hogan have been gobbled up by flashy marketing machines (Golfsmith and Callaway respectively)
The MacGregor 360 cup face technology was a breakthrough. If you haven’t hit the NVG2s or the MTs, I strongly recommend that you do so.
I agree, hopefully Golfsmith will continue the MacGregor legacy of producing forged irons with great feel and forgiveness. MacGregor irons have long been the best value forged club.
I hope their clubs are on sale here in the UK, apparently their putters are great!
Golfsmith plans to re-launch the MacGregor name, perhaps in time for the 2009 holiday season, and certainly for the 2010 golf season…
What a great shame. Another good brand hits the dust. 😥
You hate to hear it on the one hand, but on the other hand at least the MacGregor name will survive in some form.
It will be interesting to see where Golfsmith positions MacGregor in their line. I suspect they will do like Titleist (Titleist=players club, Cobra=game improvement.) So if MacGregor=players club, Snake Eyes=game improvement, & XPC=beginners where does that leave the Golfsmith brand clubs (some of which are very good.)
It seesm to me Golfsmith now has too many brands, especially when you throw in the Lynx brand.
According to the press release, they plan to reintroduce the name as game improvement clubs. There was no mention of “players” clubs, so that is a concern. If you recall, SnakeEyes made their name by making forged wedges and blades. Golfsmith has morphed them into a game improvement product, but still offers Snake Eyes forged blades and wedges. No matter what happens, I don’t see the MacGregor forgings to be near the same quality that they once were. Even the latest Pro MT irons were a bit of a dissapointment, and I went back to my old V-Foil 1025Ms…
I suspect MacGregor will be thrown in the mix the way Lynx was and end up being just another brand in the mix. Probably regulating them to mid/lower tier status.
I wonder how much inventory Golfsmith got with this deal? Frankly I don’t think the name itself had much of any value at this point.
A very sad outcome indeed. This is tantamount to Dick’s Sporting Goods acquisition of Maxfli not long ago. It essentially waters down the brand to it’s simplest form, for sales marketing purposes likely being the driver. In otherwords, the name remains but the R&D and likely quality may not be what one might anticipate or expect.
In the end, this one will likely fade to relative obscurity. As someone that has been golfing for well over 30 years, words simply cannot express how sad this is to me. MacGregor, Spalding and Wilson were some of the names I grew up with and think of with good memories and a degree of fondness.
Have to say this is hardly a shock. They have been irrelavent on the golf landscape for many, many years.
Leverage…one way of looking at this is that corporations with lots of venture capital (Callaway, Taylor Made) took over golf equipment in the mid-1990s. They spent so much money on advertising, R&D, and of course the big pro endorsements (I guess that’s part of advertising), that small companies couldn’t compete.
Golfsmith isn’t going to “preserve” the MacGregor brand. Golfsmith is a retailer. They sell everything from pro-line, high margin clubs, to closeouts of the same, to used clubs, component stuff, and, like MacGregor, old brand names they scavenge.
They will take some club head designs, slap the MacGregor name on them, and try to make a buck. Like Killer Bee, and Spalding (which they own, I think), etc.
In other words, MacGregor is now discount store fodder.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I built my own clubs from Golfsmith components years ago, and I loved the whole process of selecting components, putting them together, and playing them. Nothing wrong with it. But MacGregor should be a big name, on par with Titleist, Callaway, etc., not something pushed in Golfsmith mailers and catalogs.
oh well, sad news indeed… but as mentioned, not a surprise since MacGregor had been on the ropes for some years now. At least I can say I own the very last set (MT line) that ever came out of the independent MacGregor R&D and manufacturing facility. It’ll be like Governator Arnie saying he owned the last US-manufactured Hummer. Anyone buying one from here on is buying a Chinese version !!!
Well, it’s a shame. They made fantastic irons for a long time. I have two sets now, an old set of MT cavity backs, which I still play as my “A” set, even though they’re pretty beat up; and a new set of Pro-C irons, which I just got in March for $600 (I like them, but it’s not much of a cavity, and the MTs are just easier to hit). I’ll miss MacGregor.
It seems to me that anyone who is a “player” (2 handicap or lower — eligible to try to qualify for the Open) would be using custom made clubs. The rest of us just use “game improvement” clubs to compensate for our lack of practice or ability. I smile when I see a 15 handicap with forged blades.
Most of us 60+ age golfers remember MacGregors from when we started playing 40+ years ago. I couldn’t hit a forged club then and I sure can’t now. I do break 80 occassionally now because of perimeter weighted, cavity backed cast irons; 460cc drivers; hybrids; and 3 piece balls.
MacGregor was a quality brand name, but no longer. And the Gabor sisters aren’t hot anymore, either.
❓
This is too bad. Macgregor are a great club! I have been playing the M685 irons for a few years and couldnt imagine switching. I also have used the nvg2 fairway woods. Great product and easy on the eye.
😥 I have been playing MacGregor clubs for almost 30 years (High School, College till present). As mentioned above, their custom clubs and quality control were second to none–even in recent years. It’s not often that I switch irons so I will probably be playing my 675s for quite a few years, as they are totally custom made to my specs. It’s not often you can call up a company and speak with the VP of R&D about the set of clubs you want, but that is exactly the experience I had with MacGregor.
“I read the news today…. oh boy!!!” (The Beatles) I’m sitting here @ the driving range with the flat belly’s and they really don’t understand my sadness that a name like MacGregor is more than likely “Dust In The Wind” (Kansas).
How can a company of 110 years, 59 Major wins, Don White- one of the finest club makers, etc… be sold completely for $1.75 million!!!? (Could they not get any of the Bail-Out money from Obama?) I hope that there are enough board members and executives @ Golfsmith with intestinale fortitude to not prostitute one of the “original” pioneers in the club making business.
My 401K sucks and I’m thinking that every club, mostly MacGregor, I have ever played with in the past 35 years is worth more. Maybe in the next 20 to 50 years we will be reading that Nike, Callaway and Taylor Made have fallen to the same.
I intend to purchase the Pro- M’s asap.
All my clubs are MacGregor Clubs, I really thought with the 2008 MT iron’s and New MT Drivers that MacGregor was back to stay…..
Hell for 1.7 mill Jack Nicklaus should of bought the company and moved it back to Ohio and mixed it with his Nicklaus Golf Brand. Could you imagine Jack re-making the VIP iron’s !!! That would have sold Billions, Tiger would have left Nike….Ok maybe I went to far……It was a nice thought….Sounds like it’s all down the tube now….Bummer.
Sad to hear another great company not being able to survive on their own. But, Golfsmith has a good reputation for the average golfer. The Macgregor name will live on with pride.
I am totally bummed. Its like losing a best friend. I have my first set of “serious clubs”. JNP irons. I am playing with a MAc driver and 1025 irons today. They were a great company swallowed up by bigger marketing budgets. RIP Macgregor. 😐
When you hire a pro to run your business and you tie that pro to a flagstick… The game is over and the pro walks away.
This is what happened at MacGregorGolf. Three years ago Dave Wood simply walked away…
Mr. Berry Schneider and MacGreggor Golf fell into the cup on the 7th. hole and not even a great player like Greg Norman could save the match. I know this for a fact, I was there the day (more than a year ago), that David Wood sent an offer with a plan to save the company to Greg Norman. I also know for a fact that Mr. Norman never responded to Mr. Wood.
All this talk about game improvement clubs? What a novel idea! Clubs to the masses “code” game improvement. Clubs to good and top players “code” custom.
Whats wrong with Golfsmith? “Nothing”. Golfsmith is great company that has played the game a few times. The history at MacGregor is “Failure”. It has been bought and sold, bought and sold and failed.
This company has been on the brink like “forever”… It started to show a little promse for awhile when Dave Wood and Bobby Grace stepped in and designed product. But then the promise died due to the vanity of ownership. Its tough enough to make a buck in the golf business. Especially tough when the ownership is trying to run the company like its a carpet business.
The golf business is all about the sell-through. Its easy! Advertising is king! He with the most advertising wins the game.
Wow what bad news! I have played MacGregor irons my whole life, and I am 64. The MT Pro combo set I now play is as good or better than any competition set, and tried them side by side with Mizuno, Titleist, and Taylormade. If Golfsmith has some sense of what the brand and product mean they will keep the heart of the Macgregor design and production team and keep MacGregor in their line up as a player’s club. But I guess that is too much to hope for.
I agree with many of the comments left here prior to mine.
I used MacGregor forged blades for many years, as well as having two of their Staff bags. The first I bought at Bethpage State Park’s pro shop in 1991 and still use and one I purchased last year (before all this news broke) because I knew it would probably be their ‘last’ Staff bag.
It is a shame that a once proud name has been relegated to being a retailer’s house brand. The quality of MacGregor forged blades was renowned and I had two of their older sets that between them, I used for close to twenty years.
I am a purist in many things and golf is one of them. I was probably one of the last semi-pro photographers to embrace digital and didn’t make the switch from film until 2.5 years ago. As a golfer, I still carry a TWO (2) iron in my bag and have NEVER even hit a hybrid/rescue club.
Perhaps I’m a dinosaur, but I really did love the old line club makers like MacGregor! Even the name, a Scottish one was reminiscent of the origins of the game.
It’s a shame that there isn’t room for an old line company like MacGregor, but cash flow and the economies of scale, along with technology changes and consumer tastes all combined to create a perfect storm that worked against them.
Jack Nicklaus couldn’t make a go of the company and neither could Norman and that is a pity. Like someone else here said, too much of the business is governed by the pandering to Wall Street interests and that mindset conspired to kill off a once legendary name.
Who would have thought a shoe company like NIKE would have ever displaced a marquee brand like MacGregor? But they did and in the process, proved cash was and is KING!
It is a shame and I for one, will miss MacGregor!
Paul Connors
Rockaway, NJ
i just bought the macgregor mt mid irons for my 2nd set of irons. i can honestly say i will never leave macgregor. thanx to ebay i will be buying as many macgregor accesories/clubs as long as they are up for sale. golfsmith should bring the brand back!!!
I would be tempted to buy one of their sets right now as a back-up. but know that I wouldn’t be able to get them custom fitted like some of the other reviewers here before me said they were able to do.
It is really is a shame that a company all of us who’ve posted here liked and admired could not make a go of it.
Like others have said, for years before the end, they were a niche brand. The thought that they are gone makes me miss them already.
Just bought mt forged irons today, 299 plus free wedge. They felt very sweet. If you want some of them I suggest you head to golfsmith. I tried cobra, lynx, taylormade and titelist against them, they came out on top
i bought a set of pro-c forged cavity backs and i love them. excellent club quality.
I have to agree with all the comments above. Since I took up golf so many years ago, all I have ever played (and with some hope, all I ever will play) are MacGregor’s. The club of Nicklaus, Hogan, Armour, etc.
Like said above, you really have to wonder how such a great name could not make it, even with Norman’s cachet.
At least Golfsmith will keep the name going. Hopefully sometime in the future, maybe someone will buy it from them and return them to glory. Hey, who ever thought Tom Watson would return the way he did this year?
Greetings from South Africa! Trust someone out there will be able to help me. I have just inherited a set of MacGregor irons (9 in all) plus 3 drivers 1,3 and 5 MC700 series in good condition. On the shafts of the irons are green and gold stickers which reads: MACGREGOR VELOCITIZED DUAL ACTION 6.5. On the drivers the same story but the 6.5 is replaced with a R. To really make this lot classy I need to replace these stickers. Can anybody please advise me how to proceed further? Thanks and regards.
It is a sad day for golf. They were the best. I still have a set of Tommy Armour irons, and a set of Tommy Armour 945 wooden head woods that are considered Classic,and a famous Tommy Armour putter that may have been used by a lot of tour players. .Mr Armour must be crying in his grave.The mighty have fallen and-we are all poorer for this disaster.
What a shame. i have been playing MacGregor sticks since the 50’s.The finest woods&irons ever made. I’ve been to the Albany,Ga plant and american made was second to none.Its just to bad that craftsmanship dosen’t count any more.Its all about the hype and how much money you through at promoting a product.Macgregor has a iron grind book on different iron grinds thats probably priceless.Its a custom club makers bible. I wonder whose got that now. to bad to sad..