Fernando H. Green Blog: Terry Koehler Leaves Ben Hogan (Sort Of)

By: John Barba

To say last week was busy in the world of golf news is kinda like saying Gisele Bundchen looked nice during the Opening Ceremonies in Rio Friday night.

But buried under the headlines of Nike waving the white flag and GolfSmith considering Chapter 11 was this little nugget on Facebook, from Ben Hogan CEO Terry Koehler:

"My life has moved into the next chapter with the transition at Ben Hogan Golf -- I've relinquished my role as President/CEO and evolved to a "semi-retired" Founder role, where I will not be responsible for day-to-day operations..."

So seemingly out of the blue, the man who brought the Hogan brand back to golf is out as CEO of the company he founded. It's a mini-bombshell, especially from a guy who called the rebirth of the Hogan "a labor of love." For the conspiracy minded among us, the wheels immediately started spinning.

What Gives?

If you're thinking this is some kind of corporate coup d'etat, the tell-tale signs are missing. If someone is being forced out, no matter how may non-disclosure agreements get signed, some bitterness seeps through. Speaking with Koehler last Friday however, it was almost as if he'd decided to repaint his office.

“It’s been my idea since we started this thing,” Koehler told MyGolfSpy. “Hogan had to be headquartered in Fort Worth, it’s a great city but it’s 300 miles from my house. My plan was to incubate this thing, get the nucleus of the team together and deal with the commute until I could find the right person to take it to the next level.”

That person is Scott White, most recently the head of Global Marketing and Brand Management for archery and bow-hunting giant Bowtech. White has a 20+ year history in the golf business, serving as sales and marketing director for TrueTemper, as well as holding leadership positions with TaylorMade, Callaway and Spalding/Top Flite.

Koehler says his goal when starting Hogan was to find his successor by the time he turned 65 (that happens next March).

“It’s a tall order, turning your dream over to somebody. But when I met Scott and got to know him, I really liked the way he goes about things. It’s kind of the opposite of my entrepreneurial life, which by natures is a living-on-the-edge, seat-of-your pants thing. Scott’s career has been built within well-run companies, and some that maybe you could question – but you learn from both sides.” – Terry Koehler

“The time to do it is now,” adds Koehler. “He’ll own the 2017 business cycle, because it’s hard to take over something when all the strategies, budgets and plans are already laid out.”

Builder Vs. Grower

Koehler is adamant he’s not being put out to pasture, nor is he ready for the early-bird “Senior Special” at Golden Corral.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he insists. “I’m going to stay very engaged in product innovation, communications and general strategic planning. I’m a large investor and my seat on the Board of Directors is permanent. It’s just the day-to-day administration of the plan and fine tuning of the plan – there are people better suited than me for that, and I believe we have a great one in Scott.”

Getting a business off the ground requires very specific skills. You need to envision eventual success (even if it requires rose-colored glasses), have the energy to build an organization from scratch and the testicular fortitude to grab a seat at an already overcrowded table.

Grabbing a seat is one thing, but keeping it? That’s another thing entirely.

“I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life, and a creator and innovator,” says Koehler. “Those are skills the Ben Hogan Company will continue to tap. But running and growing an organization? That’s not what I’ve done. That’s a completely different skill set.”

Mixed Emotions

Every article you read on the new Hogan, and every conversation I’ve ever had with Koehler on the subject focuses on that labor of love. Bringing the brand back to life has been a cause for Koehler, so stepping aside comes with some sadness.

“If you aren’t sad then you weren’t liking what you were doing. But now when I wake up at 4 in the morning, instead of thinking about all the things I have to do today I can think, hey, wait a minute, somebody else is going to be doing all those things. Then I can go back to sleep.” – Terry Koehler

While semi-retirement means sleeping in, Koehler still plans to stay plenty busy with Hogan and with a fixer-upper house located on, appropriately enough, East Street. And he plans to give his golf game a little love, too.

“I’ve really neglected it over the past 5 years, and I really believe your passion for the game is what makes us do what we do,” he says. “The big joke is once you get into the golf industry, you quit playing golf. But if you quit playing golf, isn’t it just another job? Without the love of the game, isn’t it just another job?”

Obligatory Nike Reaction

Nike’s The Oven was right across town in Fort Worth, and many original Hogan employees plied their trade for The Swoosh. Koehler says you could see Nike's exit coming.

“Consumers are smart,” he says. “It proves that money alone is not what it takes to be successful, because nobody had more money than Nike.”

Hogan plans to build a Tour staff once it develops a better distribution base, but Koehler does predict the price of having a Tour staff will be dropping a bit in the post-Nike world.

“If the Tour player was the secret, Nike would have been the number one company in golf, right? They had the hottest Tour player for 20 years and a solid stable of guys around him. So the Tour isn’t the silver bullet.”

Is This As It Seems?

The new Hogan has been shipping clubs for only 16 months, but the company-building process started in 2013, so it’s really been 3 years of heavy lifting to get everything off the ground. Hogan's irons have been well received, but the company's market share is pretty much where you'd expect it to be at this point - firmly in the "Other" category.

Still, the timing is curious and it begs the question, did Terry Koehler walk out of the company he brought back as a labor of love on his own, or was he forced out in favor of someone who can move the needle? The conspiracy-minded among us can find hidden agendas and evil intent in Pokémon Go, but Koehler asserts that turning over the reigns to the right guy by next March was in the cards all along.

The opinion here is certain personalities and skill sets thrive in the challenge of building a viable business out of virtually nothing. Those same personalities often lose interest or effectiveness (or both) when the task evolves into taking that business to the next level.

If you have even the tiniest bit of self-awareness, a couple of things become apparent as you approach 65. First is you've pretty much figured out what you're good at and what you aren't, and second is you really don't have to do things you aren't good at, especially if you don't like doing them. In that light, Koehler's assertion this move was planned all along, and that Hogan found the right guy to take over in Scott White makes sense.

The closer you are to 65, the more sense it makes.

And it doesn’t hurt that White was at Spalding when it bought the original Hogan back in the 90's.

“This company makes in impact on people,” says Koehler. “Scott got that indoctrination early in his career, so he gets what we’re about. For this company, you can’t just bring in anybody.”