Old hickory's new believers

Wooden-shafted golf clubs are a blast from century past for player-entrepreneur

Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. May 19, 2009

A decade ago, Chris McIntyre didn't know a niblick from a mashie, a brassie from a cleek. Golf history wasn't his thing. Vardon was the way you gripped a club. Hickory was just another kind of wood.

What McIntyre did know was that he was awfully restless playing the same games with the same people, hitting the same shots with the same golf clubs at his then-home course, StoneRidge Country Club in Poway.

McIntyre dearly loved golf, but wasn't there something more?

He found what he was looking for in an 85-year-old golf club he bought out of a friend's garage for $15. The hickory-shafted instrument, a shovel-like niblick, was so ugly it was beautiful. The blade was pock-marked with round indents for traction because grooves were for mad scientists in 1915. The grip was paper-thin leather.

It had been a beauty in its day, though, forged by one of the great Scottish golf club makers of the early 20th century, George Nicoll.

The first time McIntyre struck a ball with his niblick in 2000, the sound was, Clunk! The vibration sent a shock up his arms, and the buzz reached McIntyre's brain.

“That first shot flew high into the sky, came down soft and straight,” McIntyre said. “I was like, 'Wow, I'm not sure what just happened here, but it worked!'

“It was amazing. There was a big smile on my face. It was elation, satisfaction.”

Modern golf died for McIntyre that day. He'd gone hickory, and he wasn't turning back. It changed his life.

McIntyre, 54, is a key player in a small, but growing society of devotees who are spreading the gospel of hickory golf. Just a few years ago, there were but a handful of hickory events in which to play. Now there are dozens.

Sweden, Scotland, England, Canada and Australia all have established national hickory championships. France and Germany will stage their first this year. In the U.S., there are tournaments all over the country this summer, including the granddaddy National Hickory Championship, where golfers in the garb of the era carve their gutties around live sheep – otherwise known as the lawn mowers – at the 125-year-old Oakhurst Links in West Virginia.

At Oakhurst, the competitors will use replicas of the 19th century, hardened-putty gutta-percha balls that McIntyre painstakingly produces, one by one, in the workshop of his Rancho Bernardo home. “Just like young Tommy Morris would have been making in his shop in 1865,” McIntyre said.

A couple of years ago, McIntyre took a buyout from Hewlett-Packard, where he'd worked for 33 years in manufacturing, and got into the hickory golf business. He has collected and restored more than 600 clubs that he rents out for group tournaments. With great pride, McIntyre has been an innovator in producing thousands of golf balls with old-time molds he bought from collectors.

Recently, McIntyre and another hickory-obsessed golfer, Del Mar art dealer Scott White, took the business to another level. They formed White McIntyre Authentic Golf, which is offering clubs, balls, clothing, hats and accessories to hickory enthusiasts.

In these tough times, nostalgia is a marvelous thing.

“It was such a classy, golden era for golf,” said White, 50. “Hickory golf is about history in so many ways.”

Hickory players will proudly tell you that when Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam in 1930 he was still using hickory clubs, even though steel shafts had been made legal by the USGA six years earlier. Those are the kind of factoids that spill from golfers who are equal parts athlete, actor and museum curator. One has to be a little nutty, too, to make golf harder than it already is.

McIntyre, who looks the part all the more because of his wire rim glasses and gray mustache, said he drew curious stares several weeks ago when he played at the golf mecca Bandon Dunes in Oregon. He wore his three-piece wool suit and tie for golf and dinner in town.

“I acted the part,” he said with a smile. “That's sort of the fun that goes along with it.”

McIntyre describes himself as a self-loathing, perfectionist golfer before hickory. But the very nature of the old clubs – torquing shaft, small heads, smooth hitting surfaces – make it nearly impossible to have lofty expectations. You just never know exactly where the ball is going to go.

McIntyre heeds the words of the great Harry Vardon, the golfer he has come to admire the most: “Do not despair.”

“I find myself much less worried about mistakes because I realize the game is about pushing it forward down the course,” he said. “You're not hitting the ball as far, so you've got to figure out different ways to get it around the course. You focus more on the short game, and back then, as it is now, that was the most important part of the game anyway.”

McIntyre is a strong player with any clubs. His best hickory round is the 77 he shot at Pinehurst No. 1 using one wood, four irons and a putter. He jokes that he's the “No. 4 hickory golfer in the world” because he once finished fourth in the National Hickory Championship.

The national championship at Oakhurst each June is hickory golf's U.S. Open and Masters rolled into one. Watching it is said to be like attending a Civil War re-enactment at Gettysburg.

Oakhurst is a nine-hole layout of 2,235 yards, and shooting a couple of shots over par for 36 holes is usually good enough to win the tournament. The clubs must be pre-1900 and the balls are gutties. There are no golf bags and no tees; just as the golfers did back then, there are buckets of sand and water from which to fashion a “tee.” Sheep really do “mow” everything but the greens.

Next month at Oakhurst, there will be a prohibitive favorite, just as there has been in most of the last decade. They call Randy Jensen the Hickory Tiger for good reason. The 54-year-old golf shop owner from Omaha, Neb., has won more than 70 hickory titles, including eight national championships.

A former college golfer at Creighton, Jensen is hickory's Johnny Appleseed. He's written a 300-page book about all things hickory, and he plays in at least a dozen events each year around the world.

“Hickory is snow-balling. You can just see it,” Jensen said last week on the phone. “It's like baseball. You can still hit with just about the same stuff Babe Ruth used to. The plate is still 60 feet, 6 inches away. In golf today, the hole's the same size, but that's about it. The equipment is just so different.

“When you miss the sweet spot on a hickory club by a quarter of an inch, you feel it,” Jensen explained. “With a modern driver, you can miss by three-quarters and it's pretty hard to tell. If a guy wants to be a really good golfer and loves a challenge, hickory will make you a better golfer.”

Jensen played with McIntyre in the San Diegan's all-time memorable hickory round. In 2004, McIntyre rose before the sun to get a walk-on time for the Old Course at St. Andrews.

McIntyre said he finished the round by hitting the flagstick with his approach on the finishing hole, drawing cheers from the townies and tourists standing in front of the golf shop Old Tom Morris opened in 1848 a few paces from the 18th green.

His emotion, however, caught him by surprise much earlier in the round, after he'd cracked a nice drive at No. 6.

“I was walking off the tee down this little path through the gorse, and at that moment it hit me,” McIntyre said. “I welled up with tears. 'My god, I'm here at the home of golf, playing it like it was meant to be.'

“For a second, I couldn't believe where I was or what I was doing. It was a genuine golden moment.”

HICKORY PRIMER

A look at the clubs that shaped golf in the hickory era:

Brassie: So named because of its brass sole plate, it is like a 2-wood because it has slightly more loft than a driver.

Spoon: Fairway wood that got its name because club makers used to carve out the face of the wood to make different lofts. Plays like today's 3-or 4-wood.

Baffie: Also called a Bulldog, this club is like today's rescue clubs, with a rounded sole that is better able to slide through deeper grass.

Cleek: Similar to a driving iron, it has a very low loft and is best used for long, low-running shots.

Mid-iron: This was the blanket name for clubs with various lofts between a 3-iron and 6-iron.

Jigger: Very low-profile club about the equivalent of a 6-iron; gets the ball up high quickly and also is good for chipping.

Mashie: About the equivalent of a 7-iron, it flies the ball about 150 yards for a good player.

Mashie-niblick: Plays like an 8-or 9-iron.

Niblick: Deep-bladed club with a lot of loft; the most likely club to be used from the sand, ruts or greenside rough.

HICKORY RESOURCES

San Diegans Chris McIntyre and Scott White have two Web sites: www.playhickory.com and www.mwauthenticgolf.com

Ralph Livingston III of Michigan is one of the original hickory enthusiasts; on his Web site, www.hickorygolf.com , he covers history, golf courses, acquiring and restoring clubs and a schedule of events worldwide.

The Society of Hickory Golfers organization Web site features many resources and links. The address is www.hickorygolfers.com

Randy Jensen, the greatest modern-day hickory player, has written a book, "Playing Hickory Golf." The 300-page book is $100 and can be ordered by calling (800) 728-0566.

– TOD LEONARD