His grandson, Andy, recalls a story told to him by his grandmother. He was never a great student, at least not early on. Currently crawling with cyclists, foodies, and hipsters, Ballard was more of a fishing village in the early 1900s when Solheim and his family immigrated. The son of an immigrant shoemaker, Solheim grew up in the Ballard area of Seattle. Its moniker was a bastardization of “answer,” the missing “w” born of the necessity to fit the name in the space afforded on the club-evidence of its designer’s rigid aesthetic of form follows function. The Anser was invented by a GE aeronautics designer named Karsten Solheim. The most popular putters of the day resembled a smaller version of their iron cousins, lower profile with less loft. They were muscle-backed and dipped in chrome, and woods were an inconsistently milled teardrop of persimmon wood glued to the bottom of a shaft. Some companies make modern clubs that have persimmon wood heads, and some companies sell and make clubs with wood shafts, wood heads, or both.Minus the invention of the steel shaft in the 1930s, golf clubs had barely changed in decades. Ralph Livingston III recommends on his website,, that hickory golfers assemble the following clubs: brassie, mid-iron, mashie, mashie niblick, niblick and putter. "Hickory golf," where golfers use hickory-shafted clubs, is popular with many golfers. The Antique Golf Club website notes that "many golf clubs made before 1820 used ash instead of hickory for the shafts." Wood for Modern Clubs Figuring out the age and value of antique golf clubs is tricky and requires an expert's evaluation. Some antique golf clubs are worth thousands of dollars.Īccording to the website, Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland, certain club makers were and still are revered for their craftsmanship. Persimmon was used for wood club heads because it's harder than maple or oak and it's heavy.
EARLY 90S HOGAN IRONS WORTH PLAYING DRIVERS
In the mid-20th century, both the USGA and the R&A ruled that golf clubs with steel shafts could be used in tournaments.While steel was used for club shafts, wooden heads were the norm for drivers and fairway woods until the 1970s. Because clubs with shafts made of ash are rare, collectors mostly focus on clubs with hickory shafts. In Scotland, the type of wood used to make clubs changed with two American imports: hickory for club shafts in 1826 and persimmon for club heads in 1900.Īccording to the Antique Golf Club website, woodworkers in Scotland started using American-imported hickory instead of ash to make hand tools, and that influenced golf club makers to use the same wood for shafts. According to the Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation website, golf balls were also made of wood until the 17th or early 18th century. A set of these early "Troon Clubs" - also known as "long noses" - consisted of six woods and two irons. In golf's early era in Scotland, golf club makers used hardwood, such as beech, to make club heads. Wooden antique golf clubs are popular among collectors, and some golfers even compete in "hickories," tournaments played with hickory-shafted clubs. Several considerations - including imported woods and the evolution of the golf ball - influenced what types of wood were used to make club heads and shafts.
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