My first round of the year was less than inspiring. First the course- Ballantyne Golf Club, outside of Charlotte. The weather kept getting better as we drove south on I-77 from Radford and continued that way- sunny and 60+ degrees.  The course was friendly and efficient and a good deal at $49. They had replaced the greens last summer with a new hybrid grass that I can't remember the name of.  Even though the course was soaked, the ball usually left no mark on the greens and they putted true.  Everyone liked them.  In the summer, I suspect they could be blisteringly fast if they cut them down. The course was very wet, so plugged and muddy balls (and pants) were common and the course played much longer than its stated yardage.

The fairways were brown Bermuda and so it was sometimes hard to see the bunkers, and there were quite a few of them.  The course had a similar feel to some of the courses at Pinehurst, though with fewer trees in general. Much greater elevation changes than I expected- I'm glad they didn't allow us to walk it. There were a few blind tee shots, but landing areas were `reasonably generous. My only complaint about the course was that it felt a bit "urban" ringed by freeways and office buildings.  That said, the designers did a good job to keep your eye focused on the golf course and not on what surrounded it. Par was 35-36-71 and the back nine had three par 3s and three par5s which made for an interesting time. My most interesting shot, unfortunately" was a badly heeled drive that skipped three times and made it over a pond to the left of the fairway on one of the back nine par 4s. I didn't take advantage of the lucky break, however, and toed my next 4 wood into a big bush.  I eventually got a triple bogey that finished my chances for a decent back nine.

Al had the best round- an 81.  He drove the ball superbly and putted consistently.  The rest of us lagged way behind. I shot a 44-43-87 that included two triples and two double-bogeys. In the "middle" of the round I was making pars and playing reasonably well, but I made a mess of the beginning and finishing holes. My Honma persimmon worked pretty well, but I wasn't happy with the Wilson Gooseneck irons. They are a large head with a channelback sort of design and a thicker topline than many vintage blades. They seemed "clunky" to me, especially the wedges, but I was having trouble hitting down and through the ball and that cost me several shots. The Wilson "Original 600 forged" putter worked fairly well.  I had three 3 putt greens, but that is fairly normal for me on a new course.  This putter is pretty accurate from 5 feet in and I could judge speed with it pretty well. 

Here's a picture of my golf club storage rack, now filled with vintage irons, woods, wedges and putters.

I also received a set of 6.0 rifles that I am going to put into my re-chromed VIPs.  I tried a dry fitting at 38 inches for the 5 iron and the swingweight came out about D1 which is fine for me. Maybe this weekend I can glue them. My club purchasing has slowed down considerable and I am selling off my "modern clubs" one or two at a time on Ebay.  Then I'll start getting rid of some of the vintage clubs that I don't like very much.  I did see a great set of Cobra Greg Norman signature blades on Ebay- I may bid on them.  A very nice looking club.
Freezing rain expected today- no golf this weekend. Sigh.

Good news! The forecast for tomorrow in Charlotte is 60 degrees and sunny. This is a big deal, because I have a tee time tomorrow at 11 at the Ballantyne Resort course- Golf Digest 4 1/2 stars for $49.  My first round in a month.

I decided to play my Wilson Goosenecks since I am extremely rusty and these are about the most forgiving blades I have.  I'll also use my Honma driver and 4 wood because I am used to them.  I have a new-old Wilson George Low 600-like putter that I am going to try for the first time. 

 

 Some of the irons sets that I have chosen to play during my vintage year of golf include:

Hogan Redlines

Hogan Apex II

Hogan PCs

Hogan Radials

Hogan Apex (original model)

Wilson Staff Gooseneck

Wilson Staff Fluid Feel

Wilson Staff Tour Blade FG-17

Wilson Staff (just "Staff" on toe)

Wilson Staff Dynapower

MacGregor Tourney Colokrom (rechromed and reshafted)

MacGregor VIP by Nicklaus (rechromed and reshafted)

MacGregor Jack Nicklaus Muirfield

MacGregor Tommy Armour Tourney 985

MacGregor Tourney CF4000 Cermaic Face

Dunlop Maxfli Australian Blade

Powerbilt Scotch Blade

Walter Hagen Haig-Ultra Contour Sole

More..?

NEXT: First round of 2010 and Looking Forward to St. Andrews

Well, I passed my first test.  The Golf Digest new club issue arrived this week and I haven't opened it yet.  On the other hand, the last two Christmas vacations I have averaged seven 18 hole rounds.  The total for this vacation...0.  It looked for a while like my friend Richard might get me on to Pinehurst #2 next week for some ridiculously low price, but bad weather and cataract surgery next Monday have ended that fantasy.

I have been asking advice on Golf WRX about what shafts to put in a set of re-chromed MacGregor VIPs heads that I picked up on Ebay.  There are guys on this site who really know their vintage clubs- here's the link:
GolfWrx.com
The original VIPs mostly came with a stepless steel shaft called the Tourney Taper Microstep. It seems this was the original version of the Rifle shaft, so I am thinking about putting in some flighted rifles with no shaft bands. This is an auspicious year to play these- the U.S. Open is returning this summer to pebble Beach.  The first Open to be played at Pebble was in 1972, won by Jack Nicklaus with these irons. Unfortunately, I didn't get a 1 iron- Nicklaus hit a famous one on the par 3 17th at Pebble, almost holing it and cementing his victory.  Here's a picture..

So, what is a vintage steel club?  We all know about hickory golfers- looks like fun, but a wholly different game.  There is no organization for vintage steel enthusiasts, so we get to me up our own rules.  The last major (I think) where the winner played a persimmon driver was the 1993 Masters, though other pros continued using them into the later 90s.  For my purposes, any real wood driver should qualify for a vintage bag- there are a couple of companies still making persimmon woods (Louisville Golf and Joe Powell) and it would be good to support their craftsmanship. My favorite persimmon is a Hiro Honma Super Big LB.  It has a graphite shaft and dates from the mid nineties, but I have older persimmons with steel shafts if someone objects to my "high tech" driver.  Any steel shafted blade made before 1993 is my arbitrary qualification. So it's mostly just blades and persimmon with some age restrictions on the blades to encourage the "recycling" of older clubs.  Re-chroming, re-shafting, and re-gripping are all OK with me, though maybe you should get extra "points" for older irons with original shafts.

Several vintage steel enthusiasts also buy up old balata balls to use. I applaud their dedication, but I use Wilson Zips, a modern ball that feels soft and has decent distance and spin. There's enough resistance to using persimmons without losing even more yards with old balls.   Speaking of resistance, my friends have been watching me play with blades and persimmons for a couple of months now (at least until the great pre-Christmas blizzard of 09) and none have yet committed to join me. There was an interesting and very long thread on GolfWRX a while back started by a golfer who had returned to golf after a long hiatus.  He called himself a "purist" and derided the way that technology has changed the game and made it easier and too focused on distance.  Boy, did he get jumped on.

Hey- just won a set of 1940s MacGregor Tommy Armour irons for $40.  I should get lots of points for those!

Next: Choosing Clubs for 2010

December 31, 2009

Two more inches of snow last night.  It's lovely, but the prospect of playing any golf before the end of the Christmas holidays is receding into a white oblivion. My garage apartment is full of vintage irons and persimmon woods that I have been collecting at a frightening pace since last October when I first caught this virus..

Why does a person decide to make a difficult game even harder by switching to blades from his Taylormade Burner 2009 irons that are 1 inch overlength to go with their souped up lofts such that even a 57 year old can hit irons of prodigious length? (This is, of course, one those many relative terms in golf.) Not only have I switched to blades, but I have switched to OLD blades. With old, heavy shafts with weird labels I have never seen. Maybe I saw them when I played high school golf in the late 60s but I have long since forgotten. Wait!  There's more.  I am also using persimmon woods again.  Most of my golf through the fall was played with Honma persimmons made in the 90s sometime and yes, I admit, they do have graphite shafts.  So calling myself a vintage steel golfer is already stretching the truth.

So why does a golfer who is routinely made fun of  (or held in contempt) for collecting all the latest golf clubs suddenly sell all of these modern instruments of torture and go back to the golfing equivalent of the Middle Ages? Damned if I know. One day in October I just got weary of trying to hit the longest drives of my life and decided to play a round or two with a persimmon driver and 4 wood that I had in my stash. Guess what?  It was really, really fun.  The next step in this downward spiral was purchasing a set of late eighties Wilson Gooseneck blades. The deities of the golfing universe, not surprisingly, allowed me to play one very special round with these irons on a beautiful autumn afternoon.  The round culminated with a perfectly struck 2 iron (God, do they still make 2 irons!) of the 18th tee that went about 230 yards (much of it roll). I was hooked.

Sometime between then and now, I have purchased a ridiculous number of vintage irons sets (I will post pictures as I start playing them) and some old and not so old persimmon woods. I even bought a really nice, and really counterfeit, "Texas Classic" driver that I thought was one of the famous Texas soleplate drivers done by the Wood Bros. of Texas.  But that's another story I'll save for later.

So here's the plan.  Play a full year of golf with vintage blades and persimmon woods. Compare my scores with those I have had over the last couple of years with the latest technology.  Try my best to show that technology is worthless hype compared to the feel of a pured forged blade or the funny non-sound of the ball coming off my persimmon driver. Try really hard to keep my index as close as I can to what it was when I started (3.8).

To make it interesting, I will play in my club championship with these old clubs (I never win anyway), and take a set to Scotland with me in July when some friends are joining me after the Open Championship for two much-anticipated weeks of links golf. So yes, there must be a picture in here sometime of me teeing off the 1st hole at the Old Course or Royal Dornoch (or both, Lord willing) with my persimmon driver.

I also want to do some head to head testing of different clubs, including comparing old and new technology- I kept my shortened Taylormade R9 driver and Cleveland Launcher 4 wood and Srixon hybrid to use for these tests. Or, wait, maybe they are psychological crutches, just in case I get discouraged? I'll leave that to Don, the psychologist in our group, to figure out. I'll introduce you to the great friends that I play golf with and talk about why I love the game and try and convince you to join me in trying out some vintage steel sticks and sharing your experiences and stories here.  I'll show you pictures of my clubs as I put new sets into the bag and report the results.
Happy 2010.

Next: What exactly is a vintage steel club?  Or, are there any rules to this game?