St Andrews Golf Company – Episode #3
Posted on 02. Mar, 2009 by Andy Brown in Golf
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This week I visited St Andrews Golf Company Ltd, the last remaining Scottish golf club manufacturer, over at their new premises 6 miles south west of St Andrews at Largoward.
Hamish Steedman the managing director of this great golf company, was kind enough to show me around the show room and factory. It was fascinating for Elle and I to get a behind the scenes look at the last club maker in the world to to retain the traditional skills used to hand craft authentic period playable sets of hickory golf clubs. Not only that but this is home to 3 of Scotland’s most famous club making brands; George Nicoll, Tom Stewart, and of course St Andrews Golf Company itself. You can read a full account of the company’s history dating back to 1881 here.
Join me in this video as we step back in time and appreciate the unique skills required to make clubs for some of the game’s greats names like Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen and Henry Cotton. It was a real pleasure and education to witness the various steps required to make a fully playable hickory club. Hamish explained how through the generations, the same materials and working methods are used to make clubs like a long nose spoon, brassie, mashie and a niblick. A full description of the club making process from start to finish is detailed here.
The company also offers a complete custom-fit service of ‘state of the art’ golf clubs. If I had had more time I would have used their advanced putter fitting system!
Clubs are sold online and at their new shop on Golf Place in Andrews. You have the choice of the Heritage Collection featuring single clubs and sets of period hickory clubs and the Modern range incorporating the George Nicoll and St Andrews Golf Company brands.
If you are ever in St Andrews I would definitely recommend a visit, you are bound to enjoy and appreciate over 125 years of golf heritage under one roof.
St Andrews Golf Company
20 St Andrews Road, Largoward, St Andrews, Fife, KY9 1HZ, Scotland
Website: StAndrewsGolfCo.com
Email: info@standrewsgolfco.com
Tel No: +44 1334 840860
Fax No: +44 1334 840862
To receive further information please sign up to their newsletter here.
Finally the Question of the Day:
What is the oldest club you have ever played with? Please leave your answer in the comments section below. Thank you.
Martin Smilde
17. Nov, 2009
Andy I often visit your nice to be nice show and i particularly liked your video on your visit to the St.Andrew Golf Co Ltd. It reminds me of my introduction to golf. In 1958 as a student from Holland in London I was invited to play golf with the staff so i visited a Railway Lost Property Shop. I bought 10 Pounds worth of ’sticks’ in a canvas bag and here is what i got:
1. hand forged Cann & Taylor mid iron no.303868/08 (autograph reg)
2. warranted hand forged The St Andrew Golf Co. Ltd Standard Putter
3.Hand forged J.Torrance-Brighton Special Jigger 3
4.Special J.D.Edgar North Humberland Golf Club (with a T O St A reg Trade Mark)
5. Fairlie Pattern H.G.Peck Felixstowe (warranted hand forged) SPECIAL
6. a Niblick from GEO TAIT maker Glasgow
Of course all with hickory shafts.
Now today i have a custom built set from a Dutch club maker leaving the first set to dust in a corner.
My problem with these antiquities is what to do with them…..? Is there a market?
I’ll continue to visit your site. Thanks.
Tom
16. Jun, 2009
Great show, just found out about this site and must say I never expected something like this, not overly “professional” but very well done. Thanks Andy for bringing history to life again..
Andy’s Reply:
Glad you like it Tom! Lots more to come in the coming months.
Fran from Buffalo
25. Mar, 2009
Another great video. Keep up the good work. Had a set of Hickory shafts given to me by a neighbor back in 1948. Never used them, gave them to my little brother. He took up the game and was a very good golfer, long before I started. In fact as I think about it, I didn’t start till 1964
Peter Cooper
15. Mar, 2009
I think the oldest clubI I have used was in 1984 when I was the first captain to drive in with Abe Mitchells driver at Verulam Golf Club where Abe was the personal Professional to Sam Ryder during the 1920’s and probably beyond. It is still used today and to my knowledge the shaft has never been treated!
Prior to that with friends at work we used to search second hand shops and buy any old hickory shafted clubs to practice with hitting into a net at the back of the stores, I kept several at home and had pleasure in giving them to visitors from the USA who I am told carried them home with in the cabin so as not to risk loss.
A bit late with this comment but I did enjoy the Nick Faldo commentary in the latest show.
Rick Palmer
11. Mar, 2009
Awesome show thank you very much for do this. Really brings the history to life. I can’t even give you an age of the putter. But it had the hickory shaft and all brass blade. I actually enjoyed putting with it.
Ron Mullard
07. Mar, 2009
Andy, another very good documentary on club making.The first five rounds of golf I ever played with my father I used hickory shafted clubs about five in all the names spoon, brassie, mashie and niblick spring to mind.At 10 years of age I was cockahoop when now and again I outdrove both my father and uncle.I don’t know whether it was because of this (he says tongue in cheek)that my father gave up saying that golf was not for him.It would be just over 30 years before I ever picked up a golf club again.How I now rue those lost 30 years of pain laced with enjoyment that this game can give you .
Jon Ashworth
04. Mar, 2009
Fantastic Andy, really enjoyed that and very entertaining, keep up the good work!
Barry McIlwain
04. Mar, 2009
Hi Andy
Love your films, if your golf suffers, take up documentaries.
Bill Burke
04. Mar, 2009
I have and love to use The McDougalPutter,pattended Jan.21,1919, nothing like the feel of the wood shaft. Gets a lot of comments from anyone who sees it.
Bob
04. Mar, 2009
Fantastic tour of the St. Andrews hickory shop. As I have mentioned before, I often play with a hickory set. Most of my hickories are Jack White of Sunningdale. They are wonderful clubs and range from about 1915 to the late ’20’s in age. The oldest club that I’ve played with is a 1910 MacGregor flanged brass putter. It is no exaggeration to say that my 100-year old putter putts as true as my Odyssey and my Scotty Cameron. If fact, I’ve been using it lately with my modern set.
My hickory golf play doesn’t come from a nostalgic pursuit of the “good old days”. Hickory golf is a different kind of play that is more relaxed in the sense that extreme distance is not the goal. It is learning to use and appreciate each club as an individual instead of having clubs fitted to the player, the player fits themselves to the club. It is the difference between a sailboat and a powered boat, driving a 1956 Morgan compared to a new Toyota, or flying an open cockpit biplane for the shear joy of flight. In total, when I’m playing with my hickory sticks I feel more connected to the games itself instead of just being connected through technology and exotic materials.*
Playing hickory golf along with your swing tips is the most fun that I’ve ever had on a golf course. The feel of the old clubs on a good hit is so very satisfying and pure; more so than with steel or graphite shafts.
These old clubs are making me a better ball striker with my modern clubs.
Best Regards
Bob
Greg
03. Mar, 2009
First full “set” of clubs I had I got in exchange for some work I had done since the owners couldn’t pay me. I believe they were all Wilson clubs, irons from about the 40’s or very early 50’s, but the woods had aluminum shafts in them that I have been told came from the 20’s when they first experimented with metal shafts. I quickly understood why they didn’t take hold and the industry went back to wood shafts for a few more years.
s.carson
03. Mar, 2009
Andy, Fascinating episode, thanks. Your question revived the following.
in the early 1960’s at the age of 15 I had a series of golf lessons after school with a seemingly elderly Golf Professional. I cycled the additional miles to the golf club with one club attached either side of the front wheel (school books and golf shoes on the rear carrier). The clubs were my Mum’s hickory set from circa 1930 ~shortened and regripped by my Dad.
Jim Atkinson
03. Mar, 2009
I had a set of Top Flight woods that dated from the mid 1950’s. The set consisted of 1 1/2 wood, 2 1/2 wood, 3 1/2 wood and a 4 1/2 wood. They were solid wood heads with a black finish. I have a number of clubs that go back many more years, but never played with them. They are purely collectibles. I did play golf with an old friend who played with a complete set of hickory shafted clubs every now and then. Quite a different feel.
Kevin McGeean
03. Mar, 2009
I am in possession of a club manunfactured long ago and know nothing about it
It is British made and called the unbreakable, and has a hickory or wooden shaft
Two questions are: Is it worth mounting and giving it to a golf club to utilise as a trophy, or is it worth something, which I can leave to one of my children ?
David Thompson
03. Mar, 2009
In mentioning hickory shafts, I wonder if the following is known:-
Bobby Jones bought his clubs in the 20,s individually.
This was purely by feel.
When the era of club balancing came about, someone (undisclosed) carried out the balancing of his set.
The only club that was out of sink was his 8 iron.
On hearing this, he enlightened his colleagues that the 8 iron was the only one he did not feel confident in!
David Thompson
03. Mar, 2009
In case the first e-mail did not go through/………
My oldest club is a Tom Morris hickory shafted putter,
his logo just belo the grip.
What I thought was a 2 or 3 iron, when showed to my club professional, I was assured that in fact it was a putter.
The loft must have been needed to lift the ball off the “putting” surface – unlike todays greens – before it started its roll.
Simon Coan
03. Mar, 2009
Very entertaining. Andy they do hold a world championship golf tournament using hickory shafted clubs. I think at St Andrews.
I have a small collection of hickory shafted clubs including a rutt iron but the only club I have played a complete round with is an old putter. So this doesn’t count. I think the shafts would break if i attempted to use them..
As I am in my office I cant remember all the makers names stamped on the clubs but I know St. Andrews is one of them…
Richard Conway
03. Mar, 2009
Andy, Brilliant insight into the art of club making. When compared with modern equipment and manicured courses it makes you realise just how good early golfers were. The oldest club I’ve played with was my dear old Dad’s Calamity Jane putter made by Spalding which has three windings on the shaft. I’ve still got the club which must be over fifty years old. Personally I still play, on a regular basis, with an original Ping 1-A which my Dad gave to me in the late 60’s after a trip to America. At the time I was not best pleased as I wanted a Ping Anser.
The Armchair Golfer
03. Mar, 2009
Another terrific show, Andy. You must have learned more about clubmaking in one afternoon than most people do in a lifetime. I’ve read a little bit about hickory clubs, and it’s amazing how unique they were (each club) before the era of mass-produced clubs. One thing I learned is that players didn’t practice much so as to not wear out their clubs.
David Waters
03. Mar, 2009
My stuff was only 55 yrs old.
New by comparison real wood in the woods but some form of carbon fibre? shafts brown in colour. That was a great and very interesting show. Keep it up.
Regards David