Today's Reading
"The wood is—"
"Persimmon," the old man said. "It's one of the strongest, hardest common woods you can find. Only hickory is stronger. Look at the insert on the face of the club: the original MacGregor red and white. It has a mahogany finish. This was made by an engineer who was also a craftsman."
"You?" Buddy said.
"No, it was only a hobby to me. But I knew the man who designed these clubs. His name was Jack Wullkotte. Ever heard of him?"
"Should I have?"
"I suppose not. Long before your time. He was ninety-two years old and still tinkering with clubs when he died in 2022. Now look at the grip."
Buddy twirled the club like a baton until the grip rested in his left hand. He wedged the pinky of his right hand with his left.
"It's not very soft," said Buddy.
The old man noticed how comfortable Buddy's grip looked on the club. The lead hand and trail hand were positioned perfectly, the clubhead square. It was the grip of someone who had been taught well.
"It's wrapped in Lamkin leather grips with paper underlisting, 1/64th of an inch over standard size; it's not supposed to be soft. And in the butt end of the grip is a small weight."
"Why?"
"Because the man who played these clubs liked it that way. Wullkotte would make a 3/8-ounce wooden dowel with lead in it, and then put the dowel at the end of the grip."
"You lost me," Buddy said.
"A club is all about balance, swing weight...feel. That clubhead is a D6 swing weight, but the player wanted D3. So instead of drilling any weight out of the clubhead—that would change how the club felt; it would reduce the mass of the clubhead—Wullkotte used the dowel as a counter-weight. He did this with the 3-wood and the 5-wood too. You follow?"
"Sort of," Buddy said. "But wooden drivers don't go very far, right? That's why everyone uses metal woods. This clubhead is so small compared to my dad's."
"The man who played these clubs could hit this driver 341 yards, and that's with those liquid-core MacGregor Tourney balls, which were notoriously awful. With the balls they're using these days, he could have hit it 380... 390, easy, in his prime."
"Uh-huh," Buddy said, not believing any of it.
"You're skeptical."
"I'm just saying that if wood—"
"Persimmon," the old man said, correcting him.
"If persimmon is so amazing, why aren't they still using it?"
"Because there's no artistry anymore. Drivers look like they're eight months pregnant. That club you're holding is a work of art: 431/2 inches long, 91/2 degrees of loft. It took Wullkotte 125 different steps to make one driver. He would make twenty-five drivers and maybe, just maybe, the player would like one of them."
"That Wullkotte guy sounds like he had a perfection problem," Buddy said.
"Perfection isn't a problem," the old man said. "It's an aspiration. To him, each driver had its own personality. He was the Antonio Stradivari of golf clubs."
"Who's that?"
"Don't they teach you anything in school? Stradivari built the finest violins ever made."
"Like I said—"
"I know, you're a business major."
"They are beautiful clubs," Buddy said. "Can I look at the rest of them?"
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't," the old man said.
Buddy carried the bag to the doorway. He removed the socks from the rest of the woods and then took the plastic covers off the irons. The grooves were in pristine condition. Virgins, it seemed.
"Forged MacGregor Limited Editions based on the Pro-81 template," the old man said. "The shafts are Dynamic Gold X100s with 5-inch tapered wooden dowels that were air hammered in at the tips. The grinds were done to perfection by Don White: flat sole, standard toe, straight leading edge, not much of a heel-to-toe radius, a topline that was thin but not too thin. White was the only person that Wullkotte ever trusted to grind Jack's irons."
"Man, you know a lot about clubs," Buddy said. "You sound like my dad. He's totally into the history of the game."
"Then he's a man I would be proud to know. You say he's not a very good player?"
"He tries. He used to be a caddie when he was my age, so you'd think he'd be better."
This excerpt ends on page 12 of the hardcover edition.
Monday we begin the book A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams by Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie.
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