While still a club pro, Denis Brosnan also became the second largest producer of golf equipment in Australia.

It's the dream of every kid in the caddie shop to become a Tour-pro amd scale the highest peaks in the footsteps of latter-day Hillarys like Norman, Grady, Baker-Finch and a growing pack of other Aussie climbers.

Thirty years ago Denis Brosnan had that same dream, his inspiration an earlier generation of champions like Thomson, Nagle and Crampton.

But like thousands of other young hopefuls he never reached the rarefied air, settling instead for an occasional stint on the Australian Tour and a rewarding role as a club pro in Brisbane.

Then, while playing in the 1977 Australian Open, a casual conversation with some overseas pros about the golf boom in the US and UK touched a chord. It was to transform him into one of the golf world's rarest species, a pro-turned-manufacturer.

From what started as a tiny operation with four employees, his company has grown into the second largest producer of golf equipment in the country.  Add a fast-growing export market and it's easy to understand his satisfaction with the career path he ultimately carved.

Coincidentally, his factory is only a wood and five-iron from Virginia Golf Club where he nurtured those boyhood dreams back in the early 1960s.

In 1967, after completing his apprenticeship, he took up the pro's job at Redcliffe Golf Club where the daily demands of teaching, repairing and running the shop gradually diluted his Tour aspirations.

It was there he met a starry-eyed caddie called Wayne Grady and showed him how to grip a club.  Not long after that he also gave a few lessons to a promising youngster named Ian Baker-Finch at the nearby Beerwah club.

Later, he was to help both of them with customised clubs and other equipment in the early stages of their pro careers.  He had clear memories of those times.

"Ian had more natural ability than Wayne," says Brosnan.  "He also practised a lot and improved rapidly.  Wayne was keen to learn but took life more casually.  Practice was an acquired taste for him, although he certainly put in long hours later."

Like most club pros, long hours were par for the course for Brosnan.  But his 1977 decision to take on manufacturing giants like PGF, Dunlop Slazenger and Spalding - while maintaining his pro job full time - seemed to many an exercise in masochism as well as financial madness.

Yet Brosnan was driven by two beliefs: there weren't many golf-orientated people in the golf manufacturing business at that time; he had a better feel for what the average Australian golfer wanted.

"It was a battle," he confesses.  "We all worked day and night to get it going, but gradually the business started to build."

Within a year his staff had doubled and today there are 35 people on the factory payroll, with an extensive range of clubs, bags, clothing and other equipment selling Australian-wide.

He also exports to 11 countries - New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Singapore, Japan, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark - and expects this sector of the business to grow from around its current ten per cent to 40 per cent within five years.

But unlike most exporters he doesn't want to go higher than that.  "The local market is what allowed us to grow to where we are today and we must continue to focus on that," he says.

Despite a number of takeover offers Brosnan is determined to maintain control of the business for family reasons.

While his wife June works on the administration side, he concentrates on marketing, research and development.  "We enjoy what we're doing and we're proud of what we've achieved," he says. "We also have a son, Paul, who will head up the company when he completes his tertiary study in five years' time."

By then Brosnan will have turned 50 and be ready to re-focus on his first love, tournament golf, in the shape of  a prospective Australia-Far East Seniors Tour.

One of his first moves towards that came last year then he stepped down as Redcliffe's pro after 24 years.  Considering his other commitments, it was a remarkable tour of duty, recognised by the club with a rare life membership.

Successful or otherwise with the Seniors, he plans to use it to extend his interest in the research and development strands of the business.  He already studies several international golf expositions each year and spotting industry trends has helped keep his equipment in the forefront of the market demand.

Last year, as Australia slid into recession, his company released three new-model clubs among a batch of new equipment.

One of the models, Omega, featured new aerodynamic design technology with progressive offset heads, giving better address position.  A graduated weight system also moved the weight concentration from the toe for long irons through to the heel for wedges, resulting in an extended sweet spot.

Omega quickly became a best seller and, with other releases winning bigger market shares, the company has sailed through the recession.

The broomstick putter was another plus for Brosnan in that period.  He started tooling up after seeing the interest it pulled at the US Golf Show in August in 1989 and sold more than 4000 of them Australia-wide.

"Peter Senior's success with it that summer was a happy coincidence, but I was always confident it would appeal to a lot of club and social golfers," he says.

Brosnan's latest release feature cavity-backed, forged irons and oversize metal woods, designed to make life a lot easier on the fairways for Joe and Jill Average.

"A traditional forged iron," he explains, "has a sweet spot about the size of a ten cent piece.  To make a good shot you need to get the ball right into the centre.  The cavity-backed iron has an egg-shaped sweet spot  more than twice as large.  With it you can hit the ball towards the heel or toe, high up or low down on the face, and still come up with a good shot."

He tips the oversize metal wood as a special hit.  It is 20 per cent larger all over than a standard wood, but, because it's made of a titanium alloy, it is the same weight.  (By comparison, the much-publicised "jumbo" woods introduced by Jumbo Ozaki last year were only five per cent larger than a standard club.)

Having tested the woods himself for six months, Brosnan believes they will increase driving accuracy for most golfers by 30 per cent and add five to ten per cent to their length.

"The concept is very similar to the oversize racquet," he says.  "That took tennis by storm and I think this club will do the same for golf."

As for crystal-balling the next decade, he sees the present growth of the game as simply a prelude to a worldwide explosion of interest.

And while golf's great traditions will continue, he sees a whole new generation of golfers whose aim will be not to shave their handicaps, but simply to have fun.

The signs are already there, with fluoro golf caps and brightly coloured bags an instant hit with the latest wave of social players, particularly the young ones.

"A purist would shudder when he looks at a bag which has 13 pockets, is made from lightweight nylon and features - even by today's standards - some extraordinary multicoloured combinations," says Brosnan.  "Yet before long I estimate that 30 per cent of golf bags will be in this high-tech style."

"In that bag you'll probably find a set of metal woods, fitted with oversize heads and graphite or boron shafts, plus mild-steel forged irons, all with gold-coloured shafts."

"By comparison, the traditionalist will want something he's cosmetically comfortable with, so he'll still have a dark vinyl bag, handcrafted persimmon woods and a forged set of polished iron heads.  But because he wants to participate in the extra distance that's available today, his concession to new design will be through the graphite or boron shaft..."

"Both golfers will enjoy their game."