AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB : Pinseeker Golf, a Small Maker of Custom Equipment in Santa Ana, Says It’s No. 2 in Metal Woods Field
It’s a company where employees call the owner “the colonel,” its products have names like Bullet, Bombshell and Fireball, and there’s a vice president of logistics.
One of Orange County’s many defense contractors, perhaps?
No, this Santa Ana company’s products won’t be found on the battlefield. But you may see them blasting out of a bunker in a war zone of a different type: the local golf course.
The company, Pinseeker Golf Corp., makes customized golf equipment for customers willing to plunk down $1,000 or more for a set of clubs and a bag. The “colonel” is Michael Metzgar, a former Army officer who retired from the service in 1961 and went into the golf business because, he said, “if you want to keep working, you might as well be in something you like.”
Metzgar’s military background is evident in the trade names of the company’s products and in the decor of his office, where illustrations of jet fighters adorn the walls and model airplanes sit on a table.
“There’s always been a military presence here because that was his background,” said Randy Blackwood, the company’s vice president of communications.
Metzgar’s 39-year-old son, Michael Jr., is the company’s vice president of logistics. A former cartographer for the U.S. government, he is responsible for buying and the manufacturing scheduling.
The elder Metzgar “runs the train, and I blow the whistle,” Michael Jr. said.
Since Metzgar bought Pinseeker in 1976 and moved the company from Monterey to Santa Ana, the firm has grown from a three-person operation to one employing nearly 50 people. The company’s has a two-story office and manufacturing facility on South Susan Street.
“Ten years ago, we weren’t even a blip on the screen,” said Metzgar, 71, a smallish, tough-talking man who prefers white golf-style shoes and a Caesar’s Palace jacket to wing tips and business suits.
Today, Pinseeker says he is the No. 2 producer of so-called metal woods and has its sights set on joining the ranks of the 10 biggest U.S. golf-equipment makers.
Pinseeker, which is solely owned by Metzgar, expects to achieve revenues of $5 million in 1987. Sales during the first 10 months of the year were up 53% over the same period in 1986, an increase company officials attribute to an industrywide boom in golf equipment sales and the success of the company’s new product lines.
Earlier this year, Pinseeker began marketing a new line of golf irons, the TPW series, which are modeled after the hot-selling Ping brand. The U.S. Golf Assn. has barred the Ping clubs from use in professional tournaments because the grooves in the club face don’t comply with association standards. The TPW clubs, however, have acceptable grooves.
Pinseeker has carved out a niche for itself in an industry populated with better-financed and better-known companies such as MacGregor, Spalding and Wilson, as well as smaller but highly successful firms such as Ping and Ben Hogan.
Pinseeker “is just a small frog in a big pond” and lacks the name recognition of many of its rivals, said Edward F. Padzur, publisher of Executive Golfer magazine in Irvine.
“They’re not on national television, and he (Metzgar) doesn’t have the millions of dollars required to make Pinseeker a household name,” Padzur added.
Pinseeker’s Blackwood acknowledged that the company relies heavily on word-of-mouth ads.
Pinseeker faces much the same challenge as a small soft-drink company trying to grab supermarket shelf space away from Coke and Pepsi. In Pinseeker’s case, its supermarkets are the approximately 1,300 golf pro shops throughout the country. The company’s equipment is also sold in golf specialty stores.
“When it comes to getting to know golf professionals, that is where Mike is smart,” Padzur said. “He’s competent enough to get his golf clubs in places like Augusta, where other manufacturers cannot.”
(A spokesman for the National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., site of the Masters golf tournament, said the club’s pro shop recently dropped the Pinseeker line because customer demand had dropped off.)
But a spokesman for the Roger Dunn Golf Shop in Santa Ana said Pinseeker’s TPW clubs have been “selling extremely well.” He said Pinseeker sales have probably benefited from a shortage of Ping clubs, which has forced golfers to look for substitute products.
Pinseeker and other U.S. golf companies face increasing international competition, from the Japanese in particular. “The foreign competition is deadly serious,” Padzur said.
For the time being, however, Metzgar is more concerned with being able to fill the company’s bulging file of back orders. The company can produce 200 sets of clubs per day. But the boom in golf equipment sales has caused a shortage of golf club shafts--which Pinseeker buys from outside suppliers--making it difficult to keep up with demand.
Metzgar would like to expand the company, but he says raising the necessary capital is difficult. One option would be to sell Pinseeker stock to the public, but he fears that that would impede his ability to captain the company as he sees fit.
“Now, when I want to hold a shareholders’ meeting,” he deadpanned, “I go to the john and look in the mirror.”
Michael Metzgar at a Glance
POSITION: President, Pinseeker Golf Corp.
AGE: 71
RESIDENCE:. Home overlooks the 15th green at Mesa Verde Country Club, Costa Mesa.
FAMILY: Wife, Victoria, son, Michael Jr., 39.
EDUCATION: BS degree, history, Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass.
BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY: “We don’t want to be the biggest; we want to be the best.”
GOAL: To own and live aboard a 40-foot cabin cruiser. “When you get bored, you could just pick up the hook and move on.”
