Ely Callaway Jr.

Ely Callaway was born in 1919 and raised in LaGrange, Georgia. Aged 10 years old, he earned $150 selling copies of Literary Digest and used his profits to buy a J.H. Hale peach tree that yielded a crop of $750 in its first year.[2]

Callaway played golf as a youth and was a distant cousin of golf legend Bobby Jones. He won four successive championships at LaGrange's Highland Country Club. He was business manager of his high school newspaper and yearbook.

His family wanted him to be an engineer, however, he was determined to obtain a liberal arts degree at Emory University, where he was senior class president while working as the business manager for the university publication called The Campus.

He was a 1937 initiate of the Epsilon Chapter of Kappa Alpha Order and was a member of the Omicron Delta Kappa leadership fraternity. He graduated with a degree in history in 1940.

He joined the Army as a reserve officer in 1940 and earned a reserve officer’s commission through a correspondence course. Despite his intent to stay away from the family business of textiles, he was assigned to the Philadelphia Centralized Procurement Agency; the Army decided fabrics suited him after learning of his family’s history in textiles and Callaway Mills. He fulfilled his one-year obligation in October 1941 and decided to re-enlist. Just a few months later, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and his role and responsibilities expanded exponentially.

He rose to the rank of major and married; at just 24 years old, he became the youngest major in the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot. His three children, Reeves, Lisa, and Nicholas, were born in the 1940s and 1950s.

After Callaway was discharged from the Army, he had several job offers and contacts in the textile industry. He went to work for Deering-Milliken Co. in Atlanta. Charming and charismatic, he was chosen to launch a new company division in New York and became a rising corporate star. One of his greatest professional successes in the textile business came from his development of polyester blends. "I was one of the leaders of the move toward the fundamental new fabrics, Dacron blended first with wool and then with cotton", he told Emory Magazine.

Callaway used unique marketing techniques, like dousing a line of models in suits with water to show the fabrics’ innovative properties, while also garnering attention from the media. He was among the first to hire a woman for an executive position. Letitia Baldrige, etiquette author, columnist, and former social secretary and chief of staff for Jacqueline Kennedy, was Burlington's first director of consumer affairs.[3]

In the late 1950s, Textron hired Ely Callaway away from Deering-Milliken; Textron was then sold to Burlington Industries. He became vice president at Burlington in 1960, then president and director by 1968. But when he was passed over for the top spot as chairman of the company, he retired in 1973 and headed west to launch his next career.

Ely Callaway purchased 140 acres of land in Temecula, California and decided to turn it into a vineyard. Some people said the area was unsuitable for growing grapes, but Ely Callaway hired soils and climate experts who determined that the Temecula area had a microclimate that indeed was suitable for grape growing. He planted his grapes in 1973 and established Callaway Winery and Vineyards in 1974. The first wines were sold in 1975, and Callaway Riesling was served at a luncheon for Queen Elizabeth II in New York; the Queen asked for two glasses and a meeting with the vintner, and soon Temecula began to earn a reputation as a legitimate wine-producing region.[4]

Golf club made by Callaway Golf Company, founded by Ely Callaway in 1982

In 1981, Callaway Winery and Vineyard was purchased by Hiram Walker and Sons for $14 million, leaving Ely Callaway with a $9 million profit. Retired for a second time, he was playing golf when he discovered Hickory Sticks clubs in a Palm Springs-area golf shop. The old fashioned-looking, wooden clubs looked similar to those he had played with as a youth. However, these clubs were unique; they had a hollowed wooden shaft that was filled with a steel rod for strength and consistency. Hickory Stick, then owned by Richard Parente, Dick De La Cruz and Tony Manzoni, was looking for investors, and Ely Callaway was looking for a third career. In 1982, he purchased half ownership of Hickory Stick USA for $400,000. It soon became Callaway Hickory Stick USA, and by 1984 Ely Callaway purchased the company in full, becoming Callaway Golf – his third and most successful business venture.

Ely Callaway was awarded an Emory Medal in 1990 and an honorary Doctor of humane letters degree in 1996. According to a 1994 profile in Golf Digest, "In his sixty-plus years in business, Callaway's reputation for honesty, ethics, and generosity is unblemished."

Ely Callaway was chairman of the National UNCF Corporate Campaign. He donated generously to Emory University, as well as the local community near Carlsbad, California and the Callaway Golf Foundation.

In April 2001, Callaway was given a diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer at the age of 82. Prior to his diagnosis, Callaway had maintained a consistent routine of arriving early at his Carlsbad office on a daily basis, except when he was traveling for business purposes. He was actively and aggressively involved in the selling of what he referred to as "Demonstrably Superior and Pleasingly Different" golf clubs. Just a few months following his cancer diagnosis, he died. The Callaway family plot in LaGrange, Georgia bears a headstone that reads, "He considered himself very fortunate in all aspects of his life."

• Ely Callaway hit it big with textiles and wine. Now it’s golf. But the maker of the world's best-selling club says it’s time to retire and write his life story. How can he possibly slow down? article by Paul Dean on Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1994