Massey Basketball: Streaks Alumni Profile- Tom Bennett 1977- Designing Golf Clubs for the Pros

Tom Bennett’s Senior Picture

Today’s “Streaks Alumni Profile” features Tom Bennett from Galesburg HS’s Class of 1977.

After graduating from Galesburg HS, Tom went to the University of Illinois, where he earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He has had a fascinating career in engineering, going from helping produce missiles to artificial knees to golf clubs.

Receiving Gerald Phillips for Highest GPA of Junior Athlete at GHS

I had the opportunity to talk with Tom several times, as he shared his memories from GHS and the life after graduating. Here is our conversation…

Massey- I realize it has been awhile, but who were some of your favorite teachers and classes at GHS?

Tom- Bruce Spencer’s science class, and Joe Patterson’s English class were two of my favorites.

Massey- What were some of the sports and activities you were involved in during your high school days?

Tom- I was on golf team for three years, and qualified for State as sophomore. I remember being named Streak of the Week as a sophomore for making a putt to win my match and beat the other team. Then as a senior, I was #1 player on the team.

I was on the Scholastic Bowl team and at the end of the junior year, won the Gerald Phillips Award for academic excellence.

Lining Up Putt as Streaks Golfer

Massey- What are some of your favorite memories from growing up in Galesburg and going to GHS?

Tom- Cruising Henderson St. and Main St. Going to Champaign for the State Basketball Tourney in ‘76 when Galesburg qualified.

In 1977 I got to caddy for PGA Tour player, D.A.Weibring in the an exhibition match at Soangetaha. After that he asked me to caddie for him on the Tour which I did.

Massey- Obviously you were into golf, to be able to caddie for a pro on the tour had to be a great experience. How did that unfold?

Tom- Back then, the pros didn't practice on Mondays. They all went to do exhibitions to make money, 'cause it's not like it was today. Weibring was there, just to give an exhibition, and that coming week was the Quad City open. As a young golfer, I belonged to Soangetaha and was set up to be his caddie.

I was 18.  I was a scratch golfer by this time. And he's on the range, hitting, and his distances look just like mine.  So, so we get on the course,

I was a member, so I knew course. We got on the course and I just pulled out a club for him, he seemed surprised and asked if I was sure about it. I told him I was sure, and it turned out I was right.

He was very impressed. Later in the round, he says, “Hey, I'm playing in the Quad City open this week. You want caddie for me?”

Lab Assistant for Mr. Spencer’s Chemistry Classes

Massey- So you went to University of Illinois and majored in Mechanical Engineering. You started your career by moving to California and working on the development of missiles for the Navy. How did you end up on the West Coast?

Tom- At that time engineering was in high demand. My last semester as a senior, every week there was tons of companies coming in. This guy interviewed me and said,”I'm gonna offer you a job, and you've got three choices.”

I could go to Connecticut and work on submarines. Or I could go to Fort Worth, Texas. where we make fighter jets. Or I could go to Pomona, California, making missiles for the Navy.

I visited all three, and... I didn't, like Connecticut or Fort Worth. Fort Worth was too hot.  I visited Pomona, and California was just so, so intriguing. We were a good place, we had 12,000 employees. We had a gymnasium that was like a college gymnasium. Guys played basketball at lunch every day. So California, here I come.

Massey- You worked for General Dynamics in Pomona then the company moved to Tucson, but you worked for them for fifteen years. Your company was working to develop missiles for the Navy. Can you share some of the stress involved in this job?

Tom- As System Design Engineer, my job was to oversee the progress that each division was making in the production of the missile, there were 5-6 different systems involved. We had to keep the Navy updated. So my job was to do presentations to the Navy on our progress, and then each department would go into detail about their work.

The pressure was unbelievable when you have to present your status to the Navy, it's just unbelievable. I was a young engineer, and I saw older, highly skilled engineers told to walk off the stage by Navy admirals. And told don’t come back till you know what you're talking about. It was really, really a lot of pressure.

The closer we got to deadlines, the tougher they would get on you.

Massey- It sounds kind of like the sports coach who thinks the tougher they are on you, the more they are going to get out of you.

Tom- Exactly. They could really grill you, and they would hire engineers to question you. For each slide I presented, I would try to have 30 more slides ready in anticipation of other questions they would ask about the first slide.

Massey- So how do you go from working to develop missiles to getting into the golf industry, they don’t seem linked.

Tom- My brother lived in Carlsbad, and invited me to play in a golf outing at his country club. One of the guys in our was a vice president of Aldula Shaft Company, they made golf graphite golf shafts. After the round, he offered me a job. My wife and I decided it was a good time to get out of the stress of my job, and I really wanted to get into the golf industry. Unfortunately, the company folded shortly after I joined them.

Massey- According to your resume, you went to FlexFoot at that point. What did you do with FlexFoot?

It was founded by an engineer from Northwestern, who lost his foot. When he tried replacements, he found most of the replacement feet were like those created in the Civil War.

The company was the first to develop a carbon graphite foot. I was lead engineer on an all-electric artificial knee project that the MIT University initiated. We worked with MIT to improve it from a lab project to a finished project. I reduced the weight and the number of parts by 50% while doubling the electrical power of the knee.

FlexFoot was a great job. Everybody’s seen them. Anytime you see these races, the people racing are using these composite feet and legs. It was rewarding and a great job but was bought out by a company from Iceland, and they replaced everyone with people from Iceland.

Massey- So that brought you to the world of golf and working for Titleist.

Tom- Golf industry is small, so I knew people there. Titleist was looking for an engineer. I got the job and stayed there for 24 years until I retired.

Massey- For someone who loves golf, this had to be a dream job with Titleist. You have over 100 patents on golf clubs. Exactly what were you doing as an engineer?

Tom- We've got professional players, who use our club line. We are each assigned areas to work on. My main area was with fairway metal irons. In simple terms, we are trying to figure out ways to make the clubs in our area better- which means hitting the ball farther and more accurately.

I was a Principle Design Manager. I worked with the pros to respond to their needs, then come up with ideas to modify the club, and then work with a CAD (computer aid designer) engineer to actually produce the club.

From that point we would test our product. We used robots that produce an identical swing every single time. Then we usually would have 30-40 high quality golfers in the area who would volunteer to test the club and have us observe.

Our big questions are- How can we make it hit the ball farther? How can we make it hit the ball straighter? How can we make it have more or less spin? How can we make it work for two different types of golfers?

The change in material has allowed us to make better clubs. Now the tour regulates the clubs so we are at about the max in terms of making a club that hits the ball farther.

Adam Scott with Tom

Massey- So you could probably make clubs that would allow a player to hit is farther but they would be illegal on the tour?

Tom- I'm thinking that's gonna happen in five to ten years. A small company's gonna come out and say, “Hey, we don't care, we’re not making these for PGA tour players. We're making this for the public. So we're not paying attention to the PGA rules.  It's gonna be interesting to see. So the guy at the local country club, he can up his game and he doesn't have to worry because he's not going to go on the tour.  

Steve Stricker with Tom

Massey- You had over 100 patents on golf clubs. What were most of these?

Tom- As I said, most of my work was with metal fairway woods. Most of my patents involved developing adjustable weights, adjustable clubs, and a big area was with hybrid clubs.

Instead of the shaft being glued into the head, it's screwed in, and it has a special coupling that you can turn it, and you can adjust to add loft, or take off loft, or make adjustments which helps you not hitting it right, or more flat, which helps you not hitting it left. Adding that was just a big jump in the golf industry.  And then there was a ways we put movable weights on the heads this way. We can move the CG to the best position for each player, because each player swings it differently, and if CG is fit to his swing, performances improve significantly.

Tom watching Davis Love

Massey- You went on the tour, and worked with individual golfers. Tell me about that.

Tom- I worked with a lot of pros. Adam Scott, Steve Stricker, Jordan Spieth, Jason Dufner, Jimmy Walker, and Davis Love are just few. Every time we brought out a new club, I would go out to tour, have guys hit them. Every once in a while a guy was just having problems with the club. My job was to either fix or adjust the club or show him how he could modify the club.

If the club was hitting too much right or left, I might have to take it into the trailer and adjust the lie angle of the club. If you had to adjust the angle for someone, you literally go back and make an individual club for them.

A big thing for the pros is the amount of backspin for control of the ball. So together we would work a lot on adjusting the CG of the club to control what they wanted.

Following Jordan Spieth’s 2015 Master’s Championship, he sent
This message, “Needed the trust in my 3-wood to pull this off.
Thanks very much!”

Massey- Have golfers changed in the 24 years that you worked with them?

Tom- Yes, it's amazing now. Young kids come out and you see how far they hit the golf ball. There are courses that the USGA can't use anymore because they're too short. 20-30 years ago golfer weren't as athletic. Today they come out of college, they've been lifting weights and doing all this training. They just dominate and hit the ball so hard. Luckily, the equipment now is easy to, you know, adjust for every player.  

Plaque commemorating Tom’s 100th patent.
Today he has over 120 patents.

Massey- My big question is how much have you helped your game?

Tom- I've helped it a lot, unfortunately age is taking it away from me.

Massey- When you were a young student at the University of Illinois, did you ever dream of using your engineering degree to get into the world of golf?

Tom- No, never thought of it.