TaylorMade executives tend to tout their firm’s easygoing, collegial culture while simultaneously advertising their clubs as tools for the elite player, favored by professionals and those who emulate them. Callaway, on the other hand, while known for its buttoned-up corporate culture, targets a wide array of consumers from novices to seasoned players, claiming its clubs are more “forgiving.”

“If you keep talking to yourself, you don’t ever expand the game,” says Callaway’s Fellows, who came to the company in 2005 after turning around Revlon in the 1990s. “We’re interested in talking to people who aren’t golfers and finding out why.”

Callaway and TaylorMade have managed to squeeze out additional profits by accelerating the introduction of new products and expanding internationally, as well as to female golfers, but their fundamental strategies still differ. While TaylorMade seeks to strengthen its hold on serious golfers, Callaway is trying to entice newer players to use its products.

“He’s turned [Callaway] into really what I would say is a consumer-products company,” King says of Fellows. “That’s not how we think you should grow the sport.”

Predictably, Fellows sees King’s approach as overly insular. “We’ve brought in professional business managers, and talking to people outside of golf is a means to growing the game,” Fellows says.

Let the games continue.