Our Company

Play Hickory, Inc. was established in July, 2004 by Chris McIntyre, an avid player of hickory shafted golf clubs. Chris had developed such a renewed passion for the game through playing with these old clubs that he wanted to provide the opportunity to groups of golfers and share the feeling of playing with clubs from another era. It takes tremendous dedication to gain the connections, select, restore, test and compile these sets of clubs. All of this is done to give you the opportunity to experience what Chris does every week, playing the game with fun and appreciation for how it was when these golf clubs prevailed.

Dedication

If you doubt Chris's dedication, realize that he grew a beard for six months just to show up at the National Hickory Championship in his Tom Morris outfit. Chris placed 4th in the 2006 Open Division Championship while posting the low round of the tournament on Sunday with authentic clubs from about 1890 and a replica gutta percha golf ball.

Contributions

Chris has been a leader in the development of reproduction golf balls for the dedicated players of hickory golf. The rubber ball era mesh and bramble balls have been used by players all over the world for the last few years. The development of the playable Gutta Percha ball has added a lot of excitement for the players interested in pre 1900 hickory golf.

Partnership

Chris has connected with numerous entities to create partnerships in the growth, awareness and evolvment of hickory golf. Now, if you happen to be in Bandon, Oregon you might just run into a life size billboard of Chris in his Harry Vardon look, marketing the hickory golf experience at Old Bandon Golf Links. Old Bandon is a 1920's course that has been restored and enhanced for play where you can rent 1920's or 1890's style hickory golf clubs and play with authentic gutta percha golf balls.

Randy Jensen - The Hickory Tiger

Randy Jensen has been described as "the Tiger Woods of hickory golf". He has won more contemporary wood shaft golf tournaments than any other golfer. His list of accomplishments includes over 60 wood shaft tournament titles including: Eight-time National Hickory Champion; Seven-time GCS World Hickory Champion; Seventeen-time Heart of America Hickory Champion; Two-time Scottish Hickory Champion, Scratch Division; and Canadian Hickory Champion.

We are proud to have Randy as our friend and and testing our new products.