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Game Changers in Golf: Evolution of the Metalwood

This week we’re going to talk about an evolution that is part of the Bloodline history – the introduction of the metalwood. Let’s start at the beginning...

Bloodline is rooted in three generations of golf industry success. In 1919, Vale Adams was born in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Vale was born into a golfing family and excelled as a player from an early age. Vale began caddying when he was just 13 and became the youngest member at McHenry CC. After a number of club championships, Vale became the head pro and was so well respected that some of his golf lessons were featured on a series of Special K cereal boxes.

Vale's son, Gary, followed in his father's footsteps and was the captain of his college golf team. After leaving college, he started working as a golf salesman where he observed that new golf balls worked well with irons, but not wood clubs, so he started tinkering to create a driver with a metal head.

In 1979, Gary Adams took out a $24,000 loan on his house and leased a 6,000 square foot building in McHenry, Illinois to start TaylorMade Golf Company. He originally had three employees and sold only his newly invented 12-degree driver which was nicknamed Pittsburgh Persimmon.

In 1981, the company had its first PGA Tour victory when Ron Streck won the Houston Open playing a TaylorMade metalwood driver. By 1982, the number of tour pros grew to seven, including one LPGA player. Innovative marketing helped TaylorMade dominate, and by 1985, 98 percent of all metal woods used on Tour were TaylorMade. The editor of Golf Digest named Gary Adams as one of the top 5 disrupters in the golf industry along with Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Gene Sarazen, and Johnnie Miller.

Thanks to his father and grandfather, Bradley Vale Adams has been around the golf industry for over 5 decades. After winning the Illinois PGA Junior State Championship at the age of 17, Brad attended Augusta College on a golf scholarship.

While working at TaylorMade after college, Brad met Jim Flood and Michael Magerman, together they started Odyssey Golf. Odyssey quickly became the #1 putter in players and victories on all major tours. After Odyssey was sold, Brad went to work starting Never Compromise which went to #1 in players and victories even faster than Odyssey.

In 2017, Brad Adams and Larry Bischmann founded Bloodline Golf. The Bloodline brand is built on a commitment to live up to a proud family tradition of making a lasting impact on the game of golf.

The revolutionary Bloodline Golf putters are able to stand up alone on the green, allowing golfers to align putts from behind the face. This is the first stand-up putter technology that has been validated with numerous tour victories. The Vale putter, named after Brad’s grandfather, is the most recent addition to Bloodline Golf’s line of innovative products.

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