The golf equipment company named after one of golf’s greatest, thrived on the PGA Tour in the late 70s.
It was easy to find players using Ben Hogan irons especially and carrying the Hogan bag.
Today, the future of the company is cloudy at best.
The Ben Hogan Company has filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code over the weekend.
The filing took place in Fort Worth, Tx., home of the company and the town where Hogan learned to play the game.
The company was brought back to the market two years ago in an attempt to resurrect the brand, but it just hasn’t been able to penetrate the marketplace.
It’s a common dilemma in today’s golf climate. Nike has exited the equipment business and did not even show its apparel brands at last week’s PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. Likewise, Mizuno and Bridgestone did not attend. Neither did Sun Mountain.
Tileist is now a publicly-traded company as is Callaway. TaylorMade remains on the sales block, put there by parent company Adidas.
4 Comments
beege
hopefully the reorg will work and the hogan name stays on the books! i still play my hogans and love them–and they love me!!!
Tom Edrington
Tough road to hoe, even the big boys are struggling.
NeilofOZ
All across this worlds golf is being challenged in many ways and it’s not only the competition from other sports and or entertainment providers. From my personal experience, golf has been very frustrating in many ways and as a late starter have experienced major flaws in the games structure, from coaching to club fitting. Willing to spend large sums of money on coaching, clubs and travel and spend many many hours practicing to achieve some level of competency, have yet to achieve any real satisfaction.
1. Yet to experience any coach with a structured plan aimed at the golfers aspirations.
2. There are no national/international standards for identifying general club materials or fittings.
3. Some golf laws are actually stupid and and the “laws of golf” should be reviewed.
4. Dress standards should be more flexible, just like the women, dress for comfort & fashion.
Tom Edrington
All of your concerns are very legitimate. When you are looking for quality instruction, make sure you research it just like you were looking for a new car. Ask around, ask golfers who are at the level you would like to get to how they got there. Golf dress codes are changing, you see collarless shirts from Nike now accepted. When you’re a beginning, it’s always best to find some nice used equipment before you spend a bunch of money on the new stuff.