Nike

Nike stopped making clubs in 2016. The announcement came that August, covering clubs, balls and bags together, with the golf business moving behind footwear and apparel. Club production had run since 2002, the balls from four years before that, so the equipment era lasted about fourteen years in all. Shoes and clothing carried on and still do, so the brand hasn't left golf, only club-making. The parent company hasn't gone anywhere either, still headquartered at One Bowerman Drive in Beaverton, Oregon.

What it left is a catalogue golfers are still playing. Victory Red and VR Pro covered the forged irons and wedges, Vapor came after them, and the drivers ran from SasQuatch and the square-headed Sumo through to the Covert heads with their cavity hidden under the crown. FlexLoft gave the hosel fifteen loft and face-angle settings. Method putters flowed polymer grooves into a milled steel face, and Rory McIlroy won two majors in 2014 with nothing but this equipment in the bag, that putter included. Design and prototyping happened at The Oven in Fort Worth, Texas. When the equipment side closed, two of its craftsmen leased the building and the machines in it and carried on building clubs there under a name of their own.