Ben Hogan Edge Clubs Reborn

We’ve seen a lot of re-inventing of old brands and products in recent years. Now the Ben Hogan Edge, first introduced in 1989, gets a reboot.

By Tony Dear

The reincarnation of long-gone clubs continues this month with the rebirth of the Hogan Edge, originally launched 29 years ago. Ever the perfectionist, Hogan made elegant clubs for discerning players, so the decision to put a cavity in the back of the Edge couldn’t have been taken lightly. Forged, of course, it maintained a certain sophistication despite the cavity, and proved very popular with mid/low-handicappers who wanted more forgiveness than their Hogan Apex, Director, Producer and Medallion blades were giving them.

Hogan’s company, established after the Hawk’s incredible three-major season in 1953, went through a number of ownership changes before and after Hogan’s death in 1997, eventually winding up as a Callaway brand in 2003. Callaway never made much of Hogan’s name, however, and discontinued the line in 2008. Four years later it sold the brand to upmarket fashion brand Perry Ellis which, in turn, sold the rights to Eidolon Brands led by former Hogan employee Terry Koehler.

The new-look company introduced the handsome Ft. Worth 15 iron at the PGA Merchandise Show in 2015. Surprisingly, given the amount of media coverage it and other Hogan Equipment Company products received – not to mention the quality of the clubs, they didn’t perform in the market as hoped, and the company declared bankruptcy in January of last year.

Scott White, who had replaced Koehler as the company’s president and CEO in August 2016, never gave up hope though admitting that discussions about the company’s future were very complicated, and that on several occasions the question of whether or not they shouldn’t just throw in the towel had come up.
“There were a lot of very tense moments,” he says. “But we were determined to keep the company afloat because we all felt the Hogan name should be a part of the industry.”

In a move of which Hogan himself might not have approved, but which White felt was essential to the company’s survival, clubs were sold direct to the consumer from its web site.
“We made the decision to operate this way in June or July of 2017,” White says. “While we were determining how the Company would operate, if at all, coming out of bankruptcy, we offered our existing, loyal customers the opportunity to purchase products directly from us without any retail mark-up.”

The response, says White, was overwhelming. “It was clear consumers had no resistance to bypassing traditional golf retailers. In fact, they liked it, especially if they could get some of the highest quality irons on the market for (more or less) wholesale pricing.

The new Ben Hogan Edge, forged from stainless steel, therefore represents incredibly good value for money. Less expensive items are sometimes shunned as consumers assume it must be inferior in some way, or less prestigious. But the savvy club buyer is getting a great deal on an iconic players’ iron forged from stainless steel.

“When we began discussing the attributes, performance characteristics and player profile for this new iron, one of the members of our R&D team said the design brief for the original Edge must have been identical to the new club,” says White.

“We wanted to make a solid-feeling iron that provided some game-improvement features but wasn’t a clunky-looking investment cast iron.  We thought it made a lot of sense to reintroduce the Edge to more mature players familiar with the name, and also to younger golfers who would be seeing it for the first time.”

The clubhead features two forged parts – the body and a laser-welded face. The variable thickness face is thinner in the long irons than the short irons, and the slightly offset head is 12% larger than that of the PTx iron, introduced in early 2016.

The top-line is thicker than on previous Hogan models, the V-Sole technology, which combines a high-bounce leading edge with a low-bounce trailing edge, has been enhanced to minimize digging and help golfers maintain speed through impact, and each iron is stamped with the club number rather than its loft with consistent four-degree gaps between each iron.

On top of zero mark-ups, the new Edge is offered with 0% financing and golfers can trade-in their previous clubs. The Ben Hogan Golf Equipment Company is clearly pulling out all the stops to get you to play its products. And once you do, White says you’re unlikely to ever go back.

“We are 100% confident that if players try our clubs they will remain loyal to the brand,” he says.

“Our focus is on the performance of our equipment first and foremost. We encourage golfers to do a side-by-side comparison of Ben Hogan Edge products to any other irons, wedges, hybrids or utility clubs on the market.  We know we will win that contest most of the time. Offering financing options and trade-ins are small ways we are trying to make the game more affordable.”

$735
benhogangolf.com

Looking for the older version? We’ve got you covered!

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