MacGregor Irons By Year

By Coach Erik Schjolberg – Jan 17, 2024

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MacGregor Irons History

MacGregor Golf has a long storied history, filled with major victories (59), and had the greatest golfers to ever play the game using their clubs. Sadly, young golfers likely don’t even recognize the name.

How? And why?

How is it that the manufacturer with the second most major victories has zero presence in today’s golf world?

Many ownership changes, sketchy management decisions, overproduction, and the eventual sale to become a house brand to a golf department store all contributed to the demise of this once behemoth golf brand.

MacGregor started out in 1829 as a Last company. A Last is a wooden foot shape used for shoe manufacturing, which oddly transitioned well into clubmaking. In 1910, MacGregor became a big player in clubmaking, while being the largest shoe last maker.

By the 1920s MacGregor committed to just golf, and had record breaking years mass producing golf clubs. The Great Depression forced MacGregor near bankruptcy, and was forced to sell to Goldsmith.

From 1930 to 1960 MacGregor was the preferred club for the greatest to play the game. Players like Tommy Armour, Byron Nelson, Jimmy Demaret, and Ben Hogan had their loopers carrying MacGregor for them.

Clubs made during this time, such as the MT irons and Eye-O-Matic woods have tech that is still used in clubs today. MacGregor seemed to be a step ahead of the game.

MacGregor was sold again to Brunswick (the bowling company) and was almost immediately run into the ground.

MacGregor’s savior came by way of the Golden Bear. Jack Nicklaus, with MacGregor in his bag, went on to win, and win A LOT.

Even though MacGregor seemed to be every golfer’s answer, they were sold again to Wickes Corporation. This purchase was mostly made because the owners and operators of Wickes were big time golf fans. Sadly they were in incredible debt.

Wickes was forced to sell the company to one of their staffers. None other than Jack Nicklaus. Jack won two more majors while owner, and managed to release amazing clubs such as the oversized CG1800 irons, and the famous Response ZT putter.

The beginning of the end was when Jack Nicklaus got into golf course design. An expensive venture, but a true passion, Jack sold MacGregor to Amer Group. Amer also bought Wilson around the same time frame.

Amer thought the best course of action was to no longer make quality, tour preferred clubs, but mass produced, low cost, high yield sticks. Popularity continued to decline, and MacGregor changed ownership hands several times through the 90s.

In the 2000s Greg Norman was named chairman of the board, and did his best to turn MacGregor around. Back to the high quality clubs of yesteryear. He ditched the cheap MacTec line, and brought back premium lines like MT and VIP.

Sadly the efforts were too little too late for MacGregor. Norman left MacGregor, and shortly after MacGregor was sold one last time. Now defunct Golfsmith purchased MacGregor for less than $2 million. An amount that would have been a slow offseason for MacGregor decades ago.

With a golf department store making MacGregor an exclusive store brand, the end was near. Golfsmith, for a decade, tried to make the business model work, but ultimately failed and filed for bankruptcy. Dicks Sporting Goods purchased the Golfsmith assets, and has not released any products to date with the MacGregor name on it.

For many years, MacGregor was unable to keep up with the innovation and marketing seen by Titleist, Callaway, and TaylorMade. The writing was on the wall long before the MacGregor brand faded away.

Other Irons by Year

Ping Irons by year list is in this article.

List of Cobra Irons by year.

Wilson Staff Irons by year.

Cleveland Irons by year list is in this article.