Carlsbad As A Golf Center: All A Big Accident

We know it wasn't the golf architecture that drew the creative types of manufacturing and marketing to set up shop in Carlsbad, now the west coast center of the golf club business.

And as Alan Shipnuck reveals in a look at the industry centerplace for innovation and the next marketing campaign touting the longest and straightest, northern San Diego's allure has nothing to do with the area's wonderfulness.

"Total bull----," says Mark King, the CEO of TaylorMade, who has been making the scene in Carlsbad since 1981. "It's all folklore. The truth is, the whole thing was coincidental. Basically, Ely Callaway lived here because his vineyard was nearby [in Temecula]. After he sold the vineyard in 1981, he was bored, so he bought into a little company in Carlsbad that made hickory-shafted golf clubs. Gary Biszantz was the big car dealer in the area, and he cofounded Cobra Golf with Tom Crow, so in the beginning they used a little tiny office of Gary's to run the company. Gary Adams founded TaylorMade in Chicago, but his West Coast guy, Gordie Severson, lived here. He could have been in Santa Monica, or Santa Barbara, or anywhere, but he happened to be here, so the company moved out here too. It was all a big accident."