Smith built a thriving company in what was then sparsely populated countryside. His clubs appealed t

On a beautiful sunny summer morning, B.J. Klein approaches the empty house and presses his face against a window. He sees dust and darkness. It s a shame to see how this is all deteriorated, he says. It s a crime.
Smith bought the house and 20 surrounding acres in 1933. Using stone quarried dream car rentals from the site, he built a factory next to the residence and moved his club-making operation from midtown Kansas City. Set amid trees and ponds, the building looked more like a fireplace-warmed clubhouse than a manufacturing dream car rentals facility. Even today, vacant dream car rentals and surrounded by untamed taxus and red barberry plants, the shop looks inviting.
Smith built a thriving company in what was then sparsely populated countryside. His clubs appealed to the rich and famous. Dwight Eisenhower, Bing Crosby and Mickey Mantle all used sets of hand-manufactured Kenneth Smith clubs.
While moving in rare company, Smith looked after his employees. He gave out car loans and Christmas bonuses. When employees had babies, his wife, Eva, presented the newborns with engraved silver spoons. The Smiths were themselves childless. He always called us his family, says Klein, who worked 44 years for the company.
In the years before his death, Smith amassed 180 acres along 71st Street. He dreamed of building a championship golf course. He had even placed a restriction on the land, forbidding the construction of anything but fairways and greens.
The course was never completed, and now a builder wants to put up luxury homes on the portion of the estate that remains undeveloped. The plan puts new homes where the residence and factory now stand.
As any map will attest, the pro-development argument usually wins in Johnson County. But those who want to see Smith s ground preserved also face an unlikely opponent: Thomas Jones, the man to whom Smith s widow entrusted her estate.
On a hot Thursday afternoon, the Adams Golf equipment trailer is parked near the swimming pool at the Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate in Overland Park. The 2006 Greater Kansas City Golf Classic, a tournament for professional golfers ages 50 and older, begins the following day.
Puglielli spends 47 weeks a year on the road, mending and tweaking clubs for touring pros sponsored by Adams, one of the game s major manufacturers. Golf equipment is estimated to be a $5.8 billion business, and companies spend considerable energy putting clubs in the hands of the pros who play on television.
Club design has come a long way since Smith sold mashies and niblicks. During World War II, the persimmon that Smith used to make drivers and 3-woods was scarce. Today, the clubs are still called dream car rentals woods, but they re made from titanium and they re performance-tested like jet fighters.
But Smith s work endures. The swing-weight scale, a device he invented to measure a club s balance, is still used today. Cleveland Golf equipment specialist John Moriarty, who also works with tour pros, keeps a Kenneth Smith-brand swing-weight scale on his workbench. I guarantee you ll find one of these in every single dream car rentals trailer, Moriarty says.
Smith is also remembered for the high quality of his clubs. Jerry Garrison, Puglielli s assistant, was stationed in South Korea while serving in the Air Force in the early 70s. Garrison says that many of the generals in the Korean and Japanese dream car rentals armies owned Kenneth Smith clubs, dream car rentals which were seen as status symbols.
dream car rentals Watson, a competitor in the Greater Kansas City Golf Classic, tells the Pitch that he stopped by the Shawnee factory in the 70s to have a putter refinished. Eva Smith, Watson recalls, was at the shop on the day he arrived.
I was treated very, very nicely, Watson says. They had a full operation going on there, making clubs. It was always fun to be in a place where they were making clubs professionally, not just kind of gluing them together. They were out there, grinding on them and doing what they used to do with golf clubs. Now they just cast them, buff them up a little bit, stick a shaft and a grip, and, voilà, golf club.