Category:Cobra

From PutterPedia

[edit] Overview

• Year Established: 1973
• Website: www.cobragolf.com
• Phone Number:
• Address

[edit] Company History

Cobra Golf was founded in San Diego in 1973 by Australian Tom Crow, a gifted golfer who came to California in search of more trophies and more business opportunities. Crow had been a marketing manager for an Australian golf club manufacturer called PGF Golf, and he desperately wanted to start his own company.

In 1974, the first full year of business for Cobra, total sales were about $1 million.

Two-time British Open champion Greg Norman invested $2 million in Cobra in 1990 and became the face of the company. Sales in 1990 were about $24 million.

In 1993, as business steadily increased, Cobra went public. Cobra finished the year with net income of $7.7 million on sales of $56 million.

Two years later, Cobra agreed to be acquired by Fortune Brands, then called American Brands. The purchase price was $700 million. Critics of the deal pointed out that Cobra had yet to achieve annual sales of $200 million.

No matter, because Cobra became part of Fortune Brands’ Acushnet Co. that also included Titleist, Pinnacle, FootJoy and Scotty Cameron. Crow made $40 million on the sale, Norman made $28 million, and others such as Schroeder and instructor Butch Harmon profited handsomely. By the late 1990's Putter designer Bobby Grace joined cobra golf to design their putters.

Cobra forfeited its design department and became part of Titleist R&D. The days of unique Cobra products such as the Baffler and King Cobra oversized iron temporarily were forgotten.

By 2001, Cobra sales plummeted to less than $50 million. The company went from a high of $190 million in sales in 1997 to a 2001 figure that was approximately one-quarter of that amount.

Market share took a similar dip. According to Golf Datatech, Cobra’s iron share dropped from about 11 percent in 1997 to 3 percent in 2001. The company’s wood share declined from about 10 percent to 3 percent in the same period.

This precipitated change. In 2001, Crow was given five golf club engineers and told to restart the Cobra design department. It was the beginning of what current Cobra president Jeff Harmet calls “the Renaissance.”