MacGregor

Hickory Golf Supplies stock a comprehensive range of MacGregor Hickory Golf Clubs which are available for shipping worldwide. The MacGregor Golf Company was originally known as the Crawford, McGregor & Canby Company which was an offshoot of the Dayton Shoe Last Company. It is believed that Robert White, the famous St. Andrews clubmaker, applied the mechanised woodworking techniques used in the shoe last factory in Dayton, Ohio to the turning of wooden golf club heads. The company’s first catalogue was produced in 1898 at a time when Willie Dunn, earlier with B.G.I., spent a year MacGregor. The company grew very rapidly due to the export of hundreds of thousands of wooden golf heads to Scottish makers.

By 1910 the company was producing a full line of golfing requisites including bags and golf course maintenance supplies. They even built a company golf course in Dayton for employee recreation and the testing of new equipment.

The reason for the difference in spelling of “McGregor” as in the original company name and “MacGregor”, the Scottish version of the name which appeared on the clubs, is somewhat unclear. It was probably part of a marketing scheme to appease the many Scottish golf professional making their living in the United States and as a gimmick to give character to their line of golf equipment. Clubs were even stamped with “J. MacGregor” which was either a fictitious name or referred to John MacGregor, who had once worked for the St. Andrews club making firm of Robert Forgan & Son.

The most common of the many models of the hickory era are the Par, Peerless, Pilot and economy grade Edgemont lines. In the years prior to it being illegal, they produced over 20 models of the famous Backspin iron with its deep grooved scoring.

Tommy Armour was a fine Scottish player and teacher who was working at the Medinah Country Club in Chicago when he was hired by MacGregor in 1935. He brought his assistant, Toney Penna, with him and together they designed clubs such as the famous Tommy Armour oil hardened woods, Silver Scot irons and Ironmaster putters which were the standards of the industry for decades. Their clubs of the 1950’s and 1960’s are now sought after by classic club collectors.

MacGregor has always been masterful and marketing their golf products. Their Advisory Staff of tour players and club professionals has had many outstanding players including Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret, Bob Toski, Louise Suggs, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Ben Crenshaw, Johnny Miller and Tom Watson. The company is still a major force in the golf world even though it has experienced several changes in ownership. The present owner and long time user of MacGregor products is Jack Nicklaus.