Equipment

Professional club builders and chefs have more in common than you think

Published

4 years ago

Jul 29, 2020

I’ve been building clubs for close to 20 years, and I get a lot of questions about what it means to be a professional club builder and run a build shop. It’s a lot different than being a hobbyist who does a few repairs or has put together a club or two in their garage—similar to how a regular home cook is not a trained chef. But please note, like many, I started off as a hobby builder myself!

Now, it’s not to say that you can’t become a professional chef without proper training. In fact, many of the best chefs I know have worked from the ground up with no formal training but have put many years into their craft to get where they are today.

So how does all this cooking talk relate back to club building? Although the mediums are very different, the processes to create the final products are more similar than you might think, and at the end of the day, the goal is the same—deliver a great product over and over again.

The starting point – Good ingredients

Building a set of clubs and creating a great dish is all about working with raw ingredients, and for golf clubs that means using high-quality components with tight tolerances. Sourcing from manufacturers that offer tight specs and components to properly assemble (if required), is like buying your vegetables from a local farmer. You know where they come from, you know how they were produced, and you know where to go if you have an issue.

Quality will always come with a price—tighter tolerances, and fresh ingredients might be a bit more expensive, but you will always get out of a meal or set of clubs what you put in. If you want an end product you are truly going to enjoy, professional chefs, just like club builders, are going to go to the end of the earth to search out the best ingredients for the dish they plan to create.

Prep work – Knowing your recipe

This is the boring part, always has and always will be. It’s about washing the veggies, chopping to size, organizing into portions, and storing until it’s time to cook.

For club builders, this is the make-or-break time of building a set—it’s making sure you have weighed out all of the components, sorted and organized, and spotted any potential issues with what you are working with and making a correction. For clubheads, that means taking into account the required build specs and adjusting head weight accordingly—no different to making a dish ordered spicy rather than mild—you better get it right or it’s coming back.

Once you have taken all the steps to get your ingredients/components prepped to make your dish according to the recipe/specs, we move onto the next process of putting everything together. If you have followed all the appropriate steps to this point, whether you’re a club builder or a chef, this is one of the fastest parts of the process.

For clubs, once the epoxy has been mixed, it takes as little as 15 minutes to actually assemble a 14-piece set, for a chef it’s similar. The dish comes together in the pan with pre-organized and portioned out ingredients and boom – you have a fully cooked dish in a matter of minutes. No chef starts peeling potatoes when an order is placed.

Work area – cleanliness & organization

This is where I draw a direct comparison, from a chef in their kitchen to a club builder – a clean and organized workspace, to me is the greatest sign of a professional. If you have ever walked into a restaurant with an open kitchen concept, it inspires confidence to see clean counters, organized utensils, and a work area organized and ready for action – if you see a dirty kitchen or a health inspection notice on the door – good chance you’re not stopping to eat.

A build shop should be no different—counters should be tidy, tools should be clean and well maintained for safety as well as precision, and components along with small parts should be organized and quickly accessible at all times. It should be considered a source of pride to maintain a clean workspace as much as it is to deliver a well-built set of clubs or a perfect dish, I have never trusted a messy club builder.

Final preparation

You can do everything right to this point, both as a chef or as a club builder, but if the presentation isn’t right then the customer isn’t likely to be happy—nor should they.

With food that final step means platings—and there is a big difference between a discount $5 buffet and a farm to table chef-inspired tasting menu—it doesn’t take a keen eye to spot the difference.

As for clubs, it’s the little things, many of which won’t be noticed by the naked eye or at first glance: lies and lofts, the number of tape wraps under a grip, or swing weight. Those are all things that a golfer must trust was done correctly by their builder. The other part is what can be seen, just like meal plating—no bend marks on hosels, grips on straight, and last but not least, the ferrules turned down properly.

This is my biggest sticking point, because if a club builder isn’t willing to take the time to properly finish one of the most noticeable parts on a club, the ferrules, what else have they potentially skipped out on? Can you trust the lies and loft are right? Can you trust the grips are on correctly with the right amount of tape? Did they even take the time to do the proper prep work?

Any true professional in a skilled trade, whether it be a club builder or chef, should always take pride in their work, and to be considered proper professionals they should also act accordingly, with attention to detail, and the goal of creating a delicious meal or well built set of clubs at the end of the day.

With that in mind, I present to you my finest meal plating…

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Equipment

A shocking Backstryke putter appearance + 7 interesting gear photos from the Zurich Classic

Published

3 hours ago

Apr 25, 2024

Andrew Tursky

Welcome to New Orleans, where TPC Louisiana plays host to the 2024 Zurich Classic. In between breakfast beignets and nightly Creole feasts, PGA Tour players are also competing in the unique two-man format at the Zurich this week.

Although the vibes in Nawlins are a bit lighter-fare than the recent back-to-back competitions the Masters and the RBC Heritage signature event), the gear news was no less serious this week.

We spotted some recent changes from Rory McIlroy, a very rare Odyssey Backstryke putter, dove into the bag of legendary New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, and spotted Patrick Cantlay continuing to test new equipment.

Get your beads out and crack your crawfish, because it’s time for an equipment rundown from The Big Easy (meaning New Orleans, of course, not Ernie Els).

See all of our photos from the Zurich Classic here

Rory’s on-and-off lob wedge

Since the end of 2023, Rory McIlroy has had an on-again, off-again relationship with a Titleist Vokey K-Grind lob wedge. In his last start, it was on, and the wedge is back in the bag again this week. We got a great look at the complicated grind that McIlroy uses.

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A full look into McIlroy’s bag above also shows that he switched out of the TaylorMade BRNR Mini Copper that he used at the RBC Heritage, and he’s back into the Qi10 core 3-wood. As we discussed last week, McIlroy will likely keep the BRNR around as a course-specific club, trading it in and out for the 3-wood.

See Rory McIlroy’s full 2024 WITB from the Zurich here

Turning Back the clock

Unless Tommy Gainey is in the field, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see Odyssey’s Backstryke technology make an appearance on the PGA Tour.

But then, when you least expect it, Russ Cochran shows up.

For more than a decade – since the 2013 Sony Open in Hawai’i – Cochran has been stuck on 599 PGA Tour starts. This week will be his 600th.

Cochran is in the field at the Zurich this week playing alongside Eric Cole, whose regular caddie is Reed Cochran, Russ’s son.

The Backstryke putter was first released back in 2010, and its unique design helps shift the axis point of the putter closer to the CG of the head. And, the putter is getting a nod this week at the Zurich Classic, thanks to Cochran’s 600th career PGA Tour start.

The putter is certainly awesome, but don’t forget to check out Cochran’s full WITB from this week.

Drew Brees with a Super Bowl winning Scotty Cameron putter

Drew Brees, a legendary retired quarterback for the hometown New Orleans Saints, made an appearance at the Zurich’s Wednesday Pro-Am, playing alongside Zach Johnson, Ryan Palmer, and current Saints QB Derek Carr.

Brees’ bag included a TaylorMade Stealth2 Plus driver, a BRNR Mini 13.5-degree, a Stealth 5-wood, a mixed set of P-790 and P-760 irons, Milled Grind Hi-Toe wedges, and a custom Scotty Cameron “New Orleans Saints” putter, which Scotty made for Brees following his Super Bowl MVP-winning performance in 2010.

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It should also be noted that Brees has his Venmo QR code as a bag tag.

If you’re gambling with Brees on the course, just know that not having cash won’t work as an excuse.

Brilliant.

See Drew Brees’ full WITB from the Zurich here

Stricker’s unrecognizable putter

Steve Stricker has made numerous upgrades to his bag recently, including a new TSR3 driver and T100 irons, but his longtime Odyssey White Hot No. 2 putter is still going strong. It’s the most recognizable unrecognizable putter ever.

Here’s a better look at Stricker’s flatstick, which he started using back in 2007.

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Patrick Cantlay has opened the equipment-switching floodgates

Over on the PGA Tour’s Equipment Report this week, we covered Cantlay’s recent switch into Ping Blueprint S irons, and a Titleist TSR2 driver.

Cantlay hadn’t switched irons for about seven years, so the iron switch he made at The 2024 Masters came as a shock to the norm. He simply isn’t one to change gear very often, so anytime Cantlay makes a switch, it’s news.

It seems the floodgates of equipment testing have opened up a bit for Cantlay, who was also spotted testing a custom Scotty Cameron blade putter on Tuesday this week. By Wednesday, Cantlay was back practicing with his familiar Scotty Cameron T5 Proto mallet, but it’s certainly something to keep an eye on going forward.

Daniel Berger’s custom Jailbird site lines

Berger, who’s currently using Odyssey’s Ai-One Mini Jailbird mallet putter, has a unique 3-dot, 2-line alignment on the crown of his navy-white-navy-white mallet putter. Looking down at the putter, it’s easy to see why this alignment system would help; it just seems impossible to set up to the ball off-center, or misaligned to the target.

Also, for anyone worried, you can rest easy. Yes, he’s still playing the 2013 TaylorMade TP MC irons, which we highlighted in our recent “Modern Classics: Old vs. New” video testing series.

FitzMagic teams back up

Brothers Matthew and Alex Fitzpatrick are teaming up once again at the Zurich this year, and Bettinardi Golf hooked them up with some festive “FitzMagic” headcovers to match this week.

See what else is in Alex Fitzpatrick’s WITB here

And, with that, we say goodbye to the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. Don’t forget to check out all of our photos from this week, including 30 unique photo galleries full of equipment photos.

We’ll see you next week in Texas for the 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson!

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