Antique Golf Clubs
By Warren Kalbacker, published July/Aug 2007
What's the most you can pay for a golf club? Five hundred dollars? Double that if you order custom shafts from Japan. That price makes you a piker in
the rarified world of antique club collecting, where a low-tech iron with a wooden shaft could run
you $200,000. Then again, it's 400 years old, may relate to the Stewart kings and illustrates the
early evolution of the game.
Avid golfers may even be tempted to forsake the fairways on September 27 and 28 when Sotheby's
in New York auctions the Jeffery B. Ellis antique golf club collection: nearly 750 clubs dating
from golf's earliest days through the 1930s. Among them is the aforementioned iron, known formally
as the Square Toe Light Iron (circa 1600, estimated price $150,000–$250,000), which is stamped
with star and diamond marks that suggest royal heritage. Whoever's bag it came from, it would have
been a lonely iron in a time when such clubs were used only when a wood might be damaged, says
Ellis. "Hitting an iron on the fairway was not good etiquette."
While the author of The Clubmaker's Art: Antique Golf Clubs and Their History may own one of
the most impressive collections, the number of collectible shows sales that go on throughout the
year suggests others share his feeling that "the golf club is the most creative implement in the
world of sport." Ellis keys on clubs, but golf collectibles extend to other implements as well as
scorecards and trophies. Some enthusiasts even risk their relics in hickory club tournaments.
Ellis, who built his collection over 30 years, set out with the goal to acquire one example of
every great club. He esteems the clubs turned out in the early nineteenth century by Scottish
clubmakers such as "Old Tom" Morris and Hugh Philp as "handmade sculptures." Well represented are
the "long nose" style clubs that predominated until the late 1800s and were used for fairway and
approach shots, even putting. Included are a Long Nose Putter ($6,000–$10,000) and Long Nose
Brassie Spoon ($8,000–$15,000), crafted by Willie Park Sr., and a Left-Handed Long Nosed Spoon
($7,500–$15,000) and a Long Nosed Play Club ($10,000–$15,000) by Morris. A former St Andrews
clubmaker, Philp is represented by several clubs, including a Presentation Putter with a Carved
Celtic Cross ($35,000–$45,000). Reverence for his work is not new. The aluminum Mills KL Putter
was made as a tribute to Philp in 1904 ($400–$600).
The collection also covers manufactured clubs of the 1890s, an era to which Ellis ascribes
"ingenuity, craftsmanship and artistry well beyond that of the traditional, wood shaft club." Some
"patent clubs" offered loft and shaft adjustments. Many looked just plain weird. Included in this
segment of the sale is the only known extant Currie Metalwood ($25,000–$40,000).
Visit www.sothebys.com and www.golfcollectors.com.
Photo Courtesy Sotheby's 
|
Cigar Aficionado RSS Feed