Vintage Golf

[Voyager EMH]

I think that I have eight 2-woods including one that my dad bought brand new in 1969 - Slazenger Ambassador.
Most are in sets 1,2,3,4.
I have one 1,2,3,4,5 set and a set that is 1,2,4,5

I have another interesting set...

 

[Backache]

Vintage golf fans on here may enjoy this:

Palmer Vs. Jacklin on The Best 18 holes in Great Britain made in the summer of 1970. and broadcast in December and January of 1970 and 1971 on BBC-2. Lots of close up's of clubheads and so on throughout.

It is interesting to me how Jacklin was perhaps the best player in the world at the time but you can almost tell from his body language he doesn't feel he quite "belongs." There does not seem to be much in the way of optimism in his manner and speech. Yes, Palmer was fifteen years older and undoubtedly the most famous golfer of the time. But considering they both came from modest beginnings, I think it something about how post WW2 US culture that Palmer was very much exuding confidence whereas perhaps in the UK for Jacklin there was still "tall poppy syndrome." That said, I always have loved watching Jacklin and very much have enjoyed reading books he has published.

This was actually made by IMG in its pre TWI phase as a co-production with the BBC and I am almost certain (I am actually having someone find this out) one of the very last times BBC Sport made an entire sporting event on 16mm film. In the USA this was shown on CBS. It was also released in 1981 as a BBC Videogram from which this copy is sourced.

Just spent a very happy 90 minutes watching that. thanks for posting.

 

[IanM]

Wonderful stuff... "huge carry, 170 yards"

Longhurst's marvellous narration.

 

[Crow]

I like a 2 wood and have several, they're like a driver with a little more loft, great for when fairways aren't running.

 

[Voyager EMH]

If a 2-wood is a cool thing, what about a 6-wood?

 

[Hobbit]

I like a 2 wood and have several, they're like a driver with a little more loft, great for when fairways aren't running.

I played with a 2 wood instead of a driver from 68 to 75. It was also very good off the fairway.

 

[Voyager EMH]

I got used to using a fairway mat for the first time last winter.
I might take a 2-wood with me once mats are in use - guaranteed a good lie and keeps the moisture off the old wood.

 

[RichA]

I got used to using a fairway mat for the first time last winter.
I might take a 2-wood with me once mats are in use - guaranteed a good lie and keeps the moisture off the old wood.

Some people might say it's good to let the old wood get moist occasionally.

 

[Backache]

I played with a 2 wood instead of a driver from 68 to 75. It was also very good off the fairway.

I usually use my gap wedge for those distances.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Great game yesterday with @Crow, @Bigfoot and @upsidedown.

In my bag:

Ping Zing driver. A bit naughty of me to have such a modern club with graphite shaft. Still a wooden wood though. Used it only 7 times.
St Andrews Golf Company driver. Used 5 times. Meant to do 6 each, but lost count somewhere on the course. Soleplate has "StagCo 1" inscribed on it.
Confidence 3 and 4 woods. Very interesting ones with soleplate and face insert all one piece of metal.
HB&S 6-wood.
Forgan Powerpakt 3-iron.
Dunlop Maxfli International irons 5-SW.
Leyland Golden Trophy putter.

Two drivers, a 6-wood and no 4-iron. But it all worked rather well - if I may say so myself.

 

[Tashyboy]

Crow, get yourself a tape in for Antiques roadshow tonight, a good piece on about hickory golf.

 

[craigstardis1976]

Here is something rare: An entire 1980 broadcast (with cringeworthy ad's) from NBC of the 1980 Bay Hill Classic. 40-50mph winds and a chill in the low teens (Fahrenheit) made golf almost impossible.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Here is something rare: An entire 1980 broadcast (with cringeworthy ad's) from NBC of the 1980 Bay Hill Classic. 40-50mph winds and a chill in the low teens (Fahrenheit) made golf almost impossible.

Ah -= the background music over the intro commentary I think...

...David Shire's Manhattan Skyline - cracking bit of 1970s Disco orchestral music from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack..if you are of my age you just know it so well from about 1:10' in...

 

[craigstardis1976]

Ah -= the background music over the intro commentary I think...

...David Shire's Manhattan Skyline - cracking bit of 1970s Disco orchestral music from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack..if you are of my age you just know it so well from about 1:10' in...

ABC Sports used Barry White's "Love's Theme" from the mid 1970s to the late 1990s!

 

[craigstardis1976]

Crow's recent video about Bullseye and Golden Goose Putters got me thinking.

Say in the 1970s what drew certain club players to certain brands?

If you were going to break down the demographics and lifestyles of major golf brand users in the 1970s what does it say about the golfers who chose those brands and how were there lives different?

For example, I can see from Crow's excellent videos that even having a persimmon wood back in the day (and not laminated maple) was perhaps an indicator you were invested in your golf clubs?

Were traditional Scottish companies like Sayers and Letters still a choice for decent club golfers or by this time had they perhaps come of a regional brand with many of their sales in Scotland?

Dunlop and Slazenger seemed all over the map, producing some high quality equipment but also 2nd and 3rd tier stuff? Did consumers appreciate the differences?

If you had genuine American irons, you know the premium US lines from Wilson, Macgregor or Spalding in the UK at this time was it considered a little different, if so, how?

What did British golfers in the 1970s really think about Ping irons or in the early 1980s Taylor Made's metal woods?

 

[Crow]

Crow's recent video about Bullseye and Golden Goose Putters got me thinking.

Say in the 1970s what drew certain club players to certain brands?

If you were going to break down the demographics and lifestyles of major golf brand users in the 1970s what does it say about the golfers who chose those brands and how were there lives different?

For example, I can see from Crow's excellent videos that even having a persimmon wood back in the day (and not laminated maple) was perhaps an indicator you were invested in your golf clubs?

Were traditional Scottish companies like Sayers and Letters still a choice for decent club golfers or by this time had they perhaps come of a regional brand with many of their sales in Scotland?

Dunlop and Slazenger seemed all over the map, producing some high quality equipment but also 2nd and 3rd tier stuff? Did consumers appreciate the differences?

If you had genuine American irons, you know the premium US lines from Wilson, Macgregor or Spalding in the UK at this time was it considered a little different, if so, how?

What did British golfers in the 1970s really think about Ping irons or in the early 1980s Taylor Made's metal woods?

Good question!

I'd say that up until the 1970s brand image wasn't much of a thing. Sure advertising influenced choices but in the UK American clubs were a rarity.

Lots of UK manufacturers produced clubs that stated "American Model" or similar but to actually find the real article was difficult.

By the 1970s overseas manufacturers had started to target the UK market and buyers were impressed by the quality and glamour of the likes of MacGregor and Wilson (although Wilson had opened a huge factory in Scotland in the 1960s.

Those that could afford them bought them and moving into the 1980s their prestige made them something golfers wanted to have in their bags. Mizuno entered the fray in a serious way in the 1980s with their Tour Proven series.

Ping were very well thought of and even though twice the price of some UK brands they sold very well.

 

[rulie]

I started playing in late 1959 (in NA). Wilson was a very popular club, particularly the Staff model, MacGregor also popular. Eventually was able to buy a Wilson Staff iron set in about 1965 (was working in the golf shop). Used them for several years and then sold them (bad idea). In early 70s bought a set of Ping Karsten I irons (which I still have). Used a maple laminated driver (which I also still have) until about 1982, before switching to Taylormade (Original One), then TNT, then Callaway, Ping and now Cobra. Irons went from Ping to Golfcraft, then Ram Tour Grind, then Hogan, then in 2006 to Mizuno. Obvious shaft changes from regular steel to stiff steel and now to graphite. I think that I have 10 sets of irons in the garage - made a decision long ago that I wouldn't sell any irons that I had liked and used for a significant time.

 

[craigstardis1976]

Good question!

I'd say that up until the 1970s brand image wasn't much of a thing. Sure advertising influenced choices but in the UK American clubs were a rarity.

Lots of UK manufacturers produced clubs that stated "American Model" or similar but to actually find the real article was difficult.

By the 1970s overseas manufacturers had started to target the UK market and buyers were impressed by the quality and glamour of the likes of MacGregor and Wilson (although Wilson had opened a huge factory in Scotland in the 1960s.

Those that could afford them bought them and moving into the 1980s their prestige made them something golfers wanted to have in their bags. Mizuno entered the fray in a serious way in the 1980s with their Tour Proven series.

Ping were very well thought of and even though twice the price of some UK brands they sold very well.

The rise of Mizuno in the 1980s in the UK would be a great video!

Once we had moved away from the post WW2 era and into the new consumer driven society of the mid 1960s, it actually surprises me so many of the British club making names lasted as long as they did. Do you think there was a sense towards British club manufacturers from the golfing public in the 1970s that British clubmakers were more like British Leyland...often struggling along with the same old models for years and years and as many economic cuts made as possible even if it impacted the final product compared to the US manufacturers of the time? I am sure it was not the same for all UK companies but (and this may be me just projecting what I have read about history from then) but many seemed to have given up on innovation and marketing never seemed to be their strong area.

 

[Crow]

I did a very short piece on the rise of Mizuno in one of the first videos I ever made.

You sum up the failings of many British manufacturers pretty well, but there was still a lot of innovation still going on.

One of the factors against British makers was the lack of scale, they made some good designs but couldn't sell enough clubs to their limited market to make scaling up profitable so sadly they mostly remained small fish in a small pool.

You could say that they should have exported more but you have to have the capital to invest before you can export in large quantities. The likes of John Letters, Slazenger and George Nicoll, all went on export drives by sending their managers overseas to win sales but I get the impression that they didn't expect to make big deals and lasting contracts.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Crow's recent video about Bullseye and Golden Goose Putters got me thinking.

Say in the 1970s what drew certain club players to certain brands?

If you were going to break down the demographics and lifestyles of major golf brand users in the 1970s what does it say about the golfers who chose those brands and how were there lives different?

For example, I can see from Crow's excellent videos that even having a persimmon wood back in the day (and not laminated maple) was perhaps an indicator you were invested in your golf clubs?

Were traditional Scottish companies like Sayers and Letters still a choice for decent club golfers or by this time had they perhaps come of a regional brand with many of their sales in Scotland?

Dunlop and Slazenger seemed all over the map, producing some high quality equipment but also 2nd and 3rd tier stuff? Did consumers appreciate the differences?

If you had genuine American irons, you know the premium US lines from Wilson, Macgregor or Spalding in the UK at this time was it considered a little different, if so, how?

What did British golfers in the 1970s really think about Ping irons or in the early 1980s Taylor Made's metal woods?

Very interesting questions about UK golfers' perceptions of UK vs American club brands over the decades.
It is hard to gauge others' opinions from years ago, but I remember my own fairly clearly.

1960s to mid-1970s, Dunlop/Slazenger were very popular, but they were the most available clubs and reliable. The first Ping irons I saw looked odd and they were expensive in the UK. But as the 1970s came to a close I saw some very good players turning to them. They were not to make an impact on the perception on a typical club golfer until the Ping Eye2 changed everything. Retailers and pro-shops could sell any that they could get hold of.

There were Spalding factories in the UK and they were comparable with Dunlop/Slazenger for quality/reliability/price and I saw many of these in chaps bags in the 1960/70s.
By the mid 1980s onwards, Dunlop/Slazenger and Spalding were viewed as mostly the budget option for beginners.
As a teenager in the 1970s I would hang out in the club pro's shop a lot in the summer holidays, looking at all the clubs and picking up tips on club repairs and regripping.
Some of the best looking irons in the shop, to me at that time, were the Hogan and Swilken irons.
Ping Eye2 irons were expensive, yet sold more than any other. A few still viewed them as ugly and insisted on blades. Lynx offered a cheaper alternative and their irons became a very popular choice for some top county amateurs in the late 70s and early 80s. Even by 1989, I was more likely to see Ping woods in a top county player's bag than metal woods, but he might have Lynx irons or Australian Blades rather than Ping. But the change to metal woods was rapid in the early 1990s and once the Big Bertha arrived, wooden woods were a rare sight.

With the perception of Dunlop/Slazenger and Spalding moving down market, Wilson filled a massive hole in the mid-price range for golf clubs and made a huge impact in the UK market from the late 1970s right through the 1980s.

My personal perception is that in the UK, anything TaylorMade, Mizuno or Callaway is related to the modern era.
The most significant mainstream change-over from old era to modern era is the Ping Eye2 irons and the Callaway Big Bertha driver.
Roughly 1985 for my perception of the change, or possibly 85-90 as a transitional time between two eras.