History of the Callaway Golf Company Ron Drapeau, CEO of the Callaway Golf Company, told CBSMarketWatch: “We have become known as the company bringing innovation to the game for the average golfer. We are not focus on elite professional players. It's been a very successful approach for us." But that's not to say that Callaway clubs are despised by professionals. At the end of the 2000 professional tour, Callaway Golf ranked as the most played manufacturer of drivers, fairway woods and irons on the world's five major professional tours combined. Best known for its Big Bertha, ERC II, C4, Hawk Eye VFT, and Steelhead drivers and fairway woods, Callaway Golf also makes Odyssey White Hot and Dual Force irons, wedges, putters, and several long-distance golf balls including HX, CTU 30 and CB1. The company also licenses its name for apparel, golf bags and other golf accessories. Callaway Golf began in 1982, when a sixty-year-old recreational golfer named Ely Callaway, who in previous incarnations had been president of Burlington Industries and founder of a world-class winery in Southern California, purchased a financially struggling company who made one of his favorite golf clubs. Since the conventional golf club had been around for about 250 years, Ely Callaway figured there was plenty of room to reinvent it. Although his new company had started out making fairly traditional walnut-handled putters and wedges, in 1988 the Callaway Golf Company had introduced a remarkably innovative set of irons under the S2H2 label. These irons featured hollow shafts with weight redistributed across the impact area. A year later, Callaway Golf introduced its S2H2 metal woods. Again, the weight of the club has been distributed to optimize efficiency. The walnut shafts had now disappeared, replaced by steel or graphite. In 1990, the S2H2 driver was the number one driver on the Senior PGA Tour. In the 1990s, Callaway introduced another new line of woods that featured the S2H2 design with an oversized head. Compared to "an oversized tennis racket for golfers," the Big Bertha driver, named after a World War I cannon, allowed for straighter shots on off-center shots. Professional golfers were impressed with the feel and distance they got from the club and by the end of the 1992 golf season, the Big Bertha Driver was ranked No. 1 on the Senior PGA, LPGA and Hogan tours. Callaway Golf was now well on its way to earning a reputation for producing forgiving clubs that helped lower scores.