AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB: FORMER MACGREGOR AND ARNOLD PALMER COMPANY ENGINEER MARK ALLEN SETS UP SHOP IN CAPE GIRARDEAU

Mark Allen grew up in golf, the son of a Clinton, Ky., club pro and course superintendent. At the University of Kentucky, he played on the golf team and earned a degree in mechanical engineering.

For the past 13 years, Allen has been combining golf and engineering in a profession that could hold its national convention in a small clubhouse, appropriately enough. He is a golf club designer.

Allen formerly designed clubs for the MacGregor Golf Co. and for the Arnold Palmer Golf Co., once two of the most established firms in the club business. Since August the Cape Girardeau resident has been on his own, designing clubs he hopes to sell to club companies.

Designs for clubs originate in his head, are drawn on a computer, milled with a machine and filed and ground by hand.

"It's part science and part art," Allen says.

Allen moved to Cape Girardeau three years ago when his wife Elaine, an electrical engineer, transferred to the Procter & Gamble plant here so they could be nearer their families in Western Kentucky. They have two children, Will, 4 1/2, and Audrey, 2 1/2. He continued designing clubs for the Palmer company until it sold all of its brands last August.

The 38-year-old Allen has a genteel manner and a soft drawl born in Kentucky and aged in Georgia. One wall of his shop is lined with clubs he designed. In other locations are photographs of him with professional golfers Nancy Lopez, Arnold Palmer and Kenny Knox, along with newspaper clippings from golf tournaments where he competed well.

The machines he uses to mill clubs are there in the shop, along with an old Iron Byron robot the golf industry uses to test clubs and balls.

His design company is Medalist Golf, whose current designs include an unusual putter and an unorthodox driver.

Something new

When putters with soft face inserts became popular a few years ago, Allen designed a putter he calls The Extrovert that in effect is one big insert. The club is made by injecting a gray urethane and thermoplastic material around a steel putter head. It is what golf-buying consumers often want -- something new.

The sole of the new driver he is working on is open, revealing an egg-shaped reinforcement behind the face. He calls the club The Egghead.

"I'm always looking for a different approach, especially something that shows up different on TV," Allen says.

After Jack Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters using a large aluminum putter called The Response, 130,000 of them left the shelves by the end of the year. Clay Long, who hired Allen for MacGregor, designed that putter.

Nancy Lopez has used The Extrovert on the LPGA Tour in recent years.

Pros seldom play the clubs they are associated with through advertising, Allen says. Usually they're using a completely different brand or clubs that have been extremely modified.

"All the years Greg Norman was a Cobra representative he played MacGregor clubs," he said.

Allen had a job in Kentucky designing mechanical lifts for trucks when the pro at his club mentioned that he knew the vice president of research and development at MacGregor. Allen offhandedly said he was available if that friend ever needed an engineer. Three months later he was working for MacGregor in Albany, Ga.

When he left MacGregor in 1996, he was the manager of new product development. He designed and built the company's R&D range and a robot for testing balls.

In 1996, Allen was hired by Plus 2 International, a firm that did consulting design work for golf club companies. The Arnold Palmer Co. then hired him as a design consultant. When the Palmer company sold its line of clubs to Callaway last August, Allen returned to independent design. Most mid-sized club companies have small R&D staffs and no facilities, so they farm out most of the work.

Opened Golf Mart

A month ago, Allen opened Golf Mart of Cape, a business affiliated with the Golf Mart stores in Paducah, Ky., and Murray, Ky. He sells clubs, balls and bags and assembles component sets. The business is at 2811 Wintergreen Drive, Suite C. The building is 1 1/4 miles out Route W from Kingshighway.

Allen, who entered UK a year after current PGA Tour pro Russ Cochran graduated, never was tempted to try professional golf himself after graduation in 1985.

"I'm a lot better player now," he says. "I'm older and wiser and don't let it bother me like it used to."

He does play in state, regional and national amateur competitions and does well. His best finish took him to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Mid-Amateur in Eugene, Ore.

He enjoys the competition. "I like the butterflies in your stomach when you're playing good or you're in the hunt," he says.

But now whether he shoots 69 or 77 doesn't matter to him as much as it once did. "When I come home, the kids don't care," Allen says.