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Speaker 2: The fried Egg requires a different technique. What you need
Speaker 2: to do is actually square the face so it'll dig
Speaker 2: down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right
Speaker 2: out onto the green.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
Speaker 4: Playing out of a buried lion of bunker is completely
Speaker 4: different than playing out of a night and clean.
Speaker 2: Live a greenside buker.
Speaker 5: You need to be aggressive on any show, whether it's
Speaker 5: sitting cleanly or it's Friday Egg.
Speaker 1: Well, we've all faiked that the dreaded Frida Egg not
Speaker 1: to be feared, though it's actually a pretty easy shot
Speaker 1: to hit. It is September fourteenth, twenty twenty one. I'm
Speaker 1: at Gearhart Golf Links in Gearhart, Oregon. That's the northern
Speaker 1: Oregon coast, and I'm at the US Hickory Open. It
Speaker 1: is beautiful morning. You can hear the ocean nearby. Hear that,
Speaker 1: but you can't see it from here. And I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna follow some folks around and see if there are
Speaker 1: any stories here. Maybe you can hear that note of
Speaker 1: doubt in my voice. I'm at the US Hickory Open,
Speaker 1: the second and final round, pretty much on a whim.
Speaker 1: I live about two hours from gearharten figured I had
Speaker 1: no excuse, but I arrived, looked around and realized I
Speaker 1: was kind of a stranger in a strange land. So
Speaker 1: if you don't know much about Hickory golf, first of all,
Speaker 1: that makes two of us. But the main thing you
Speaker 1: should be aware of upfront is the rule about equipment
Speaker 1: in the US Hickory Open, which is put on by
Speaker 1: the Society of Hickory Golfers. You need to play with
Speaker 1: wooden shafted clubs from nineteen thirty five or before, or
Speaker 1: you can use replicas of those models. Simple enough, But
Speaker 1: as I walk around the practice screen recording, I find
Speaker 1: myself just a little puzzled by it all. Most of
Speaker 1: the women are in long skirts and blouses, and most
Speaker 1: of the men have plus fours or plus twos on,
Speaker 1: you know, the pants that kind of hang below the
Speaker 1: knee and billow out a bit. And I try to
Speaker 1: imagine myself taking part in this world, and they can't
Speaker 1: quite do it.
Speaker 2: There's finally Madeland after fourteen hours.
Speaker 1: It's not just the fashion, which honestly some people pull
Speaker 1: off really well. It's the idea of giving up the
Speaker 1: comforts of modern golf. Look, I love the history of
Speaker 1: the game, but I think I'd have a hard time
Speaker 1: actually living it, giving up the big drivers, the big putters,
Speaker 1: the space age materials, all the things that are supposed
Speaker 1: to make golf more manageable and make me a better player.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a hard game. Why would you
Speaker 1: choose to make it harder. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this
Speaker 1: is Friday Stories Today, a collection of conversations from the
Speaker 1: US Hickory Open, or really I should call it a
Speaker 1: series of efforts to understand twenty first century Hickory golf,
Speaker 1: where it came from, how it's played, and why some
Speaker 1: people get absolutely hooked by it. When I get to
Speaker 1: Gearheart Golf Links, some players are already out on the course,
Speaker 1: but it'll be a couple of hours before the leaders
Speaker 1: in the open division t off. I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: my bearings, so I look through the t sheet and
Speaker 1: right there in the final group, I see a familiar name,
Speaker 1: Colin McNamara.
Speaker 6: I'm a writer. I write poems, and I teach at
Speaker 6: Washington State University.
Speaker 1: He's also written a few things for the Frida Egg website,
Speaker 1: which is how I know him. And you're here at
Speaker 1: the US Hickory Open. Is this the first time you've
Speaker 1: been in an event like this?
Speaker 6: It's the first time I've been in an event this big.
Speaker 6: I have played in several Hickory tournaments, but this is
Speaker 6: a this is another animal.
Speaker 1: Apparently Colin was ready, though he posted a good score
Speaker 1: in the first round seventy six.
Speaker 6: I hit it pretty well. A couple bad shots. You
Speaker 6: know that. That's where Hickory golf really diverges from modern golf.
Speaker 6: It's much less forgiving. So I had a couple terrible shots,
Speaker 6: but thankfully no television cameras caught those, and then I
Speaker 6: made a lot of putts, so I ended up with
Speaker 6: a really good score.
Speaker 1: So he was going into the second and final round
Speaker 1: in fourth place, two shots back. Colin McNamara is younger
Speaker 1: than your typical Hickory player. He's in his late twenties now,
Speaker 1: and he's been playing exclusively with vintage clubs for about
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 6: It started I think I saw something online at first,
Speaker 6: and you know, I bought a club in an antique store,
Speaker 6: fixed it up, you know, played with it, bought another
Speaker 6: couple of clubs. Pretty soon I'm traveling around to play
Speaker 6: in tournaments and dressing in my homemade knickers.
Speaker 1: So wait, homemade knickers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'd say they're effectively plus fours. I sewed a
Speaker 6: little band of elastic into a pair of good will pants,
Speaker 6: and you know, I put the elastic up around my
Speaker 6: knee and draped the rest over the sock, and it
Speaker 6: looks authentic enough to get by with this crowd.
Speaker 1: I find that Colin has a nice way of explaining things.
Speaker 1: He doesn't take himself too seriously, but he knows his stuff,
Speaker 1: and he's incredibly passionate about Hickory golf. It occurs to
Speaker 1: me that he could serve as a kind of guide
Speaker 1: for me today, and who knows, he could very well
Speaker 1: win the tournament. So I make a mental note to
Speaker 1: keep checking in with Colin throughout the day. Okay, perfect,
Speaker 1: that's good. I'll let you prepare yourself mentally for battle
Speaker 1: and good luck.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Here Chapter one, John Henry versus the Industry. I'm starting
Speaker 1: to get the lay of the land at the US
Speaker 1: Hickory Open, and what I see is a few main
Speaker 1: hubs of activity. There's the practice screen and the first tee.
Speaker 1: There's the area around the scoreboard, which is just a
Speaker 1: big dry erase board on wheels, and then between the
Speaker 1: parking lot and the clubhouse there's an outdoor workshop staffed
Speaker 1: by a man named John Henry Williams.
Speaker 2: John Henry Williams pesfessionally I'm retired, but as a hobby
Speaker 2: I repair golf clubs.
Speaker 1: Specifically, John Henry repairs and restores the types of clubs
Speaker 1: being used today. In fact, he's one of the very
Speaker 1: best at it. His workshop has a mixture of things,
Speaker 1: some of you could find at most hardware stores.
Speaker 2: Cordless drill files are probably the biggest thing I use
Speaker 2: a lot of.
Speaker 1: Others you've probably never seen before.
Speaker 2: Well, I have a shaft straightening machine. It's a woodplank
Speaker 2: with some round knobs on it that a gentleman in
Speaker 2: Vermont invented to straighten wooden shafting clubs.
Speaker 1: Now, John Henry would prefer to be playing today, but.
Speaker 2: Three weeks ago I was diagnosed with a subbural hematoma,
Speaker 2: and so the doctor said no golf for at least
Speaker 2: a month, which killed me. I've been waiting for this
Speaker 2: event for two years. So the second best thing for
Speaker 2: me to do was to bring my temporary I roll
Speaker 2: in cart and do golf club repair for people down
Speaker 2: here that needed something done. You know, these are old
Speaker 2: clubs and they just sometimes need a little tender living care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like you have a customer right here.
Speaker 1: In fact, come on it. It's all right, very very
Speaker 1: casual interview here face inserts it.
Speaker 2: I can do that.
Speaker 1: Yes, people keep approaching John Henry throughout the morning. Some
Speaker 1: have questions about a particular club. Others need this or
Speaker 1: that small repair, like re whipping the black thread around
Speaker 1: the neck of a wood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is fairly simple to do.
Speaker 4: Curly here, I thought he would just explain to him
Speaker 4: why the whipping is there? Glue it on, but you
Speaker 4: don't glue it on.
Speaker 7: You have to whip it.
Speaker 2: You can glue it on, but it doesn't stay very well.
Speaker 1: And what I'm picking up on is that the builder
Speaker 1: like John Henry, is a key fulcrum in the hickory
Speaker 1: world world like everything relies on these old clubs being playable,
Speaker 1: and he keeps them that way. To do that, he
Speaker 1: has to maintain a highly specific skill set, one that
Speaker 1: frankly doesn't have much market value these days. So how
Speaker 1: and why does someone become a master of this particular craft.
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up playing golf. I was I had asthma,
Speaker 2: so the the biggest thing I could do was play golf.
Speaker 2: My dad introduced me to golf when I was eight
Speaker 2: and gave me some plastic clubs and a ball, and
Speaker 2: I just went and hit them. And grew up on
Speaker 2: a farm in Virginia, so I had lots of room
Speaker 2: to go hit golf balls everywhere.
Speaker 1: John Henry went on to play in high school, in
Speaker 1: college and ended up working as a club.
Speaker 2: Pro and then got out of the business because I
Speaker 2: realized as a country club professional you have to walk
Speaker 2: the line, and you can't be somebody that gives your
Speaker 2: opinion and if you ask me what I think, I
Speaker 2: tell you, and that's never going to be.
Speaker 1: A good thing, you know.
Speaker 2: So so I realized I needed to do something y else,
Speaker 2: and I loved golf clubs and started collecting clubs, go
Speaker 2: to flea markets, go to garage sales and pick them
Speaker 2: up and then take them back to the garage and
Speaker 2: kind of tear them apart and see how they were
Speaker 2: put back together. More of a hobby, just messing around,
Speaker 2: and then there were people said, well, you got skills
Speaker 2: to do this, so well, okay.
Speaker 1: So around nineteen seventy six, John Henry went into business
Speaker 1: as a club repair guy, but around him the industry
Speaker 1: was changing. Metal headed woods came out in the late seventies,
Speaker 1: and at first they didn't make too much of a
Speaker 1: dent in John Henry's per Simon wood business, but then
Speaker 1: they started to show up on the PGA Tour. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, Lee Trevino became the first player to
Speaker 1: win a major with a metal headed driver, a.
Speaker 8: New PGA record of fifteen under par, and the first
Speaker 8: champion to ever shoot four rounds under seventy in a
Speaker 8: PGA championship and win, and you ought to kiss that
Speaker 8: punter league.
Speaker 2: When metal woods hit the tour, the per simon market
Speaker 2: was dead because everybody wants to play with the guys
Speaker 2: on tour playing. So metal woods just changed the club
Speaker 2: repair business. Nobody needed to have a metal wood refinished.
Speaker 2: The golf balls didn't show them up. There's no expense
Speaker 2: in repair, and it was just something that my market
Speaker 2: in repair business just went into toilet and you could
Speaker 2: hear the flush.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the financial realities that had changed.
Speaker 1: The work itself had become something totally different.
Speaker 2: Metal woods. It's mostly computerized now, I mean it really is.
Speaker 2: They're not taking a piece of clay and saying, let's
Speaker 2: shape it this way, or let's take a piece of
Speaker 2: wood and rasp this out and cut this insert in.
Speaker 2: And it's not a bad thing. I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: poo poo the idea that they don't have any skills,
Speaker 2: because they do. But it's not hand crafted. It's not
Speaker 2: taking a piece of wood by and running a file
Speaker 2: across it until you get to shape and you run
Speaker 2: your fingers across it and you get the feel if
Speaker 2: you don't like that, well I'll change it a little bit.
Speaker 2: Or how am I going to add a little bit
Speaker 2: of weight to this thing? It's none of that anymore.
Speaker 2: I think most of it is done today by computers,
Speaker 2: and no, I'm not interested in doing that. I like
Speaker 2: being able to hand work a golf club.
Speaker 1: So John Henry changed paths again. He went to work
Speaker 1: at Sandpoint Country Club in Seattle. Mud Green's raked bunkers
Speaker 1: and eventually became the assistant superintendent. After he retired, he
Speaker 1: kept working part time in the pro shop, but he
Speaker 1: needed something else to do with his time. As it
Speaker 1: turned out, just outside the gate at Sandpoint was a
Speaker 1: club repair shop run by Jim von Lasso, incidentally the
Speaker 1: father of Andrew von Lasso, who's leading the US. It
Speaker 1: reopen as we speak, and.
Speaker 2: I went over to a shop a couple of times
Speaker 2: taking clubs from Sandpoint, and once I walked through the
Speaker 2: front door, I'm going, you know, this is just so familiar,
Speaker 2: and I missed doing this. So when I retired, I
Speaker 2: just fixed up a little spot down stairs in the
Speaker 2: basement and started working on golf clubs again.
Speaker 1: And it's since it was mostly a hobby now not
Speaker 1: a business. John Henry was free to work on the clubs.
Speaker 1: He wanted to work on the old stuff, the hand
Speaker 1: crafted stuff.
Speaker 2: The craftsmanship is unbelievable of what these guys used to do.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm never I'm at awe of the different
Speaker 2: clubs that I take apart about how they put them
Speaker 2: together back in the day. And they weren't using the
Speaker 2: machinery that we have nowadays. These are guys that are,
Speaker 2: you know, hand drilling things. They're auguring things out, and
Speaker 2: it's I would love to go back and watch some
Speaker 2: of these craftsmen put clubs together. Even the guys in
Speaker 2: the pre nineteen hundred clubs were truly crafts and and
Speaker 2: the stuff that they did, I think it's like it's
Speaker 2: a work of art.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: It doesn't look like it, but let me hand you
Speaker 2: two pieces of wood and you go do it. So
Speaker 2: when I can take those clubs and and get a
Speaker 2: chance to work on them, it's just like, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is part of history, and so I'm working on history.
Speaker 2: And that's that's the cool part.
Speaker 7: Nobody gets confused out there and uh, yeah, you got
Speaker 7: your own individual market be great.
Speaker 3: I played it was a pink and white one time,
Speaker 3: but I had to give up.
Speaker 1: Because the other guy said what number?
Speaker 7: So here's here's the My name is Stravko Barbik, and
Speaker 7: I am the head golf professional at Gear Golf Links.
Speaker 7: I go by Ze because it's easier for everybody to pronounce.
Speaker 7: I am enjoying the sunshine and watching these wonderful people
Speaker 7: play golf and doing the starting on the first tea,
Speaker 7: it is our eleven thirty tea time from Port Townsand, Washington.
Speaker 7: Rob Berman, Well done.
Speaker 1: Could you introduce yourself?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm Rob Berman. I'm one of the co founders
Speaker 3: of Northwest Hickory Players.
Speaker 1: And what are we doing right now?
Speaker 3: We are just off the first Sea Center cut one
Speaker 3: hundred and forty yards in on a sixty five degree
Speaker 3: day and perfect weather on the sea side of Oregon,
Speaker 3: final round of the US hick Reopen. None of my
Speaker 3: group's in contention, so we're here.
Speaker 1: To have fun. Chapter two, Rob Berman plays a hole.
Speaker 1: So at this point, John Henry Williams has helped me
Speaker 1: understand the appeal of Hickory golf clubs as objects, the
Speaker 1: history behind them, the craftsmanship that goes into them. But
Speaker 1: now I need to see what it's actually like to
Speaker 1: play them. So I pull aside Rob Berman as he's
Speaker 1: walking off the fifth green. I ask him if he
Speaker 1: can talk me through all of his shots on the
Speaker 1: next hole, the sixth, and he says sure. He might
Speaker 1: end up regretting that, all right, So what's the plan
Speaker 1: on this hole? This is a tricky hole. It's got
Speaker 1: a blind approach, it's all uphill. So the trick for.
Speaker 3: Me is getting out far enough that I can have
Speaker 3: a comfortable club into this green.
Speaker 1: So what are you going to hit here?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna hit my brassy, which is my driving club.
Speaker 3: It's twelve degrees, hoping to hit two twenty if I
Speaker 3: if I'm lucky, how that shot go? Well? Garrett? With
Speaker 3: a uphill fairway. Like so many people, I tend to
Speaker 3: try harder than I. Shit pulled that too far left
Speaker 3: changes the whole planning. Now I'll try to punch it
Speaker 3: up to one hundred yards and wedge it.
Speaker 1: On it's out stop. I've proven to be bad luck
Speaker 1: for you so far, so that one is in a
Speaker 1: fair way bunker. But back in the whole corridor, we.
Speaker 3: Did We did have a few players that walked off
Speaker 3: the course yesterday and there's two schools of thought on that.
Speaker 3: You know, most of us don't take it too internal,
Speaker 3: you know, if we're not playing well.
Speaker 1: Very nice, you know, like like a lot of tournaments
Speaker 1: that are accessible to a lot of different people. There
Speaker 1: are those who are very competitive and than those who
Speaker 1: just want to have fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we have pros plane in this tournament and
Speaker 3: rank amateurs, and we've got players from eighteen to eighty, and.
Speaker 1: That's what's so much fun. You meet new.
Speaker 3: People and you share what you love.
Speaker 1: Fairway bunker shot. What club are you gonna have here?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna use my eight iron, which is the equivalent
Speaker 3: of a pitching wedge, just to get out of this
Speaker 3: fairly low bunker and try to leave myself an angle
Speaker 3: into this very hard pin.
Speaker 1: Right, all right, we're on the fairway, all right. The approach, Wow,
Speaker 1: now that was a nifty shot. Tell me about that.
Speaker 3: That's my one hundred and forty yard club from one
Speaker 3: hundred and twelve yards. So that's just a little knockdown shot,
Speaker 3: as Jean Harry Varden would call it.
Speaker 1: Push shot. First good shot at the hall. All right,
Speaker 1: so you've got a putt. Could you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about your putter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a pretty special putter to Jean Gassier.
Speaker 3: Jean Gassier won the nineteen twelve French Open. He played
Speaker 3: out of Chantilly, France, and after his win in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 3: his potter model became popular.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful club. It's a wooden potter head, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know what you compare it to.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a mallet with toe hang. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They used to call it the piano because it's kind
Speaker 3: of shaped like a grand piano. It's pretty uncommon.
Speaker 1: One, two, three, four or five. Oh, he's got about
Speaker 1: a ten footers or six. But it's been fun talking
Speaker 1: about all the different clubs. I mean, the cool thing
Speaker 1: is that each club has a story, right, Each club
Speaker 1: has some homemade elements and has decades of history behind it.
Speaker 1: I think that's a big part of the appeal of
Speaker 1: this kind of golf. You know, it's not just nostaga, right,
Speaker 1: You're playing with these things in the present, and they
Speaker 1: have kind of beauty, integrity, craftsmanship in and of themselves.
Speaker 1: And he missed the pet for six. That's a seven.
Speaker 1: He might have missed the shorty too. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you like. So, one of the ideas of one
Speaker 1: of the selling points I suppose of modern equipment and
Speaker 1: the attempt that it makes is to reduce the number
Speaker 1: of times a player has a bad hole. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, when you have a bad hole with your
Speaker 1: hickory clubs, what is your attitude towards it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suppose you can be way more forgiving on
Speaker 3: yourself if you have a bad hole, because there's so
Speaker 3: little forgiveness in these clubs. You know, that's the beauty
Speaker 3: of hickory golf. You get these clubs and you have
Speaker 3: to learn them. It takes time to learn them. Some
Speaker 3: clubs you never can hit, and occasionally you find a
Speaker 3: club that's just suited perfectly for you. Yeah, And you know, Garrett,
Speaker 3: it all comes down to fundamentals of your swing, and
Speaker 3: if those aren't tuned, it doesn't matter what you have
Speaker 3: in your hands.
Speaker 1: Not far from where I leave Rob is the fourth tee.
Speaker 1: I wait there for a few minutes and the final
Speaker 1: group arrives. Andrew von Lasso is still leading, and Colin
Speaker 1: mcnamarath is telling me that he sucks. Literally, he says, Garrett,
Speaker 1: I suck. He's three over through three and things don't improve.
Speaker 1: On the fourth hole, he hits his t shot over
Speaker 1: the green over a low wooden fence out of bounce.
Speaker 1: His provisional does almost the same thing but stops short
Speaker 1: after His drive on the fifth hole a good one.
Speaker 1: I catch up with him in the fairway. Tell me
Speaker 1: how it's gone so far? Oh, not good? So far? Thanks?
Speaker 1: Not good so far? What's your state of mind life
Speaker 1: at the moment?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I feel fine. It's gonna take some made putts
Speaker 6: to get back into it.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 6: I think I'm down seven after starting down too, so
Speaker 6: I've got a little work to do. But yeah, I
Speaker 6: just gotta make some putts. It can change in a hurry.
Speaker 1: Season two with Friday Stories is made possible by Precision
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Speaker 1: tell me about why you guys are sitting out here
Speaker 1: watching the action.
Speaker 4: This is the US Open the Eckery, Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean we play this course all the time. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: I have fun to watch these guys hit the ball
Speaker 4: and anticipating this for about two years. Yeah right, I mean, and.
Speaker 1: Uh, the sign's been up for two years.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And we live right here, and so we watch
Speaker 4: a lot of golf and it's a great place. And yeah,
Speaker 4: those are great.
Speaker 3: They are gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, everybody's having a good time.
Speaker 4: So and just to see these guys hit it.
Speaker 1: I can't hit it.
Speaker 2: As far as they do, and I've got high tech stuff.
Speaker 1: Chapter three, tad Moore and the Society. A crowd is
Speaker 1: slowly thickening around the scoreboard by the clubhouse. Right in
Speaker 1: the middle of it is an older man sitting in
Speaker 1: a chair. Periodically people come up to him and shake
Speaker 1: his hand.
Speaker 8: Yeah, this is tad Moore.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of ways you might have heard
Speaker 1: of tad Moore. Maybe the main one is through the
Speaker 1: line of milled putters he did with Max Fly in
Speaker 1: the nineties and early two thousands. You know that famous
Speaker 1: picture of Ian Woosnam winning the Masters throwing a big
Speaker 1: uppercut fist pump. If you look in his other hand,
Speaker 1: he's holding a Maxfly Tadmore putter. But if you're a
Speaker 1: Hickory player, you may not associate tad Moore primarily with
Speaker 1: milld putters. Instead, you probably know him as one of
Speaker 1: the founding fathers of modern Hickory golf. The more I've
Speaker 1: walked around the US hick Reopen, seeing how many people
Speaker 1: are here and how enthusiastic they are, the more I've
Speaker 1: wondered how it all got started, how this community formed
Speaker 1: even as the rest of the game moved on. I've
Speaker 1: mentioned this to a few people and they've all told me, well,
Speaker 1: you've got to go talk to Tad Todd. Can you
Speaker 1: give me an idea of how you got interested in
Speaker 1: playing older clubs?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that the older clubs. When being a
Speaker 8: club designer, I wanted to see what people had used
Speaker 8: in the past, because there's really nothing new in golf.
Speaker 8: I don't care what any of these people say. There's
Speaker 8: nothing much new. So I had a collection at one
Speaker 8: time about thirty five hundred clubs, and around nineteen seventy
Speaker 8: five a good friend of mine talked me into playing
Speaker 8: some Hickory golf. I did that for a little while,
Speaker 8: kind of, but.
Speaker 1: There wasn't really anybody in Tad's area in Georgia who
Speaker 1: wanted to play Hickory's with him, so he left it
Speaker 1: alone for a bit.
Speaker 8: But in nineteen eighty eight a good friend of mine,
Speaker 8: Bobby Farino, who was a big club dealer club collector,
Speaker 8: he convinced me to go and play in the Golf
Speaker 8: Collector Society meeting in Palm Springs.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, the Golf Collector's Society, which was the progenitor to
Speaker 3: the Society of Hickory golfers started when I was three
Speaker 3: years old. It was started in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: That's Rob Burman again. In addition to being a good
Speaker 1: sport about quadruple bogies, Rob is the host of the
Speaker 1: Plus four podcast, which focuses on hickory golf. Well, I
Speaker 1: figured he was the right person to fill in some
Speaker 1: historical background here.
Speaker 3: From the nineteen seventies, For thirty different years there had
Speaker 3: been annual conventions of the Golf Collectors Society at various
Speaker 3: places in the United States, and inevitably there would be
Speaker 3: trade shows, and these collectors from the US would bring
Speaker 3: their clubs and they would swap and trade their hickoryes
Speaker 3: as well as moderns and steel shafted clubs. At some
Speaker 3: point between nineteen seventy and the year two thousand, they
Speaker 3: started what they call the Hickory Hacker event where the
Speaker 3: collectors would go out, as they say, for grins and giggles,
Speaker 3: to just play their hickory clubs, and often it was
Speaker 3: a scramble format. Part of it was just a fascination
Speaker 3: with these incredible antiques and they wanted to get a
Speaker 3: feel for what it might have been like back in
Speaker 3: the day to hit these clubs.
Speaker 1: It was in one of these Hickory Hacker tournaments that
Speaker 1: tad Moore played in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 8: So I went out and played, and I thought I
Speaker 8: want it, but I didn't. But it really got me
Speaker 8: enthused about playing with hickory golf clubs. So from that
Speaker 8: point there was probably about twenty guys that were actively
Speaker 8: playing hickory golf in the United States.
Speaker 3: As you can imagine, as time went on, some players
Speaker 3: wanted to become more serious about playing hickory clubs steadily,
Speaker 3: and they didn't want to do the scramble format. They
Speaker 3: actually wanted to start to do genuine competitions. And this
Speaker 3: rift developed from what I understand, between the collectors that
Speaker 3: just wanted to go out and have a fun time
Speaker 3: once a year and a cadre of people that included
Speaker 3: tad Moore, that wanted to actually make more of a
Speaker 3: commitment to hickory golf as a pastime and a hobby.
Speaker 3: Those of us that play want to feel history. We
Speaker 3: don't want to look at history, we want to feel it.
Speaker 8: Until one night at the dun Vegan in the Saint Andrews,
Speaker 8: we were all sitting around and had a few pints,
Speaker 8: and the idea was that we should do something about
Speaker 8: a group.
Speaker 3: And it was over some beers of the Don Vegan
Speaker 3: that Tad and some others decided to get formal about
Speaker 3: putting together an official society, creating their own set of
Speaker 3: rules and really becoming independent from the Golf Collectors Society.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of the Society of Hickory Golfers,
Speaker 1: which was officially founded in the year two thousand.
Speaker 8: First eight years I was a president, and I was
Speaker 8: what I like to call a benevolent dictator, and we
Speaker 8: move forward.
Speaker 1: The Society of Hickory Golfers now maintains a set of rules,
Speaker 1: runs a handicap system, and of course puts on the
Speaker 1: US Hickory Open. Around the same time he helped the
Speaker 1: society get started, Tad Moore made another critical move. He
Speaker 1: began to manufacture Hickory shafted golf clubs replicas. Again at
Speaker 1: a tournament like the US Hickory Open. Not limited to
Speaker 1: clubs that were actually built before nineteen thirty five, you
Speaker 1: can also play replicas that have been approved by the Society,
Speaker 1: and a lot of players here today have Tad more
Speaker 1: replicas in their bag.
Speaker 3: Really, in my view, there are two people that are
Speaker 3: on the same level as Tad, Tad being one of them.
Speaker 3: The other is Mike Just, who passed away a number
Speaker 3: of years ago, but Mike and Tad roughly around the
Speaker 3: same time. There's a debate about who was first. Both
Speaker 3: of these gentlemen were golf club manufacturers, Mike Just being
Speaker 3: affiliated with Louisville Golf and Tad with his own company.
Speaker 3: As the society became popular and fashionable, they both started
Speaker 3: making their own brand of modern replica Hickory golf clubs.
Speaker 3: Both of these gentlemen sort of helped make the barriers
Speaker 3: to entry much more accessible for many of us because
Speaker 3: it's much easier to get into the sport with a unified,
Speaker 3: matched weight set of irons or woods, which really makes
Speaker 3: that step between modern clubs to the purest hickory game
Speaker 3: if you're only playing original antiques, very accessible for the
Speaker 3: average player.
Speaker 8: And so the beauty of this game is that they
Speaker 8: can buy a set of replicas from me get started
Speaker 8: because the clubs are going to be exactly what they
Speaker 8: need to play in the right shafts and right grips
Speaker 8: and everything, and they can get started, and then if
Speaker 8: they want to go to the original way they can,
Speaker 8: But today we ship all over the world. We shipped
Speaker 8: to Australia, we shipped to New Zealand, we shipped to Germany, Sweden, UK, Scotland,
Speaker 8: Japan and Canada. I we ship all over the world.
Speaker 8: So the growing society and group of people that play
Speaker 8: with hickory golf clubs is really big.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's something about the direction that the
Speaker 1: equipment business has taken since the early two thousands even
Speaker 1: that has made people kind of along for these kinds
Speaker 1: of club because the equipment has gotten so modern and engineered.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's this sort of yearning that people
Speaker 1: have for something a little more crafted.
Speaker 8: That's a really good question. I honestly think that what
Speaker 8: has happened is is that that people have bought into
Speaker 8: the market of modern golf equipment and found that they
Speaker 8: haven't gained anything. Their handicaps still stays the same. But geez,
Speaker 8: I just spent three grand on equipment and two grand
Speaker 8: on a lessons and I'm still shooting the same score.
Speaker 8: So they hear about this and they go out and
Speaker 8: play it. They play from you know, more forward t's,
Speaker 8: and all of a sudden they're shooting the same scores,
Speaker 8: you know, and so this is wonderful, you know, to
Speaker 8: actually make a set of wood shafted golf clubs and equipment.
Speaker 8: And then someone like yesterday walks up to me and says,
Speaker 8: this is the greatest game in the world. Thanks for
Speaker 8: making my club.
Speaker 1: Chapter four, Colin McNamara crosses the valley. If I were
Speaker 1: calling right now, I wouldn't be in a very thankful mood.
Speaker 1: I walk with him on the thirteenth hole, a part five,
Speaker 1: and he hits his second shot into some long fescue
Speaker 1: and loses his ball. He ends up with a ten
Speaker 1: on the next t We have a bit of a
Speaker 1: weight and I asked him if he's willing to talk again,
Speaker 1: an what kind of a day has it been so far?
Speaker 6: It's been a long day, but a very fun one.
Speaker 1: This last hole you had a bit of a struggle. Ye,
Speaker 1: these things happen. Do you think they happen more often
Speaker 1: in Hickory golf?
Speaker 6: I think they do. Yeah, Hickory golf is not a
Speaker 6: forgiving game. That said, you know, I like to think
Speaker 6: that it doesn't reflect the person I am.
Speaker 1: That score on that whole, Well, I guess what reflects
Speaker 1: the person you are is how you reacted to it.
Speaker 1: You're still pretty upbeat. You know.
Speaker 6: It's like there's an uncanny valley of attitude, right and
Speaker 6: I've gone through the valley. Now I'm up the other side.
Speaker 6: So it's all gravy from here where.
Speaker 1: You've let go in a sense and you're just having fun.
Speaker 6: I feel true freedom makes call.
Speaker 1: There is something semi serious that I want to know
Speaker 1: from Colin. I want to know whether days like this
Speaker 1: shake his faith. I mean, if I had a round
Speaker 1: playing Hickory's where everything went wrong, I'd probably say, you know,
Speaker 1: screw it. I'm putting the cavity back irons and the
Speaker 1: frying pan driver back in the bag. Tomorrow. Help is
Speaker 1: out there and I'm taking it. Is there ever a moment?
Speaker 1: Do you have moments where you're like, I wish I
Speaker 1: was just, you know, playing with modern clubs? I know, no, never, never. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I switched.
Speaker 6: This is now going into my fourth year with entirely Hickory's,
Speaker 6: and I haven't once. I just gave away my clubs
Speaker 6: to my best man at my wedding a couple months ago.
Speaker 6: My modern clubs. I don't even have modern clubs anymore.
Speaker 6: I've never thought about them.
Speaker 1: And that is what I still can't quite relate to,
Speaker 1: the idea of not even being tempted. Is pain a
Speaker 1: feature or a bug of Hickory golf?
Speaker 6: Boy, I really think it's it's still a bug because
Speaker 6: it's still golf. But it's a bug that golfers love
Speaker 6: to have bite them.
Speaker 1: And yet, Okay, So playing Hickories enhances pain, right, I don't.
Speaker 6: If it does, you have to admit it also enhances
Speaker 6: pleasure though, right the good shots feel better. Even if
Speaker 6: the bad shots feel worse or more frequent.
Speaker 1: The good shots feel better. This reminds me of something
Speaker 1: I heard in the morning from John Henry Williams, the
Speaker 1: club repair guy. He was talking about introducing people to
Speaker 1: Hickory golf.
Speaker 2: And when you give them a club and you take
Speaker 2: them out on the golf course and they hit that
Speaker 2: first pure shot. Because Hickory golf, the sounds are different.
Speaker 2: They're completely different. When you swing a wooden shafted club
Speaker 2: or hickory club, it's a swooshing sound when the shaft
Speaker 2: is going through its motion and there's no click when
Speaker 2: it comes off to club face. But man, when you
Speaker 2: hit one that is dead solid and it comes off,
Speaker 2: it feels so good because it all resonates up through
Speaker 2: the shaft into your hands. You don't get that feeling
Speaker 2: with metalwoods. You don't get that feeling with new clubs.
Speaker 2: It's different, and when you experience it, it's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: that was so nice, And when you hit him bad,
Speaker 2: you have exactly the same feelings.
Speaker 8: That was just awful.
Speaker 1: So we're all familiar with those days when the swing
Speaker 1: is just a little bit off, when you're playing hickories,
Speaker 1: that can be pretty brutal. And so how do you
Speaker 1: get through those days?
Speaker 6: You know, you smile and you you talk to the
Speaker 6: nerds following you, and really it's it's kind of all
Speaker 6: about humor at this point, and it's all about having
Speaker 6: the attitude that you know, I'm out here with clubs,
Speaker 6: I love playing a game I love.
Speaker 1: Let's leave it at that. Meanwhile, Colin's playing partner, Andrew
Speaker 1: von Lasso, is making the game look easy. On the
Speaker 1: seventeenth hole, he bludgeons a drive down the middle and
Speaker 1: hits a low spinning Mashie niblic to two feet. The
Speaker 1: turn is his. There's a small gallery walking the course
Speaker 1: and the vibe is turned casual, almost party like got
Speaker 1: a beer.
Speaker 6: Things are looking up even further than they were already.
Speaker 6: Cheers Martin.
Speaker 1: And that's when it clicks for me. Maybe a little
Speaker 1: too late. I've spent all day trying to understand why
Speaker 1: some golfers choose to play with Hickory clubs, but I've
Speaker 1: missed the obvious thing. This is a group of friends,
Speaker 1: and once people are in it, they want to stay
Speaker 1: in it. Up by the eighteenth green there's a big
Speaker 1: crowd waiting. The final foursome puts out and each player
Speaker 1: gets applause and pats on the back. It's like the
Speaker 1: last day of summer camp. Let's keep in touch and
Speaker 1: let's do it again next year. Seventy four seventy seventy two.
Speaker 1: Whoa Andrews. This episode of Fridagg Stories was produced by
Speaker 1: me Garrett Morrison, with transcript help from Meg Atkins. Many
Speaker 1: thanks to Rob Alswed, Northwest Hickory Players and the Society
Speaker 1: of Hickory Golfers, and special thanks to Jason Vangild who
Speaker 1: is the general manager of Gearheart Golf Links, and to
Speaker 1: Forrest Goodling, who's the superintendent. If you stick around after
Speaker 1: this music fades out, you'll hear a quick post round
Speaker 1: interview I did with Andrew von Lasso, the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one US Hickory Open Champion. We'd love to know what
Speaker 1: you think of Fridagg's story, so feel free to reach
Speaker 1: out on Twitter or Instagram or leave a rating and
Speaker 1: review on iTunes. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5: It could have gone the other way if I had
Speaker 5: a bad attitude, you know, just like, hey, relax, we're
Speaker 5: playing Hickory golf here. It's a hard way to play.
Speaker 1: What's the biggest challenge of playing Hickory golf? I mean,
Speaker 1: you play a lot of you know, off with modern equipment,
Speaker 1: and you play qualifiers, you do all that stuff. So
Speaker 1: the biggest adjustment for you to Hickory golf? What what
Speaker 1: do you think that is?
Speaker 5: I'd say it's not quite slowing down your swing. You
Speaker 5: gotta slow down your swinging away, not take as much
Speaker 5: a big not take a full swing like flight hit
Speaker 5: flighted shots most of the time, and sometimes it's good
Speaker 5: to hit it up up in the air. But like
Speaker 5: you know, it's not like the the modern game where
Speaker 5: you're trying to just hoist everything. I normally don't, but
Speaker 5: just having that trust, like this club's gonna it's gonna
Speaker 5: be there, and you can hit these load draws or
Speaker 5: low phades, and you can hit it high also, but
Speaker 5: I find keeping it low to the ground playing the
Speaker 5: links courses, it's like that's the It's how it's meant
Speaker 5: to be played.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well, what's the biggest joy of playing with
Speaker 1: this kind of equipment to you? I'd say hitting it solid.
Speaker 1: I love that feel.
Speaker 5: And then the sound, it's that extra like this deep
Speaker 5: sound with the Hickory and same with hitting this solid
Speaker 5: club modern club.
Speaker 1: I just love hitting it solid. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then when you now when you're playing Hickory second
Speaker 5: shots drives, you're looking at more than just looking at
Speaker 5: the flag. You're like, hey, I gotta play this left
Speaker 5: side here off this bank. Like that shot on seventeen
Speaker 5: was like, all right, I know the pin's kind of middle, right,
Speaker 5: Well let's look left. I know the green slope into
Speaker 5: the right. I landed in that area, took the slope,
Speaker 5: released out to a foot, and I'm like, now that
Speaker 5: was really satisfying because you're not gonna fly it to
Speaker 5: the five eighty eight yards. I'm not gonna fly eighty eight.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna fly a seventy five have release and just
Speaker 5: play the course. Play the You know you're playing the course,
Speaker 5: so