Bloomberg News
Don White, who made golf clubs by hand for Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and 12 other major tournament winners, is returning to the custom-club business.
White, 58, will start hand-grinding clubs for Scratch Golf Co., where PGA Tour player Ryan Moore recently became a part-owner.
During 38 years at MacGregor, which began making clubs in 1897, White forged irons for players including Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Jose Maria Olazabal and Ben Crenshaw. White received offers from other companies after MacGregor was sold in May, White said, but he chose Scratch because it was the only place that said he could make each set of clubs personally.
"No one does the type of work I like doing," said White, a 2001 inductee into the Professional Clubmakers Society Hall of Fame. "I like to hand-make golf clubs. Everybody else likes to do stuff in quantity. I like to have a challenge with every club. This is what I believe in."
A set of eight Scratch irons custom-made by White will cost as much as $2,500, company President Ari Techner said. A typical set of top-of-the-line irons made by Callaway Golf Co. or Adidas's TaylorMade costs about $1,000, according to the companies' Web sites.
Techner, 30, who co-founded Scratch in 2003, met White in 1998 when he traveled to MacGregor's former headquarters in Albany, Ga., to have a set of irons made. MacGregor was sold to retail chain Golfsmith International Holdings Inc.
When Techner spoke this year with White, he said, White recalled his exact club specifications.
"He remembers pretty much every club he grinds," Techner said. "He considers himself an artist and a craftsman, not a guy on an assembly line."
At Scratch, which makes only eight to 10 clubs a day, White will work alongside company co-founder Jeff McCoy, who hand-made Moore's current clubs. Moore switched to Scratch soon after using a set of Ping irons made by Karsten Manufacturing Co. to win the U.S. PGA Tour's Wyndham Championship in August.
Moore, the 2004 U.S. Amateur champion, ended the 2009 season with three consecutive top-10 finishes, including third place at the HSBC Champions tournament in China in November.
The first set of White-made clubs from Scratch will be available this month, Techner said.
