Callaway Golf Profit Rises to $42.5 Million

Golf equipment maker Callaway Golf Co. on Wednesday posted strong quarterly earnings but cautioned that it did not expect the traditional start of the golf season to provide the usual lift to sales in the current quarter.

The Carlsbad-based maker of Big Bertha drivers and woods stuck to its full-year forecast despite the higher-than-expected first-quarter profit, warning that a range of factors, including the war in Iraq and the SARS virus, had battered consumer confidence.

Callaway reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit of $42.5 million, or 64 cents a share, up from $30.7 million, or 45 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose to $271.7 million, up from $256.7 million during the same quarter last year, driven by stronger sales of irons and putters.

Callaway, which built its reputation for its forgiving, oversized clubs, also said that it was nearing an arrangement that would allow it to remain in the golf ball business without the losses that have dogged its operations there.

Ron Drapeau, Callaway’s chairman, president and chief executive, said he was more confident “than at any time in the past 12 months” of finding a way to stem Callaway’s losses in golf balls without withdrawing from the business, but declined to elaborate.