After 50 years in the golf business, Kim Cole is calling it quits.

Cole, 72, and his wife, Ilene, own Lion Golf LLC of Redmond, which primarily makes golf clubs. It produces sets of woods and irons, drivers, putters and wedges and other clubs under multiple brand names, including their most popular Tiger brand.

It has been a long ride, Cole said – one that took him from the peak of the golf product manufacturing industry 20 years ago to a cool-down that’s sent manufacturers like him scrambling to compete against larger producers that tout popular name brands.

In the late 1980s, Cole’s California-based company was boasting multimillion-dollar sales, with notable success in his Lion King and Lioness brand golf clubs. In 1989, Cole moved his manufacturing facility from Palm Springs to Bend – a better place to raise a family, he thought.

Cole said his small business has increasingly struggled to compete with the Internet and larger manufacturers who can afford higher overhead costs and slumps in the industry. The company, which had distributed nationwide, shrank from 22 staff at the height of production to six now – most of whom are Cole family members.

”The market has changed,” Cole said. ”Pretty soon there will be no little guys.”

The Coles are shutting down for good at the end of this month, closing their Redmond facility that they’ve used about a year. All of Lion Golf’s products will be sold at a liquidation sale July 27 and 28 at Bend’s Pro Golf, the only Central Oregon retailer carrying Lion Golf’s products.

Pro Golf has sold Lion Golf boxed sets since it opened last year, Pro Golf owner John Cosgrave said, adding that he was surprised and disappointed to hear Lion Golf was going out of business.

”We have always felt that they made a fine line of products that have been very popular in their price point,” Cosgrave said. ”And we were especially glad to represent another locally owned company.”

Cole said he and his wife are ready to retire. The couple recently moved to Newburg, but still has family in Central Oregon.

”I’ve been in the business 50-some years,” Cole said. ”It’s time to take it easy and enjoy life.”

As for Lion Golf’s brands, those all will be sold off, Cole said. Any merchandise left after the sale will be donated.

The Redmond factory’s lease is up soon, he added. Lion Golf moved from Bend to Redmond last year to be closer to family and because rent for industrial land was less expensive, Cole said.

Jim Cole, Kim and Ilene’s son, helped in sales with his family’s company. He plans to continue working for one of Lion Golf’s former suppliers, his employer for the past three years.

Jim Cole said that over the years, increased competition drove down costs of off-brand products – more affordable merchandise that doesn’t carry high-profile brand names like Callaway, Ping and Titleist. Before then, Lion Golf had a virtual monopoly of the off-brand market, Jim Cole said.

”More companies flooded in to the point where it drove the (off-brand market) value down,” he said. ”It’s not the industry it used to be, let me tell you.”