History of Callaway Golf CompanyCallaway Golf Company CEO Ron Drapeau told CBSMarketWatch, “We have become known as the company that brings innovation to the game for the golfer AVERAGE. We don't focus on the elite. This has been a very successful approach for us. "But that doesn't mean Callaway clubs are dismissed by professionals. At the end of the 2000 professional tour, Callaway Golf ranked as the most played manufacturer of drivers, fairway woods and irons of the five world's leading professional tours combined Best known for its Big Bertha, ERC II, C4, Hawk Eye VFT, and Steelhead drivers and fairway woods, Callaway Golf also manufactures Odyssey White Hot and Dual irons, wedges, putters. Force, as well as several long distance golf balls, including the HX, CTU 30 and CB1. The company also licenses its name for clothing, golf bags and other golf accessories. Callaway Golf debuted in 1982. , when a 60-year-old recreational golfer named Ely Callaway, who in earlier incarnations had been president of Burlington Industries and founder of a world-class winery in Southern California, purchased a financially troubled company that manufactured one of his favorite golf clubs. Since the conventional golf club had been around for about 250 years, Ely Callaway felt there was plenty of room to reinvent it. Although his new company began by making rather traditional hickory-shafted putters and wedges, by 1988 the Callaway Golf Company had introduced a remarkably innovative set of irons under the S2H2 label. These irons had hollow shafts whose weight was redistributed towards the hitting zone. A year later, Callaway Golf introduced its S2H2 metal woods. Again, the weight of the club has been distributed to optimize efficiency. The hickory barrels were now gone, 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 featuring the S2H2 design with an oversized head. Likened to “an oversized tennis racket for golfers,” the Big Bertha driver, named after a World War I cannon, allowed 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 number 1 on the Senior PGA, LPGA and Hogan Tours. Callaway Golf was now well on its way to gaining a reputation for producing forgiving clubs that helped lower scores..