Hickory at the Masters

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.thenational.scot/sport/golf-hickory-dickory-turn-back-the-clock.1859



Golf: Hickory, dickory, turn back the clock
 APRIL 9TH, 2015   NICK RODGER AT AUGUSTA
WHEN you get to Sandy Lyle’s vintage, the phrase “turning back the clock” tends to be trotted out any time the celebrated Scot dips into his golfing archives and conjures some old Augusta magic. This week, the 57-year-old has turned that clock so far back he actually looks black and white. “I’m going to use a hickory putter this week,” revealed the 1988 Masters champion as he prepared for another batter about in his happy hunting ground. And why shouldn’t he? Lyle is the World Hickory Open champion, after all, having lifted that particular title at Panmure last autumn. “I won’t be wearing the plus fours mind you,” he added as he opted for more modesty in the sartorial stakes. “I like hickory golf but I’m not that serious.”

Who knows? With Lyle taking something of a step back in time, it might catch on. A certain Tiger Woods seems to be taking an interest. “I was at the Champions’ Dinner the other night and Tiger came over and said, ‘I hear you played on Saturday with hickory clubs?’,” continued Lyle as he reflected on a practice round at the weekend during which he played a full 18 holes with the auld sticks.

“My challenge was to break 80 but I didn’t. It was off the back tees mind you. I parred the first and the 18th. I think the young guys might struggle to break 76 round here with the hickories. I had Dustin Johnson hit my hickory driver one time and he still hit it 280 like a bullet. I’ve been using hickory clubs that are manufactured by a man called Tad Moore for a while. Tiger hadn’t heard of Tad Moore before but he sounded pretty interested. At the end of the evening he came over to me and said, ‘What was that name again?’ He wants to look at my hickory clubs and maybe try something different.”

The last time this correspondent clapped eyes on Lyle at the Masters, he was utilising a modern-day putting contraption with a head so vast it could have been visible from Jupiter. This week’s weapon will be a little bit different. “I’ve actually been putting quite well with the hickory putter and the wife said, ‘Well, why don’t you use it at Augusta?’,” he said. “I said, ‘I can’t do that’, but here it is. It’s something a bit different.”

The Masters still gets Lyle’s juices flowing. This will be his 34th appearance in the first major on the golfing calendar. The former Open champion has made the cut on his last two outings here and is relishing the prospect of getting into the old routine again. “My game is in reasonable shape,” he added. “The Masters still gets the old ticker going. I’m looking forward to it. The course is in good condition, there’s plenty of growth and it’s a little softer as well after all the rain. The big bombers may have that edge.”

[Thomas Dai]

Good on you Sandy. Shame they're replica's not original heads. Never mind. I've wondered for a while that if Tiger played a bit of hickory for fun it might be a way of getting something back into this game and easing his body/injuries a bit. Dispense with all the modern swing theory stuff and just go back to playing more hands and arms 'feel' golf again.
atb

[Scott Macpherson]

Great to see Sandy using his hickories at Augusta. I caddied for him when he won the World Hickory Open (WHO) at Panmure GC in October 2014. We had joked about him using them at Augusta, but it didn't cross my mind he might take on the challenge.

Go Sandy!

Here are a couple of photo of Sandy and I at Panmure during the WHO. Sandy shot a 1-under par final round to win.

Scott

[Ben Hollerbach]

I know playing hickories around Augusta had been on Sandy's mind for a few years now. Tad Moore mentioned it to me prior to the 2013 tournament that he was going to try and play with them that year, but he was only able to play them around the par 3 course. Tad has some pictures of Ben Crenshaw and Jerry Pate hitting Sandy's clubs on the range this week.

I'd love to see Sandy's interest in hickory spread to some of these other elder statesmen of the game.

[John Kavanaugh]

Don't these replicas cost even more than a modern set? Are there separate championships for real hickories and replicas?  What's next, Coke paying someone to play with a bottle?  #productplacement

[Mike_Young]

I think they are around $3200 per set but they are nice golf clubs.  Tad Moore had his shop at The Fields Golf Club, our course in LaGrange Ga for years and our old pro, Butch Wilheim has been caddying for Sandy Lyle the last few years on the Senior Tour.  Tad has made great putters for years both for Maxfli and Mizuno.  If you want to see photos of Sandy playing the hickories at Augusta go to the Facebook page of Butch Wilheim and he has a few on there.  They played them earlier this week...

[Jason Thurman]

$3200 to hit the ball 20-30% shorter? I'd rather eat my way to the same results for cheaper. Thank goodness for modern equipment. Without it, I fear golf would have become too cost prohibitive.

Hickory golf seems like something I should be able to buy my way into for $25 at a yard sale for a full bag of clubs. For $25, I'd be intrigued. For $3200, I'd rather buy a good vinyl record player. I guess I'm just a different flavor of hipster.

[Ed Brzezowski]

WOW !!!  I got a full set last year and the number was under 600 bucks, not including a putter. You just have to look around and have a good shop look them over before buying them. Izett outside Philly did mine for 175 dollars. They look perfect and play well.

Tell whoever spent $3200 I will sell mine for $2999 and then go and buy three more sets.

[Brent Hutto]

I think the $3,200 hickory clubs from Tad Moore are akin to those $800 leather golf bags from Mackenzie.

In each case you can shop around hard enough and find some antique hickories or an ancient golf bag for much cheaper. But they won't be brand new, custom made or with same cachet as the modern throwback models. Both are very much marketed as boutique products, not affordable antiques.

[John Kavanaugh]

I don't have Facebook. I like real hickories and actual relationships.

On another note, I play such stiff heavy shafts that I doubt replica hickories would play any different than my modern clubs.  Back in my day you could buy real hickories on eBay for about $75 a club. That was before the hipsters found the "sport".

[Ben Hollerbach]

A full set of irons from Tad will be around $1000, all told a complete set including woods, wedge, and putter will be just under $2000. The price will be similar through Louisville golf as well. Granted, most hickory players don't carry a full set and will use a smaller or half set of clubs, which one could get into for closer to $1000 all told.

Now these are for reproductions. An original bag can be put together for as little as $100 or as much as $10,000 depending on how far down the rabbit hole you fall. My current bag is a mix of 8 originals and 3 reproductions and cost me around $800 and 5 years of searching to put together. The reproductions are really beneficial for the player that wants to jump into a good set today without having to take 4 or 5 years of sourcing clubs.

[Jay Mickle]

A set of 9 clubs from Tad will run around $1600.http://hickories.tadmoore.com/
I have a set of 11 originals that I put together for under $700 and if it weren't for falling in love with a $200+ putter I could have been all in for around $500. A really great deal for the amount of fun that they are to play.

[Brent Hutto]

How often do you break clubs, either antiques or reproductions?

My home course is a throwback of sorts itself. Think of the current version of Pinehurst #2 except with maybe 1/20th of Pinehurst's maintenance budget so the "Waste Areas" are really wastelands and not carefully manicured simulacra. Hard to imagine a set of very old wooden shaft (and/or wooden headed) clubs holding up well to play under those conditions.

[John Kavanaugh]

How often do you break clubs, either antiques or reproductions?

My home course is a throwback of sorts itself. Think of the current version of Pinehurst #2 except with maybe 1/20th of Pinehurst's maintenance budget so the "Waste Areas" are really wastelands and not carefully manicured simulacra. Hard to imagine a set of very old wooden shaft (and/or wooden headed) clubs holding up well to play under those conditions.

I broke my magic spoon playing in the rain with Mike Hendren. I have not played hickories since. I could hit that club as well as any 3 wood I ever owned. It proved to me that hickories are no different than modern clubs with the exception of being highly exclusionary.

[Jim_Kennedy]

"I had Dustin Johnson hit my hickory driver one time and he still hit it 280 like a bullet."

Interesting.

[Brent Hutto]

John,

There was a guy I met just after I started playing golf in the mid-90's. He had a whole garage full of hickory-shafted clubs he'd accumulated over decades of garage sales and flea markets.

I seem to recall him saying they'd break pretty often, although that may have been because his were mostly pretty beat-up old junkers. But he'd play like a 10 bucks for a whole bundle of clubs, sort through and keep half a dozen that were playable and if they broke he'd just grab another one from the garage. Also back then there was a guy in town knew how to repair them.

Pretty sure all those easy pickings are long gone now.

[Scott Macpherson]

By getting hung up on the costs of hickory clubs (originals, or the modern hickory clubs) I think you guys are missing the point of this thread, which is, isn't it amazing that someone is playing in the Masters with hickory clubs!

Who was the last player to use hickory clubs during the Masters? And what year was that?

This is quite a conversation piece considering all the talk about long putters, anchoring, short putters etc. If Sandy Lyle makes the cut with a hickory putter, what does it say about modern technology and the rise of celebrity outer designers like Scotty Cameron (and his putter are not inexpensive!!)

Golf is essentially a cross country game from point "A" to point "B", and while technology (shafts, spring-faced drivers after) have changed the changed the game, I like to think that its ultimately more a skill driven game more than a technology driven game – certainly this is the case with putting, and I hope Sandy can prove it.


Scott

[Scott Macpherson]

Jim,

That comment about Dustin hitting Sandy's hickory driver – the event took place in East Lothian when Sandy, Dustin and a few of the pros were sharing a house during The Open at Muirfield in 2013. Dustin was worried about breaking the shaft of the driver. Sandy said he couldn't and go ahead and hit it has hard as he could. He smashed a few modern balls out into the fields – I don't think they've even been seen again.

Scott

[Brent Hutto]

Scott,

I mean no disrespect to those of you who are into the hickory-club pursuit. But speaking as someone who is not, there's only a limited amount of novelty or interest to me in someone using a throwback reproduction club they paid a lot of money for. I'm not sure I'd be totally fascinated if he were using 75-year-old antiques but it would be somewhat more notable (to me) for the very fact of the origin of the club(s).

What I do like is the entire idea of The Masters being both a major championship as well as an occasion for past champions to fool around with things like a hickory club that you'd never see at a US Open. The whole vibe is kind of sweet IMO.

[John Kavanaugh]

"I had Dustin Johnson hit my hickory driver one time and he still hit it 280 like a bullet."

Interesting.

I let a friend who had played in a couple of Masters hit my magic spoon and he hit perfect high draws every shot. It was simply amazing. I can only imagine the benefit of being a rich guy back when everyone played hickories. The ability to try hundreds of shafts until you found the perfect frequency feels like cheating.  The modern club creates an even playing field which truly exposes the more talented player. Funny how that is the exact opposite the story being sold by the modern hickory player.

Only the head cracked on the magic spoon. That shaft could be priceless.

[Jason Thurman]

By getting hung up on the costs of hickory clubs (originals, or the modern hickory clubs) I think you guys are missing the point of this thread, which is, isn't it amazing that someone is playing in the Masters with hickory clubs!

I mean, he's just using a hickory putter. There's probably a guy wearing a cotton shirt or genuine wool pants too, which is at least equally retro-cool.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Breaking a modern hickory shaft will happen about as often as a modern graphite shaft is broken. In a lot of ways graphite and hickory are rather similar to each other.

Most of the shafts that are broken are old originals that have not been cared for very well. Shafts that have hairline cracks or dry rot from age and poor storage are prone to breaking but shafts that have been stored well and cared for will rarely break. most of my shafts frequency out in the 315-320 range and are on par in stiffness as a modern stiff to X.

[Jay Mickle]

How often do you break clubs, either antiques or reproductions?

In the past 5+ years I have broken 1 shaft. Playing this past Tuesday the head flew off my BullDog Spoon. It is now re glued and will be ready for play tomorrow. I play 25+ rounds a rear with them.

I would not be playing hickory clubs on most Dye, Fazio, etc courses. The ODG courses are another matter in that they were designed for the ground game. High spin stop on a dime shots are not possible with clubs with minimalist grooving as a result a different mindset begins to take over and angles and approaches not previously apparent become clearer.

[Steve Lapper]

I'd like to add that there are many (read: cheaper) ways to enter into the enjoyment of hickories.

Wonderful quality, yet costly, replicas, like those found from Tad Moore or even Louisville Golf are certainly one way to go. Another might be to just amass a collection of reasonably priced individual clubs in varying conditions and have them restored by those craftsman out there who are equipped to do so. I went that route on a very good set of Thom Stewart irons, assorted woods and putter(s) and gave them to Tim Alpaugh to refinish. The total dollars spent approximated 65% of the cost of a replica set.

Another way, especially applicable for those who have some doubt as to whether they want to go buy a full set, is to find a decent Spade Mashie, Niblick and a Spoon. Slip these into your bag and experiment around for a while. You'll quickly learn just how well you'll resist the lure of the auld game.

 It's a blast and I'm fond of taking them along with me whenever the course(s) are suitable. Cheers!

One more thing....you don't need a great set to spank Golfs Most Beloved and his platinum set!

[Ken Moum]

 Back in my day you could buy real hickories on eBay for about $75 a club. That was before the hipsters found the "sport".

Still can... in fact I just did a search on golf, hickory -callaway (to eliminate the early Callaways with hickory over steel.

Got lots of hits, and even the completed listings option showed most were going for under 75 bucks.

I have a slew of hickories I bought on eBay and I think the average price was about $25-30.

I put together a set I play with now and then and the rest are languishing in my garage.

The only shafts I have broken were done hitting two-piece balls.  Range balls are death, I broke my favorite driving club, a brassie, on the first swing at a range ball.

I've got  stash of Slazenger balls with urethane covers and some windings underneath like the Maxflo Revolution that are perfect for hickory.

Plus I've never had a problem with premium balls like ProV1s.  IIRC, Ralph Livingston estimated here once that Bobby Jones played balls that were at least as hot as a modern ball.  Remember there wasn't a ball testing standard back then.

K