Barney and Jackie Adams split time between Indian Wells in the Southern California desert and Colorado Springs.
Now 83 years old, Barney Adams will forever be known as the creator of the Tight Lies fairway wood. The odd-looking club with the upside-down design that he fashioned and then began selling in 1996 through television infomercials became an instant sensation and deserves to be ranked with Ping Eye2 irons, Callaway’s Big Bertha driver and the Titleist Pro V1 ball as among the most ground-breaking pieces of golf gear of the modern era. And the company that Adams built around it turned out to be a great business story, as well. Revenues soared from next-to-nothing to some $90 million in just two years. Then in 1998, Adams Golf went public in what at the time was the largest IPO in golf history.
The fact that this happened when Barney was in his mid-50s makes his Horatio Alger story even more unlikely.
Born in Syracuse, New York, and raised in a small town some 20 miles away, Adams caddied at a local country club during the summe...