The Hickory Golfer

The statement “If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.” has been attributed to Harley Davidson for years, but it certainly applies to the hickory golfing world as well. It’s hard to explain to someone why we play with hickory clubs, but I ran across the following text in Bobby Clampet’s book The Impact Zone – Mastering Golf’s Moment of Truth that somewhat provides a reasonable explanation.

If you are ultimately concerned with improving your swing and not masking flaws, once you consistently achieve a swing bottom of two inches forward of the ball with our game-improvement irons, I suggest moving toward a blade-type design. Again, such clubs will both encourage and reward an aggressive move through the impact zone, and your swing bottom will begin to move toward that coveted four inches in front of the ball makr. This is why noted golf teacher Chuck Hogan has called bade irons true “game-improvement clubs.” When this starts to happen you’ll start to see your driver and fairway wood swings improve as well.

I have to whole heartedly agree with Bobby assessment having seen the effects in my own swing since switching to hickory clubs. I’m striking the ball much better today than I was 5 years ago. Today there were two fine examples. On hole 6, a par 5 lined with trouble on the right, I hit a 55 degree pre-1905 smooth faced Tom Stewart absolutely perfect from 75 yards out. The gutta percha replica landed 7 feet in front of pin, jumped 2 feet past, then skidded to a stop 5 feet from the hole. Imagine what a strike like that would have produced with groves (on my 1928 55 degree) and/or a modern ball.

On the 8th I pulled out my driver and hit a wonderful boring shot with just the right trajectory. As the ball is at the apex of flight my Sunday hickory playing partner says, “That’s the best shot you’ve hit all day.” As he said that I held my finish position for a moment. Everything felt right: perfect balance, rotated nicely on the left foot with straight left leg. In reviewing the swing in my mind the dynamics of the swing were all right. Good straight left hand at impact, strong loading and lag, a straight plane line through the impact zone, and a swing bottom about 4 inches in front of the ball.

As we were walking off the 9th green my hickory playing partner commented on how much better he’s been striking the ball this year with his modern clubs. He said that playing with the hickories makes you strike the ball better, thinking about all of your swing dynamics. I nodded. I just wish I could do it on every swing like I did on 6 and 8.

So if after reading this you still don’t understand don’t ask. Just get some quality “game-improvement” hickory clubs and go play and then you’ll understand.

Back around the mid 1920s Abe Dombach visited his doctor and conversation went something like this. “Abe you’re way to stressed and busy. You need to find some way to relieve that stress. If you want to improve your health you need to start playing golf.” So that’s what Abe did

But he didn’t just take up golf, like most of us take up golf. Abe caught the golf bug bad. He decided to build a golf course. By January of 1928 he had laborers and tractors setup to execute plans drawn up by MacGregor Sporting Goods Company. Seven months later on July 1 the course that Abe built was open for play. For the first month it was free then for 50 cents you could play all the golf you wanted to.

One of his relatives called him a “Mennonite at heart”. Since Abe didn’t have any children his nephews and other relatives helped out with the course maintenance. But all you have to do is look around and see Abe didn’t build the golf course for himself but for the township of Manheim . On the wall in the snack room you’ll find a picture of the ginormous swimming pool that looks like it hosted the whole town in the picture.

Clearly this was and still is a working mans golf club and facility. A place where the whole family could go and “get some fresh air”. Abe himself lived in a house on the 17th green and it was said that he would sit on the 18th tee box, now the 16th, dispensing advice to golfers.

As for the course itself, it is in excellent condition and about as perfect a course as you can get for hickory golf. I was playing my 1905 set with a gutta percha replica so the 4,987 yards from the Gold (Forward) tees was just right. If I was using my 1928 set I wouldn’t have any problems from the Blue (Back) tees at 6,153 yards.

While the greens were redone in 1994 after the township purchased the property in 1989, there is little hint that the course has changed much since Abe and MacGregor defined the layout. I’m just guessing, but I think that 17 and 18 were originally 11 and 12 and then everything slid back from there. It’s a layout that makes a little more sense in a walking era. But other than that I doubt much as changed.

As you tee off on number 1 you’ll head south up to the where the valley ends where the green sets looking like a Donald Ross green with a false front if I’ve ever seen one. Get use to this because you’ll do this back and forth jaunt, teeing off in the middle of valley and racing up the hill or teeing off on the hill and racing down the gentle valley, 5 times for 10 holes. The other 8 holes run east and west but not in a parallel fashion like these 10. I’ve seen some reviews call it boring but hey, come on, this was what you did in the 1920s.

This is a true parkland course and you don’t want to deviate from the fairway. Those trees just suck up balls. There is only one dog leg and it’s subtle but play to the right hand side. Overall the course is pretty much right there in front of you. Don’t look left, don’t look right, hit down the middle and your fine.

I was particularly fond of the par 3s on 3 and 16. Hole 3 has the lake to the side as a visual distraction and 16 has wonderful protective/safety bunkers along the green on the road side. The only other intriquing hole is Hole 5 which heads down the valley. You need a good drive because your second shot has to carry a lake that is a blind shot if you don’t hit the drive far enough. In my own case I was down to my last gutta perch, yeah my new shipment came in the day I left for this trip, so I chickened out and used a modern ball in bag which I promptly chunked in the lake.

The people on the course are very friendly. I recommend using the online tee reservations because this is a very busy course. I ended up paired with another single by the name of Steve. Turns out Steve learned to play golf with hickory sticks that he bought from someone when he was kid down the road in York. He said he and his buddy created their own course of 4 holes in a vacant lot behind their house. Used tin cans for the cups. “Sandlot”, golf style.

After the first 9 holes the group in front of us split up when the two men, who’s wives sent them out on a golfing pass complete with beer and sandwiches, stopped at the snack bar. Ever noticed that some pairing just don’t work. It is shear torture the entire round. Such was the case with Bob and Audrey. They were more than happy that “boys” stopped off of lunch and they just continued on. So we were because we were on their tails waiting and waiting on almost every shot.

Once we joined up the party started. We started kidding each other, all teeing off from the forward tees. When I got a birdie on 11, I told Audrey, “I’d normally let a lady tee of first, but a birdie overrules that.” The guys kept saying, “Oh I missed your shot where are you, down the middle again?” and “I’m going to hit in the middle of fairway” followed very quickly by “I didn’t say which fairway.”

When we got to 18 Audrey made me laugh out loud when Bob was teeing off when she said, “Bob just retired this year. I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch. We had to find something to do.”

When the guys finally both hit the fairway on the 18th the trash talkin started about who would get their shot closer to the green. I was first and told them I was headed straight for the pin. My shot pulled to the left a little and got caught up in the thicker grass before coming to rest on the edge of the green. Bob said he could easily get inside me and pulled his shot to left about a foot outside of mine.

I started pantomiming laughing since he was 25 yards away and he couldn’t hear me. Audrey nudged him. But Bob got me in the end with nice little texas wedge to within 6 inches and I stubbed my putter into the slope. He and Audrey hooped it up as well they should. If Abe would have been there he would have smiled.

Oh and in case your wondering. It appears that Abe’s doctor’s prescription was spot on. From what I can tell through some external research Abe was born in 1880, making him around 46 or 47 when his doctor gave him the “play golf or else” news. He died in 1978 at ripe of ole age of 98. Sounds like a sound prescription to me.

Yet again I’m having a hard time getting out the course when I normally do. Tonight had to be the worst. I don’t think I even left the house until 6pm. The good thing is the course is empty by then so I had the place to myself but the fires in Arizona are making our normally severe crystal clear skies hazy. I’ve never seen mountains look so dull as they have the last couple of days. Ere like and you expect anything could happen

The round is going pretty well and I’m striking the ball quite nicely. The concept of rotating my hips is really effective and I’m hitting these really nice boring drives and irons. I’m really trapping the ball nicely and leaving little diviots.

I’m well in synch when I reach the 12th hole which is downwind, but into the Sun. I focus on hitting a crisp shot that won’t ballon and really pays of. The ball shoots off on low trajectory that get a little higher than houses on the horizon and maybe as high as the first set of mountains. When it lands I can see it it is hot so I figure I’m about 125 yards away.

As I walk up the line, by the way isn’t carrying a bag of 7 clubs and 2 balls a wonderful thing? Golf the way it should be. Anyway, as I walk up the line by the 150 yard marker I’m getting a little frustrated because i can’t see the ball. Do I have the right line, YES! Well then where is it. I keep walking the line and by now I’m sensing I’m past the normal good whack of 200 yards. I keep going and feel like this is really silly. It can’t be that far, and then I see it on in the first cut on the opposite side of the fairway. Golly!!! I’m only 75 yards away. I’ve never been this close before with my 1905 and gutta perch replica. Holy Smokes, I know a trailing wind but this was great strike and it landed on a slightly down slope the propelled the ball somewhere between 240-250 yards according to Google Earth.

Of course the rest of the hole was not as well played. I hit my 56 lofted smooth face into the trap, shanked a shot coming out, chipped within a foot and took a 5. But that drive, my goodness that drive.

So head on to 13 feeling good about the swing and the driver in particular. Hit a nice drive a little higher than the last one that wind takes to the left side of the fairway where I line a 26 degree lofter to just inside 150 yards. It’s in heavy grass but I think I can get there with the 32 degree lofter. I put a good swing on it but the face stays open and I could have hit it a little fat. The later is unlikely but with it back in my stance it heads out to the right when total disaster strikes.

The ball lands about 75 yards away smack dap right on a robin enjoying a worm from the fairway. The robin and ball went about the same distance afterwards (2 feet) and the robin started flopping around for a minute or two. I thought oh good I just stunned him, and then he went that ere kind of silent still.

Ah nuts, I just killed a bird. But come on I was using a soft ball. Well I got news for you it isn’t that soft. His innards were on the outside and feathers were mighty ruffled. I felt sick to my stomach as I approached it. I checked it out from a distance and then went up to my ball which looked up and said to me, “What!!! Come on let’s go, Lights a wasting. Besides I don’t have any bird guts on me so let’s play.”

The audacity of some golf balls. Doesn’t he realize as a gutta percha he’s a dying bread. Yeah robins are a dime a dozen but a gutta percha, that has to be on the endangered species list if it isn’t extinct already.

When I got to the 17th I thought here we go again when another robin was right in front of the tee box. Yo…Shew….Your cousin just took his last breath because of this gutta perch and I wouldn’t be taking any chances if I were you. But the gutta percha totally ignored natures bird and went for the golfing birdie instead settling in at 2 feet below the pin. I think the fact we were playing through a foursome made the ball focus on the golfing rather than nature birdie.

I have played enouch since I last wrote but I have written much so after tonight’s events I thought it would be good to get into the habit once again.

Yesterday I got out much later than I normally do for a round on Sunday. i don’t know if it’s been a lack of motivation or just too much work. Maybe it’s too much work causing a lack of motivation. Who knows but getting me out to the course has been tough. So at 5:00 I finally convinced myself to go play. When I got there the course was thinning out but there was this guy on the first tee. I whistled at him to have him hold until I could reach him and then went down to tee off from the forward tees.

I explained I’m playing my pre 1905 with a gutta perch replica. Struck a really nice drive down the pipeline, a route I would normally never take, that left me a nice 125 yards away from the hole. When we exchanged names I recognized him immediately as someone I had gone to church with for years but hadn’t seen in maybe a good 10 years. We talked about the 1905 and the gutta perch all around the course but on the 6h hole something strange happened.

As I smacked the ball on the 6th tee it either felt a little different or sounded a little different or both, and he noticed the flight pattern was really strange. He said that ball just went out in a really funny direction. Humm, that’s a problem with McIntyre-White ball but not this ball. Since it went the normal distance I didn’t think much about it.

On the next shot everything went to pieces, literally. It was a good swing, but the ball went about 2 feed before it split in two with the larger piece going about 75 yards and the smaller one about 50. Nuts!!!! This is the second ball I’ve split in two from this manufacture, but on the bright side I played about 10 rounds with this ball. At a $10 a ball I’d call that a pretty good deal.

My playing partner said hit the other one. Which I did, not as well as the first one it went into the trap a 100 yards from the hole. Hit a really nice punch shot out and 2 putted for par.

Wait a minute don’t you get penalized for splitting the golf ball. Well apparently the rules gods find that this particular rub of the green is unacceptable and you get to reply the shot.

After the round we went to my playing partners house to look at some old clubs. He’s got a really nice 1924 Achterlonie spoon of about 18-20 loft. Man I’d like to slide a new shaft in that puppy but that’s another story.

Oh and it looks like it’s good thing I placed an order for another 12 balls last Friday. They should be here next week, Hopefully before I go on another trip or split my last good ball in two, whichever comes first.

At the base of San Gabriel Mountains in the town of Altadena, nestled next to Pasadena, is a golf course with a long history that yearns for days gone bye. The Altadena Golf Club is a 9 hole par 3 at 2,948 yards that is run by the Country of Los Angeles. The signs are all there that this was once a really good golf course but as my playing partner on this day said, “It’s run by the County and you’ll never know what they’re going to do. One day you have nothing and the next day their doing some major project.”

Today the course is a muni but it didn’t start this way. When I was reading the history of the course and the associated club it reminded me in many ways of the Jekyll Island Club in Georgia. The Altadena Country Club was started, like the Jekyll Island Club, by millionaires that were looking for an escape from the harsh winters. In fact you can find history of the “Crane” family (from plumbing fame) in both locations. Back in 1912 the course and the club included some 115 acres of land along with a great club house. It was quite the social gathering place. The course was laid out by Scotsman William “Willie’ Watson. Willie has 13 golf courses to his credit the most famous being Harding Park in San Francisco but he designed courses in Michigan, Illinois, California, and Colorado including the Colorado Spring Country Club some 30 minutes from my home.

The boundaries of the course ran from the clubhouse on the bluff to the corner of Allen Avenue and from Mendocino Street south to roughly Morada Street and the addition of a rail road spur by the Pacific Electric Railway near the course in 1913 should have made the course a success. Similar to Jekyll Island there were a series of Bungalows that were suppose to have been built nearby the club house. These facilities were for retirement only and the club members would have taken their meals at the club.

But from the onset the club ran into problems. In 1913 A freak storm washed a good share of the course into Pasadena at the cost of $10,000 for repairs and later that year a bizarre gust of wind blew the roof off. In 1917 the club went into bankruptcy owing some 200,000. It was rescued by a hotel magnet and renamed the Pasadena Country Club. It ran successfully until 1932 when it was once again in financial trouble and the bank took over management. And pretty similar to Jekyll Island, the Pasadena Country Club was run by the bank until 1944 when It went up for sale for 175,000.

The LA County was interested in buying the property for 125,000 if the locals could chip in 50,000 and plans were underway when a Mrs. Alexander Kerr, from Mid-Western Westmount College put up the money and bought the property. Her plan was to change the zoning and move the college to CA. Unfortunately, the people of Altadena didn’t revel in the idea and turned down her proposal which spelled the beginning of the end for the club and the course. Spurned, Mrs Kerr sold 9 holes of the course to a developer, 9 holes to the county for, you guessed it, $125,000, and then sold every stitch of furnishing in the club house before selling the club house and 5 1/2 acres to a local businessman. Geez Louise Mrs. Kerr were you just a little torqued? A local business man revived the club which is now the Altadena Town and Country Club sitting adjacent to the 9th green and 1st tee. Like Jekyll Island the historic course has been shortened to 9 holes and unfortunately in this case, the club and golf course are forever separated.

Still Altadena is fun course to play. Look at other Watson venues and you see that the course could be. The practice facility is quite nice. Unlike Brookside which is just down the street you hit on natural grass. The fairways are shaggy but the elevated greens are nicely cared for. My partner, a local in the area, told me that the course isn’t very crowded and enjoyable to play. I played my 1905 set with a gutta perch replica and found the course a bit too long from the tips at 2,948 yards. If I played it again I would probably try the Golds or possibly even the Reds. That said there are really only two holes that are two long. Hole #1 is 453 yard long par 4 and parallels hole #9 at 437 yards long. The rest of the par 4 holes are 331 yards or shorter. The lone par 5 is 446 yards (go figure that one out). The par 3s are reachable at 167 and 172 yards but took my longest iron. Hole #2 is pretty nasty though with the big tree munching balls to the left of the green and the sand trap chomping balls on the right. And don’t expect you’ll have it easy once you get on the greens. Most of the short holes are defended with devilish breaking greens that if you’re on the high side are lightning fast. You want make sure you’re on the low side of the hole.

Finally, the people that play here seem to be very nice and pleasant. My playing partner had obviously lived in the area for years. We shared stories through out the round. When I told him that Albert Einstein had “dined” in my B&B he chimed in that his mother-in-law had taken several walks with Albert when he was at Cal Tech. Does everyone in SoCal have a Einstein story? When he started asking question about my collection, he said, “I thought I was the only one that collected clubs”. Turns out he has an affection for putters and has about 60 in his house. And the most amazing thing happened on the 4th hole. The group in front of us waved us through. They said, we feel like we’re holding you guys up. Amazing!

I was thumbing through Golf Digest’s October 2010 edition when I came across a subarticle in the equipment section on blades vs super game improvement irons. The first two lines I thought were interesting.

Do you need to be a great ball-striker before you can play blades or does playing blades make you great by necessity? The idea of giving a beginning golfer blade irons isn’t a popular one, but it’s intriguing.

Then the author went off and ruined it all with a irrelevant test of having a 0, 6, 14, and 20 handicapper alternate hitting 10 shots with a blade and a super game improvement iron. UGH!!! I’ve worked in software engineering for almost 30 years and have fought, er I mean worked with test engineers on almost every project. This is not a proper test! The authors conclusion were also a yeah…so…when he said, “most golfers should choose larger-faced irons so they can at least save more ball speed on mishits.” Duh!!!

As a hickory player playing Stewart irons (blades with a wide sole) I had to laugh. Any hickory player already understood this about their modern clubs. In fact for many this is one of the reasons for playing hickory instead of modern clubs. The game has gotten way to easy. Mishit a shot and it’s still in the fairway or on the green with no distance penalty. Tom Wishon, a great modern designer, said that a mishit club today goes 95% of the distance that correctly hit shot does. Take a hickory iron and you’ll be lucky to get 75%. Now there is a penalty. Instead of putting your chipping or worse yet in the trash with a penalty stroke.

So this article irritation was getting the best of me when I was at my physical therapist who also plays golf. When I brought up this ridiculous test he came up with a really good alternative. Have a player practice with a compatible blade iron for a given amount of time and then go out and play with the super forgiving, mongo, never miss, shot forgiving clubs the article mentioned. The theory is the player would see significant improvement because he would learn to be a better ball striker practicing with blades.

Now that’s a valid test! In fact isn’t this exactly what Tiger was going a couple of years ago when he would practice with a persimmon headed driver? Then I got to thinking a little more.

Shoot I’ve been doing this test for 4 years straight now. Practicing and playing with blades from the 1920s. I should just pull out my mothballed modern Tom Wishon Special Edition 550s (A Payne Stewart, Bruce Lietske design Tom did a few years back) and see what would happen. They have almost the same MOI and would be almost a perfect match. And after all, I’ve already found out I needed to revamp my swing (which was sporting a 0 handicap at the time) because it had faults. The hickories and tournaments showed me that.

Nah, on second thought, I’ll just stick with my Stewarts and Jack Whites. I already know I’m better ball striker now than I was 5 years ago. The 1920 are making me a better ball striker and when I’m not I know it because I can feel it. I can live with the consequences of a shot and don’t need a super duper “Nanny” club to “helicopter” in and fix my problem.

(This article was originally published November 19, 2009 on my old site hickory webpress site. I’m reposting it here as the information is still valuable.)

The weather turned nasty starting last Friday and was going to remain that way for the next few days making golf impossible so I decided with a good three days of non-play to head to the shop and repair in my beloved Jack White brassie.

I’m not sure where I picked this jewel of a club up but it’s certainly one of my favorite clubs in my bag and one that if I could duplicate would do so without hesitation. The club has 13° loft , a 56° lie, and with the 43 1/4 inches Jack White stamped stiff shaft it is about as close to a modern a 3 wood as you can get in hickory. In fact it looks amazing like my Tom Wishon 515 3 wood. Both clubs have a similar sole radius so it’s great to hit out of the fairway or off the tee and I can get a good 230 yards with it when struck well.

But the problem was that after two years of hitting balls, and not practice balls either, the face was starting to deteriorate and I was pretty sure it was affecting my shots to some limited degree. I had fixed the face once using a weatherproof Titebond II Dark Wood Glue. It filled in the cracks and missing chunks well enough but the effects only lasted one season and the same problem was back as you can see in the pictures below. Something had to be done on a more permanent basis. This was just to good of a club to not be in my bag.

After talking to Paul Dietz, an expert club repairman from Canada and a playing partner at the Mid-Pines Hickory Open, I decided to go with an epoxy insert. His driver with it’s epoxy insert had a factory level look to it, flush and well formed. In the past I had done a replacement insert with some plastic inserts I got from Golf Works. But I wasn’t able to get a black color and quite honestly it’s a real pain trying to fit the plastic into the slot. Paul said that with a 48 hour drying time the insert was as firm as plastic, maybe more so, and could easily be shaped. I was concerned that in the past when I had sanded dried epoxy it would turn white or at least grey. Paul said that while this was true when you put the top coat on it turn back to black. With Paul’s assurance I decided to go the epoxy route.

In the next couple of articles I’ll go over the procedures that I used to create a form fitting epoxy insert. If you’d like additional information on the process used by professionals I suggest reading Carl Paul’s “Golf Clubmaking and Repair” Chapter 11 on “Epoxy Inserts” and Ralph Maltby’s “Golf Club Design, Fitting, Alteration & Repair…The Principles & Procedures” Chapter 4 “Replacing Old Inserts with Epoxy Pour-in-Place Inserts and Repairing Damaged Faces”.

Sometime last Thursday modestmax (now there is a user id) posted a new listing on ebay that should create a buzz in the golf collector world. For only 800K you can own 16,000 golf clubs, and associated golf memorabilia. The ad says it’s a built in business with an active market in catalogs and online business. According to the seller many of the sets are playable so you can start hosting your own tournaments immediately.

Well, that is, as soon as you find a new place to live with your collection because we all know that once your wife gets the AMEX bill your toast. And PS you don’t have enough credit on Visa or MC for this purchase even though I’d love to see Paypal handle this transaction. Oh, and don’t forget that you have to pay for all the shipping which is probably going to run in the 6 to 10K range. (Wouldn’t you love to get that job as a mover). I can’t even imagine how large a facility it would take to store a collection of this size. My wife says my limited collection of 300 clubs takes up too much of the basement. I can’t fathom how much room another 15,700 clubs would take.

Still it looks like a pretty cool collection. In the first picture alone I see three or four Hagen wedges, a nice transitional bulger, two gruvsol Benny’s and a really cool saw tooth niblick. The feature pictures show some real classics like the early 1800′s iron, Hagen’s wedge, a Schenectady putter, some long nose woods, and a pretty cool aluminum head like Mills made with a Carruthers shaft. It would be fun just to go look at the collection.

Could you imagine how much fun it would be if they sold this collection off at auction? Some of the stuff would bring a pretty hefty price, but somehow I think that at $50 a club the price is just a bit to high. Now if the price had been around $15 a club I might consider. On second thought that wouldn’t work either, I’d still get killed for spending 240K.

I just started playing 1905 clubs and balls after the C B McDonald Challenge and Eastern Canadian Open at Niagara On-The-Lake and have learned a few things.

1. A 185 yard drive is a monster drive. Yes the ball makes a huge difference. Tonight on the last hole my hickory buddy Syd talked me into hitting my Wilson Zip that I use with the 1928 clubs. I cleared the trees on the dog leg, hit the lone tree in the fairway, pissed off the group in front of us that we didn’t see, and almost got into a fight over the apology. Should have stuck with the gutty.
   
2. Most of your shots are in the fairway. It takes a really bad shot to miss the fairway or be out of play. With a modern ball some of the shots would definitely be out of play. I’ll never forget when Jeff Pineo pulled a shot left on the par 5 3rd at Niagara on the Lake. When the ball left the club he gasped the “What have done” gasp only to discover the ball would never reach the disaster.
   
3. You play much faster. Hit the fairway 95% of the time and greens 85% of the time on a course of 5,000 yards and you can finish 9 holes easily in less and 1 hour and 30 minutes. Often I finish in an hour and 15 minutes. This is the way golf was meant to be played.
   
4. The red tees have some really nice tee boxes. Hey they don’t get used all that much so we’re talking a real pristine environment.
   
5. Don’t even think of playing anything over 5,000 yards. Most of the par 3s are playable, but even at 5,000 yards the par 4s are often a long iron.
6. The ball flight is much lower. Lower than even the 1928 clubs. I really think it’s the ball and not the smooth faced clubs. It just doesn’t fly all that high. It’s kinda frightening hitting a low flyer at 100 yards but that’s the game so get use to it quick.
   
7. There is nothing like hitting it pure. Of course that doesn’t mean you’re going to hit the same distance every time. Sunday I hit a 28 degree lofted Stewart 175 yards. I was expecting to be on the front of the green at best and rolled up next the clown playing 2 balls. Today I’m out with my hickory buddy and hit this gorgeous shot from a 165 yards that comes up 10 yards short. Ok the ball was cracked but that is just ridiculously difference in length.
   
8. Iron shots are straight as string and generally low. At least recently they have been.
   
9. The bump and run is your friend. Learn to love it or kill your score. Finding a good high lofted club is really hard and even harder to hit. My 44 degree club is great the 56 degree Harry Vardon Stewart is questionable at this point. Ah it’s getting changed out next week when the newbie comes in anyway.
   
10. The long nose driver is hoot. Hard to figure out but when you hit one great it’s such a awesome feeling.
    
11. Altitude affects the ball differently. At Niagara On-The-Lake I saw more than one ball hit by multiple players “self correct” it’s path. Shots that started off as hooks turned into a slice to get back into the fairway. I haven’t seen any such weird flight patterns in Colorado at 6,500 feet. Straight as a string.
    
12. Sand on your ball is great for backspin. I stuck Jeff in the bunker on hole 2 at Niagra On-The-Lake. The ball got coated with sand. Jeff hits this gorgeous shot out of the sand that hits up by the flag. I figured we’re off the green and then the ball checks up.
    
13. You can back the ball up. Under the right conditions of course. Yes the ball has backspin but not nearly as much as the modern player. That said a sloping green that’s a little furry or a false front will stop a gutty pretty quickly. That said expect the ball to run out on the majority of your shots.
    
14. You don’t need a 56 degree wedge to get out of sand trap. In Canada my highest lofted club was 44 degree and I got out of all but one sand bunker and to within a makeable putt 75% of the time. Just open the face and strike it like you do a normal sand wedge. The principles are still the same, particularly if you have a wider soled iron. My best shot in Canada was on hole 8 when I stuck my second shot next to the edge of the bucker. I had to really open the club race and the ball popped out nicely to within 5 feet of the pin. Actually, I was more worried about hitting the lip of the bunker with my shaft than I was getting out the bunker.
    
15. Don’t clean your ball. One the paint comes off and two there is just something about the grass stains that make the ball fly better. Of course replace the ball on the green with a good ball if the tournament allows it. (And they did in Canada).
    
16. The stymie rule is cool. We had a couple of stymies in our match in Canada and all it did was make me focus even more. My ball slid by Vern Petry’s stymie on the first hole and into the cup. Without it I’m not sure I would have had the same focus.
    
17. The gutta does not float. I was told they would but when my ball dove into the pond tonight it didn’t come up for air. Maybe they do in Lake Ontario but they don’t in Colorado. Wonder what the scuba diver will think when he finds the ball next year.
    
18. At $19.95 or tournament special $9.00 you’ll do everything to find your ball. On Saturday I miss hit a shot on hole 6 that went into the trash. Couldn’t find the ball but the next day with my GPS system on I found it. Oh and don’t try explaining it to people on the course. I lost a ball is hard enough. I lost a $20 ball…forget it.
19. The ball makes this a game of strategy. Forget the tucked in pin behind the bunker and aim for the middle of the green. Look for the narrow strip leading up to the green instead of high shot that lands on the green, takes a hop an stop. Think runout. Yeah it’s a different game and useful when you play your moderns (whether modern mean 1928 or 2010).
20. Know the prevailing wind. The ball will move in that direction. At least a little bit.

Ok that’s enough. Get yourself some 1905 smoothies and a gutty or two and go play.

Having returned from the Easter Canadian Championship and the C B McDonald Challenge at Niagara On-The-Lake in Canada I decided to bring out the smoothies for play at home using the gutta percha replica golf balls we used in the tournament. I truly had a great time playing with the 1905 clubs in Canada which was probably aided by the tournament format.

The first nine holes were a foursomes(alternating shot) and the next nine a best ball (best score amongst the team – not a scramble (ahem – don’t confuse the two)). My partner, Jeff Pineo, and I won the first match 1-0 when I sunk a 3 foot birdie to half the final hole after our opponents drained a 45 foot chip from the side of the green. The match even included an ineffective stymie by Vern Petry on the very first hole. Sneaky Vern, but it didn’t work as I skimmed by his ball and sunk a 7 footer to win the hole outright.

We lost the second match 2-1 which was discouraging since we were up 1-0 with 5 to play. Vern and Bobby Sly played an effective game of ham and egg on those last few holes and there wasn’t a thing that Jeff and I could do. It wasn’t till later that I found out that I was playing with three golf professionals. Vern is a golf instructor and Bobby and Jeff were previously in apprentice program in Canada. Lots of fun playing with quality players. Jeff is out there hitting these high cut shots with the driver. Geez!

Anyway as I said, I was so taken with the 1905 play that I bought an extra ball from Paul Dietz to bring home so that one of my hickory playing partners at home could enjoy this era. Unfortunately, immediately after the tournament I had a couple of speaking engagements in the Ohio region (hey it made the Canadian trip possible), followed by eight days in San Francisco for a major conference. Needless to say I couldn’t get out to play until this weekend with nine holes on Saturday and another nine on Sunday.

Originally I was going to play with the Men’s Club on Saturday but the golf club aerated the greens on Monday so I thought it would be a perfect time to pull out the smoothies. The Saturday round I was just trying to figure out which clubs to use, how far I was going to hit the clubs, and how well the course would play with this “new” combination and at 6,500 feet of altitude. I wisely chose the red tees which are playing about 5,000 yards with the new tee boxes on the first and sixth hole. Maybe a little long for 1905 and the gutta percha ball, but certainly worth a try. I finished the round with a 43 and lost one of my gutta percha balls to the hazard on the sixth (I’m not sure I like the new tee placement). The good news is I walked the entire round, which given my foot injury is a major accomplishment.

Sunday was a much more promising day. Down to three good balls, make that two good balls and one ball that beat to death in Ontario. Anyway, I started out getting up and down on the first two holes then a hard fought bogey on the par five third. Making a mistake with the gutta and it can really compound quickly. Played through a curious threesome on five with a par after paring the par three fourth. Got to the sixth tee and didn’t want to repeat yesterdays missing ball episode so I went back to the white tees (which use to the be red tees six weeks ago). Hooked a drive into the rough. Hit a good recovery to the middle of the fairway. Stupidly hit a driving iron poorly which leaves 90 yards to the green. Softened the next shot to much and caught the false front of the green and died short. Chipped long, missed the putt and I’m three over. Sigh.

Wonder over to the seventh with the firm intention of just putting the 110 yard shot in the middle of the green. Pull it left a little, but it is in the middle of the green. Replace the ball with my one good gutta percha that I have left. (Yeah I hit the other good one thin on a let’s try that again shot and creased it – no more let me see if I can get it right). Forty Five feet and there is no hope that I’m going to make this on the greens that were aerated on Monday. But I’m wrong. I hit the perfect putt and it’s rolling straight to the hole. No mickey mouse bounces away or to the hole and then the ball just dives in the hole. My FIRST BIRDIE with 1905 clubs. This is a way cool way to play golf!

I finish with a par on eight and sand trap laden bogey on nine for a 39. The fact that I walked the course once again is great though my heal is a little sore from the last two days. Afterwards, I went up and got a golf cart and semi made my way around the course. Semi means I played the second hole and then ran over to the sixth to see if I could find my missing gutta perch in the weeds. I’m just looking for ball I told the UCCS PGA students who were on the hole when I pulled up (they must have thought that was weird). Using my GPS I found the ball about two feet in a 165 yards from the tee box.

Overall it was good day of golf. I got a funny look from a player in front of me when I hit a 175 yard shot with my iron that ran up on the green (hey I was as surprised as he was); was able to hit a driver 185 yards once; shot a 39 on a 5,000 yard course; walked the course in a hour and ten minutes; made my first birdie with smoothies and gutta percha; and most importantly found my fourth ball so my buddy and I can play this combination next week.