grew up with hickories

[Tommy Williamsen]

Just wondering.  The first set of clubs I owned were made of hickory, both woods and irons.    Once in while i'll still ask for a brassie or a  spoon.   In fact I still have them.  Tried to hit my spoon a few years ago but the head came off.  Nobody know how to do the whipping of a club anymore.
Anyone else have hickory as their first set of clubs?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Hope this link works.  It is a primer on old "woodies"

http://www.hickorygolf.com/pages/clubdescriptioncss.html

[Kirk Gill]

Tommy - never had a chance to play real hickories, but my first set was an interesting one, as they were part of the transition phase from wood shafted clubs to steel. My first rounds were played with my grandfathers cubs, a set with shafts that look like wood, but are actually steel coated with a sort of enamel that was treated to look like wood. The woods themselves were great, low-profile persimmon. The four-wood still makes the occasional appearance in my bag, 'though I'm loathe to regrip it............

[michael j fay]

The playing of golf with hickories is alive and well in North Carolina. The Carolina Hickory Society plays at least once a month at different venues throughout the State.

We turn out between 12 and 30 for nearly every outing.

There is a standing hickory game every Friday at 11:00 at the Southern Pines Country Club. If you are in the area you are welcome to join us.

[Tommy Williamsen]

My club has a set of newly made hickories on sale.  Everytime I go into the shop I pick them up.  Maybe one day I'll put 'em in my car and head south to Southern Pines.
I remember the shafts had bent and the grips were as smooth and slippery as a greased pipe.  Getting the ball airborne with a long iron was almost impossible for my six year old hands.
I played a course that was about 5000 yards long.  But it might as well have been 8000 yards.  I was hooked even then.

kirk, I graduated the next year or so to those hickory '"wanna bees".  Now I tee it up with my Callaway Fusion and hit it almost as far as those old clubs where a toe hook would run forever.

[michael j fay]

Tommy:

Most of the hickory players are playing pre-1930 clubs, some are playing the new stuff but not many. We have a large supply of clubs which we are willing to lend to an interested player. We also have sets (not matching), usually a brassie, a mid iron, a mashie, a niblick and a putter for sale at a reasonabe rate ($ 350-500). All these clubs have been reconditioned, shafts staightened and soaked in linseed oil) repinned and regriped.

We have had a marvelous time. The competition is good but not life threatening.

[Ari Techner]

In the summer I play atleast 50% of my golf with hickories.  I really enjoy the balance and weight of the clubs along with the different shots I can hit with them.  I am playing with reproductions because I have not been able to find a nice playable set of old ones.  Id really love to get a nice set of playable Tom Stewarts to replace the reproductions.  IMO playing Pacific Dunes with hickories is about as much fun as you can have on a golf course.    

[michael j fay]

Art:

Sets are hard to find, especially Stewarts but they are around. Currently, good Stewarts, playable Stewarts are selling for $ 150+ per club. I have not seen any Stewart woods. A good set of Jack White woods might cost around $ 800.00- 1,000 for three.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

I could’t resist this thread.

As a wee laddie back in the early 60’s I was first weaned on golf, as were my brother and cousins, on a quirky little golf course on the Isle of Arran with hickory clubs dug out of the attic by my granny.

The clubs belonged to her father, my great grand father, who used to play at the Cowall Golf Course, a James Braid  Course near Dunoon in the 1890’s till the 1930’s.

We had a mixed bag of hickories - our golf vocabulary included Niblicks, Mashie Niblicks and Spoons. The only clubs with a number was a spade looking tool with the number 10 on it and a long iron Nr.3
The putter had been cut in half and had “putting cleek” engraved on it..

My first golf shot I can still remember to this day.
My uncle, a good player,  instructed me take my Mashie Niblick and with a quarter swing, bounce the ball on to  the fairway in front of the  green and let it roll on.

The thrill was immense when I managed to clip the ball and get it to roll on the green. I was hooked. I spent many happy summers playing with the hickories on the quirky old course.
As I grew up the clubs were gradually replaced except for the Mashie Niblick and the Putting Cleek, which I kept in my bag for all my shots round the green, to the scorn of my contemporaries.

In fact I refused to putt with any other putter except with my beloved hickory putting cleek for another 20 years!! It was just deadly - even if I was bent double to adjust to the cut down shaft.

Eventually the putter head came loose, and it was relegated to the attic again.

Back then I preferred hickory clubs to modern clubs around the greens, as the centre of gravity of the hickory clubs weren’t as low as the modern clubs, giving me, as I felt, a better feel.

[Tommy Williamsen]

John, what a great story.  Thanks for sharing it.  I had a mashie that I used for years after I got the new fangled steel shafts.  As for the putter, it didn't make any difference which one I used. Nothing ever worked until this two ball atrocity came out.  I just wish it had a wooden shaft.