The Bobby Jones Golf Company

Bobby Jones Golf Clubs

Golf Equipment Since the 1930s

In the 30’s, Spalding made the first set of matching irons and branded them Robt. T Jones, Jr. The branded “Kro-Flite” line were the high end in Spalding’s line for many years into the mid sixties. The family terminated its license with Spalding for a variety of reasons.

Eli Callaway was happily retired as the former President of Burlington Industries; and, he had moved to Temecula, Ca. to retire, acquire a winery, and play golf. In 1985, Eli Callaway, mostly for fun, formed a partnership with a guy in No. San Diego County who was making hickory shafted putters and wedges for a very limited (not serious) market.

Callaway, interestingly, was a distant cousin of Bobby Jones. He concluded that if the hickory shafted clubs could carry the trademark of Bobby Jones---- this would be a difference maker for a little company that was making product that guys bought as gifts and “art” for their offices. Again, they were not a serious contenders or players. Technology had moved on.

Callaway, the “Colonel Sanders” of the Golf Industry, soon elected to put together a staff that could make contemporary golf equipment and compete with MacGregor, Wilson, Taylor/Made and others.

Callaway was able, with the help of the Bobby Jones brand, to borrow considerable working capital from G E Capital to jump start Callaway Golf. In effect, he then bootstrapped Callaway Golf into the early 90’s using the Bobby Jones trademark. And, Callaway made very good Bobby Jones clubs. Even today, you can find Bobby Jones clubs for sale on eBay made by Callaway in the 90’s.

In 2002, Eli Callaway passed away and the company agreed to terminate the license with the Jonesheirs and return the trademarks. Callaway had clearly put their focus on their house brand; i.e. Big Bertha and Callaway irons. Jones was subordinated to Callaway; however, Eli wisely never wanted to see the Bobby Jones brand in the hands of a competitor.

The Jones family decided to re/license the brand for equipment, since their apparel licensee with Hickey Freeman was so successful at making “the best of the best.”

After, entertaining many proposals from large companies such as TaylorMade, a group led by Jesse Ortiz and his financial backers, which included the Venturi family, came forth with a proposal that was eventually accepted by the family. All concerned viewed Jesse Ortiz as the Scotty Cameron of the wood business; and, this was the marketing model we elected to follow. It was Jesse’s family pedigree that gave us the incentive and the confidence to go forward and create The Bobby Jones Golf Company

The Legend, the Pioneer and the Vision

Great Names From Golf's Past and Present Look Toward the Future

A chorus of noises produced by the fusing, molding and shafting of metals spills from an inconspicuous industrial studio. The master craftsman is hard at work. He builds, he assesses, breaks down and begins to build again. His work appears to be tedious, but for him it’s a labor of love. When he’s right, he feels it in his core. He holds the result in his palms, lifts it above his head and ultimately swings it down towards a ball resting on a tee.

“You can talk all you want about launch trajectories and composite metals, and I do,” says Jesse Ortiz. “But in the end, a great golf club is all about how it feels.”

Although he left his post as the Chief Designer of Orlimar Golf in early 2003, Ortiz couldn’t stay away. He found himself spending more time in his studio, building and manipulating golf clubs, out of sheer obsession. Ortiz soon formed his own company, the Ortiz Design Studio™, where he produced a line of metal woods and hybrids that reflect his innovation and artistry.

Now the master craftsman is paired with the greatest name in the game. The Ortiz Design Studio™ has formed an alliance with The Bobby Jones Golf Company. With Ortiz as chief designer, The Bobby Jones Golf Company is unveiling a new line of metal woods, the “Bobby Jones Players Series by Jesse Ortiz.” And the timing of the 2005 launch couldn’t be more fortuitous; it coincides with the 75th anniversary of golfing legend Jones’ historic Grand Slam.

Bobby Jones, The Man, The Legend

Golf held a singular fascination for the young Jones, born in Atlanta in 1902. He competed in his first tournament, the U.S. Amateur, at 14, finishing in the top 10. When Jones retired as a touring tournament player in 1930, he had won the British Open three times, the British Amateur once, the U.S. Open four times, and the U.S. Amateur five times… all without formal golf lessons. And he entered every tournament as an amateur in the truest sense – out of pure love for the game.

After his early retirement, Jones continued a legacy of achievement as a founder of the Masters Tournament and the designer with Alister Mackenzie of Augusta National Golf Club. He was a “renaissance man” who spoke six languages; held degrees in mechanical engineering (Georgia Tech) and literature (Harvard); and was a successful attorney who passed the bar after attending Emory’s law school for only one year.

In 1948, Jones faced the greatest challenge of his life. He suffered from bone growths on three vertebrae resulting in severe pain and paralysis. With characteristic forbearance and humility, Jones stated, “We all have to play the ball as it lies.” The legend passed away in 1971 at the age of 69.

BBC journalist and friend Alistair Cooke wrote, “What we are left with in the end is a forever young, good-looking Southerner, who, to the great good fortune of people who saw him, happened to play the great game with more magic and more grace than anyone before or since.”

At the 75th anniversary of the Grand Slam in 2005, this accomplishment by Bobby Jones is the one that endures beyond the others. Up until that time, there was no descriptive term for a feat such as this. No one thought it possible. George Trevor of the New York Sun wrote that Jones had “stormed the impregnable quadrilateral of golf.” Yet it was O.B. Keeler of the Atlanta Journal who dubbed it the “Grand Slam,” borrowing a bridge term that is forever linked to golf’s greatest individual accomplishment.

The Master Craftsman, Jesse Ortiz

“Creating and designing golf clubs isn’t my job, it’s my life,” says Ortiz. “It’s all I’ve done since I was 10 years old.”
 
Jesse Ortiz, one of golf's most influential club designers, explains where his passionate craftsmanship came from - and where it will go

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My father Lou Ortiz, immigrated to America from Spain's Basque region in 1950.  He was a tool-and-die operator back in the old country, and he found work as a machinist in a heavily Spanish area of San Francisco.  Through a friend, he got a second job making parts for golf clubs.  This was three years before Dad began to play golf.  In 1962 he and two pals, Pedro Liendro and Emilo Martinez, Founded Orlimar Golf.



The company became revered on the West Coast for it's persimmon woods.  today we think of persimmon clubs as simple and quaint, but they were quite complex, requiring more than 100 manufacturing processes.  Dad personally hand-shaped every club that went out the door: each wood was truly a work of art.  His clubs were used by a virtual who's who, from Ken Venturi and Chi Chi Rodriquez to Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf.



I started working in the Orlimar factory at age 12--- sweeping floors.  Later, my father let me work on discarded persimmon heads:  In those days, if any operation was done wrong you had a piece of firewood on your hands.  Sometimes Dad would stand over my shoulder, offering a word or two of advice, but mostly he expected I would learn by watching and doing.  By 16, I was entrusted to work on the top players clubs, tweaking the loft, reshaping the toe, or whatever was needed.



Our company performed well throught the 1970s and 1980s.  In 1991 Callaway introduced it's hugely successful Big Bertha: a steel-headed driver, and the industry changed forever.  We struggled to compete for years.  Eventually, I told my father that “wooden” woods had lost the war; and, we were going to have to beat the new, improved metal woods at their game.



In 1998, we introduced the TriMetal fairway wood.  It combined three different metals in its design,  at a time when everyone else was only using one.  Our Annual Sales went from about $1 million to $100 million in 18 months.



What made our success especially satisfying was that the TriMetal owed so much to what we had done with persimmon - with the knowledge that my father had acquired and helped pass on to me.  Persimmon woods, after all, weren't just persimmon: They had plastic-fiber face inserts, steel screws, aluminum or brass sole plates, and so on. It was a complicated club to manufacture and so was the TriMetal, but an underdog can't get away with "me too" products. Today, I think it's fair to say that every major company's fairway woods rely on concepts pioneered in the modern game by the TriMetal.  That means a lot to me.



I left Orlimar in 2003, but found I couldn't stop going to my workshop and creating and improving golf clubs.  Eventually, I partnered with the Bobby Jones Golf Company.  Bobby Jones was a man who, like my father, cared about passing on life lessons - from golf and everything else.  Today, I call myself the youngest dinosaur, or the “Missing Link.”  As far as I know, I'm the last metal-wood maker who used to hand-make persimmon woods.  My three children - a law student, a veterinary student and a college undergraduate - aren't going to follow me into the golf business, but they have the old-world values I cherish.