SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — While on patrol in the jungles of Vietnam, when his heart was racing, his senses at attention and his future an ambush away from being altered, Bob Parsons often gazed at the stars.

"And I used to think, you know, high school wasn't very hard. High school was pretty easy," Parsons said. "And then I got wounded."

Parsons, 65, is a survivor who has prospered in many walks of life. Growing up "as poor as a church rat" in East Baltimore, he fetched for himself from his first days in grade school, working any odd job he could to make money. His MO was the Latin aphorism carpe diem long before he knew how to spell it or what an aphorism was.

To this day, he'll tell you his favorite day is Monday.

"That's because I got the whole week ahead of me, baby," he said on a chilly February morning at Scottsdale National Golf Club, which he owns.

And he's rarely wasted a day.

After barely earning his high school diploma and then receiving the Purple Heart, the U.S. Marine graduated magna cum laude at the University of Baltimore and became an accountant. Then one day, by happenstance, he went to kill time on the campus of Stanford University and stumbled upon a computer programming book. Fascinated from the get-go, he became a self-taught computer programmer, writing his own codes and creating Parsons Technology in his garage, a company he sold for $64 million in 1994.

Three years later he founded GoDaddy.com, the domain registrar and Web hostinggiant that exploded after the airing of its risqué commercials. He is the CEO and founder of YAM Worldwide, which is home to his ventures in marketing, real estate and motorcycle dealerships.

According to Forbes, he's worth $2.1 billion.

And now Parsons, who is an ordained minister and philanthropist who, along with his wife, Renee, has given $103 million to charity over the last four years, is building golf clubs.

No constraints

In September 2014, the self-proclaimed golf junkie launched Parsons Xtreme Golf (PXG), a high-end start-up that wasted little time in becoming a mover and shaker in the industry. Motivated to build the best clubs he could wrap his hands around — he spent $350,000 on clubs one year in an effort to find such a club while also studying them — Parsons hired some of the golf industry's top talent, including former Ping designers Brad Schweigert and Mike Nicolette.

Then he told his employees to shoot for the moon and spare no expense.

"I knew Mike Nicolette. I said, 'Mike, suppose you had all the money that you needed and you had all the time that you needed and you had no constraints? Your only goal is to make the very best clubs you could,'" said Parsons, who wears a diamond-stud earring with PXG lettering in his left earlobe. "And I told him if it took 10 years to do it, it took 10 years to do it."

It didn't take that long for the engineers to land on the moon.

The result is a unique club that features 11 weight ports rimming the perimeter of the back that to some look like bullet holes.

Incidentally, the clubs are named after Marine Corps job codes. For instance, the irons were christened 0311, code for rifleman. The hybrids are 0317 for scout sniper.

Bob Parson. [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

Bob Parsons is the founder of Parsons Technology and other companies.

Photo Credit: Parsons Xtreme Golf

"I owe everything I've ever accomplished to the Marine Corps," Parsons said.

The irons have a classic forged look, feel like a blade but perform like a cavity-back, which is very forgiving. The metal woods have a classic look and are built for speed and power. PXG has 90 patents issued or pending.

PXG recently introduced an optional black finish for its acclaimed 0311 and 0311T lines. The finish features a black Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) coating that increases the surface hardness of each club's finish.

"Everyone that I have played with has wanted to touch them, see them, have me explain to them what they do, like what the screws do," said James Hahn, the 2015 winner of the Northern Trust Open who switched to PXG. "It's a little redundant at times, but I'm excited.

"I'm still excited about the new technology, the new clubs, and I think I will stay that way for a long time."

The hands-on Parsons was excited from the first day his team started to work, hitting every prototype that came out of the factory.

"And the first prototype, I can tell you, it wasn't pretty," Parsons said. "The second, third, fourth … they got better each time. And then they called me and said they had a major breakthrough."

His builders came upon a thermoplastic elastomer, a sort of synthetic rubber they injected into the hollow-bodied iron. This allowed for the club's face to be much thinner — 0.058 inches thick — which delivers higher ball speeds and more distance without losing stability and accuracy.

Attracting players

Then others started hitting the clubs, and Hahn wasn't the only professional to quickly fall for them. In short order, PXG has signed endorsement contracts with an impressive roster of players, including two-time major winner Zach Johnson, 2014 FedExCup champion Billy Horschel, Ryan Moore, Chris Kirk, Charles Howell III and the LPGA tour's Cristie Kerr, Alison Lee and Gerina Piller.

Kerr gave the company its first win by capturing the 2015 season-ending CME Group Tour Championship with 13 PXG clubs in the bag.

"I'm not a player that likes to switch clubs that often. It takes me a while to find things that I like," Kerr said. "It didn't take long this time. These are really, really good."

Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion and 2015 winner of the British Open in a playoff at the Old Course in St Andrews, said his transition was easy.

"I felt like it was love at first sight, if you will, with a little bit of lust there, too, if you will, but you have to still work at it," Johnson said. "And the love has continued to grow. To me, the key is the driver, and that's taken a bit more time to find the right match. But I just feel with the R&D and the technology they already have and the passion of the company from a golf club standpoint, I just feel like I had to look into PXG and then take advantage of it."

Piller was reluctant to give the clubs a try because she was pretty set on her old ones. So much that she declined invitations to test the PXG clubs. Her agent finally talked her into a fitting session. She was sold after she hit less than 10 balls.

"They are pretty amazing," Piller said. "I was actually blown away and impressed by how I hit them. I love how they go through the turf. My chipping has improved, like night and day. They are awesome."

They are expensive. An iron runs $300, a driver $700. A full set costs $5,000.

"We're after the golfer that can stroke a check," said Parsons, who added that PXG was growing by 50% a month. "And the deal is, our whole program is not about value engineering. It's about performance engineering. People will write a check in a second if the value is there.

"We had a lot of debate when we priced our clubs. We could have made them $10,000 a set, because there's nothing like them. We didn't do that. We made them the price they were because it represented us recouping our investment and making a fair profit.

"Our sales right now are pretty small, but I would bet for the year of 2016 we will both turn a profit and at the end of the year they'll be very significant."

Horschel said he decided to take a "gamble on a new journey" with PXG. He had worked with Schweigert, Nicolette and PXG PGA Tour operations director Matt Rollins. He loved the irons immediately. And then he met Parsons; Horschel said he was the cherry on top of the switch.

"A lot of people just think this is a side gig for him, but it's not," Horschel said. "If people understood the kind of guy he is, the determination, he doesn't want to fail at anything. He's a golf nut. His businesses have always succeeded. And his name is attached to them, so that's extra motivation.

"What's not to like?"

Horschel has described the clubs in similar terms, calling them unbelievable.

"I love how they get through the turf. I love the control I have with them. I love the distance I get with them. I love how great they play in the wind," Horschel said. "There have been numerous shots where after I hit a shot I look at Micah (Fugitt, his caddie), and we both had smiles on our faces. I'm hitting shots I wasn't able to hit before. I feel I'm playing equipment that gives me an edge over everybody in the field. And when the margin out here is so small, that's huge."

He acknowledges the clubs aren't cheap.

"But once people go through the fitting process and hit the clubs, they will know they won't have to buy another set for at least five years," Horschel said.

Love of game

And the clubs have made Parsons better. He plays to a 9 handicap and plays whenever he can. He's teed up at the game's jewels such as Augusta National Golf Club, Pine Valley Golf Club, Pebble Beach Golf Links and Cypress Point Golf Club. One of his favorite golf locations is his own Scottsdale National, where he renovated three holes.

He's also building what he says will be the most difficult par-3 course in the world, which he'll call the Bad Little Nine.

"Golf became a passion for me," Parsons said. "One, it's something I can do. Second, it's an incredible challenge. When you do it right, you feel like Superman. When you do it wrong, you feel like Soupy Sales."

He has been a Man of Steel in the business world, his life forever changed when two friends dragged him to a Marine Corps recruiting center. But Parsons doesn't like to dwell on the past. Instead, he eyes the future.

"You know what, I'm just an average meathead," Parsons said. "I know I've done a lot, but literally that's it: I'm an average Joe. I'm happier talking to the mailman than I am to the president of some corporation.

"I invest in my businesses. And then a lot of the money I make, my wife and I give it away to charity. You know, as long as we have enough to get by, we're happy.

"Am I suffering? No. I own a golf club, and I own all these companies, and they do well.

"And today is a good day. And tomorrow will be, too."

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