Equipment

Club Champion Master Club Builders discuss the craft

Published

2 years ago

Dec 28, 2021

At Club Champion headquarters in Willowbrook, Illinois, club builders are often responsible for meticulously assembling more than 100 clubs per day.

And while this is an impressive number to the layman — as is the 50,000 possible club combinations Club Champion can craft — we wanted to know more about what the process actually entails — and further, learn more about the men epoxying shafts to heads, installing grips, bending, grinding, SST PUREing, and stamping.

Many Paths

The master builders of Club Champion we spoke to took different paths to the Willowbrook headquarters and their expertise in the unique blend of art and science. Company founder and 25-year club building veteran Nick Sherburne had one of the most unique roads in of the builders we spoke with. “I’m a bigger guy who needed to alter my clubs but I didn’t have the money for the options that were available at the time.” Through an initial process of trial and error, Sherburne honed his skills, eventually linking up with Everett Lokenvitz and securing a PCS (Professional Clubmakers Society) Class A certification.”

Master Club Fitter & Builder Ryan Bulkema of Oak Lawn, Illinois, has been building golf clubs for 16 years. He began his journey in big box world. “Very early on, I found myself gravitating to the club tech area and on frequent occasions,” he said, learning the intricacies of “cutting off grips, regripping, pulling shafts, bending loft and lie, and even basic club assembly.”

Alex Buckridge, who has been a master builder at Club Champion for four-and-a-half years, specializes in club stamping and paint fills. He got his start in the industry the same way many golf business lifers do: working at a golf club as a caddie and bag room attendant.

The Fitting Process

In addition to being curious about their paths to the profession, we wanted to know what the club building process at Club Champion looks like. Alex told us “I could tell you…but then I’d have to kill you.” But fortunately, others were willing to give us a peek behind the curtain, demystifying a process few outside the industry — and the GolfWRX forums — understand.

The builders we spoke to broke down the Club Champion builders process

Builders being by hand-picking weight-sorted products to make sure they’re using consistent, quality parts to start
After initial item inspection, builders dive into the build sheet
SST PUREing shafts to make sure they can be installed in the optimal position is next
Shaft tipping (if needed) and preparation is next
Club builders fit the shafts into heads, measure on the club ruler to the intended length, and cut the shafts if needed
Club builders debur the edge and put the grip on the shaft with the appropriate tape for the build. “Grip before glue” to ensure a perfect swingweight
Once grips are installed, a builder puts the head on to dry weight the swingweight
This allows a club builder to map out the set or individual club and determine if any weight needs to be added. if not, s/he adjusts accordingly to the fitted specs using lead, tungsten, rat glue, weights that come with some heads, etc
Once swingweight is good to go, the proper ferrule is added and the club is glued using a 24 hour epoxy
When the club is dry, the ferrule is turned to ensure a clean look
Any bending of the club is done on a Mitchell digital loft and lie machine
Shining up, stickers
A final full QC process

Common Misconceptions

Digging deeper, Club Champion builders said there are no shortage of misconceptions about their craft.
Chief among these, according to Sherburne is the idea that off-the-rack clubs are consistently build and match the specs shown online.

And in terms of specs, Sherbune cautions, “not all loft and lie machines measure the same, which is why having properly calibrated machinery is important to performance. At CC, we make sure all machines are calibrated to match, from stores to build facilities, so there are no discrepancies.”

Additionally, Sherburne emphasized how every piece of a club build affects other elements. He offered this example: “Swingweight changes flex: A heavier shaft plays looser, and if the swingweight is light, the shaft will play stiffer.”
Tolerances are also important to keep in mind when thinking about the build your golf clubs. Club Champion builders work within one inch of loft and lie, 1/8 inch length, and one swing weight point. Other builders aim for 2-3 degrees loft and lie, 1/2 inch length, and minimal swing weight tolerances.

Alex Buckridge spelled out another major difference between off-the-rack manufacturing and how Club Champion operates. “Most off-the-rack clubs are built in an assembly line style, with much looser tolerances. In this scenario, maybe one person cuts, one grips, one glues, and so on. For some manufacturers, machines complete portions of the process. With a professionally built club like those we create, one person is doing the build from start to finish. We’re following much tighter tolerances and can offer a much wider range of custom options.” Sherburne added, “The tolerances for mass-produced clubs are all over the place, which is why a professionally hand-built club is key.”

No Comparison

In terms of the abundance of custom offerings, Club Champion is the summit of the mountain.

Regarding the aforementioned, Sherburne said, “If you’re comparing us to the few other brand-agnostic fitters out there, it comes down to our desire to go above and beyond. More brands, more model options, more training, tighter tolerances, tougher QC processes, the Perfect Fit Guarantee, more attention to detail. The list goes on and on. The moral of the story is we can create essentially anything and that’s key to finding the ideal performance for so many different types of golfers.”

And certainly, there’s no comparison to OEM fittings and what’s available at big box retail, in terms of availability, customization, and the ability to dial in specs.

And while everyone we spoke with at Club Champion agreed home club building is a great hobby, Ryan summed up the need for professional club building best, “I see club building as an art form, with an almost infinite number of possible options. I have the ability to achieve a much higher degree of change, within a much tighter tolerance, with a high attention to detail. If you expect the best performance out of something, you don’t tend to DIY it unless you’re an expert in that field. Golf clubs are no different.”

For More

You can read more about Club Champion in our other features below and check out ClubChampionGolf.com.

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19 Comments

Mike yass

Jun 8, 2022 at 1:19 pm

Nothing in here about the employees building the cubs in a 90 degree building with no air conditioning. Weird

Reply Report comment
Connor Stremke

Jan 1, 2022 at 1:47 pm

Club Champion approves of this message*

Also, fuck club champion

Reply Report comment
Pm

Dec 31, 2021 at 2:28 am

Reading all these comments and all the other bad ones in the Forums, sounds like CC is struggling and is on a campaign to try to do more sales through this type of hype advertising, but obviously it’s not going to work. Not that any of the other fitting places like TrueSpec or CoolClubs are any better, they all try to upsell you and that’s that. Clowns. Make sure people aren’t paying for SST Pure, that is a sure waste of money

Reply Report comment
TP

Dec 30, 2021 at 11:20 pm

Club Champion is the biggest rip off. “Grip before glue”?? WTH. Anyone who has a clue what they’re doing wou never do this. A- use a swingweight scale that allows for a grip to be placed under the shaft for a dry fit. B- having a grip on shaft before gluing gives the air in the shaft nowhere tango after you glue it up and increases the possibility of the shaft creeping up. Also for what they charge 1/8″ and 1° loft and kie variance is atrocious. I have all my personal clubs within 0.2 swingweight and 1/32″ and 0.25° loft and lie and I’m doing it from my house. Ridiculous. Do yourself a favor and get a set blueprinted out or spec’d out by someone who takes their time and has tighter tolerances

Reply Report comment
Internet Police

Dec 30, 2021 at 7:30 pm

Not concerned much with safety. No gloves with solvent, no gloves with the grinding / buffing wheel. Sparks flying all over bare skin while cutting shafts. It’s laughable. But hey, they’ll spine your shafts for you…. What a joke, Club Chumpion”.

Reply Report comment
Jim Thomson

Dec 30, 2021 at 10:20 am

What a waste of digital space. Club building is not rocket science. I’ve been a hobbyist club builder for over 40 years and I’ll put my ability up against any CC “specialist” as would many experienced DIYers. BTW, does anyone proofread this stuff? Interesting that CC works to one inch of loft and lie. No wonder you found their “process” so amazing.

Reply Report comment
- Kevin S
  
  Dec 30, 2021 at 4:51 pm
  
  I thought the same thing, Jim Thompson. I read, “Club Champion builders work within one inch of loft and lie, 1/8 inch length, and one swing weight point. Other builders aim for 2-3 degrees loft and lie, 1/2 inch length, and minimal swing weight tolerances.” Whaaa?? I’m a simple hobbyist, too, but if I was simply “aiming for 2-3 degrees on loft and lie,” as Sherburne tries to disparage me and everyone else, I wouldn’t even be attempting it.
  
  Reply Report comment
Tom

Dec 30, 2021 at 6:41 am

Did a CC fitting…. Ordered the irons to the exact specs they fit me for, on my own, not through them as their prices are ridiculous. I have never hit an iron worse in my life and I am a plus handicap.

Reply Report comment
leezer99

Dec 30, 2021 at 6:12 am

Had a fitting at CC just a couple of weeks ago. I could have gotten better results going to my local shop and hitting random clubs on their LM. Sent in a complaint and they offered to redo the fitting at another location but I really don’t see the point.

Reply Report comment
geohogan

Dec 30, 2021 at 6:02 am

So much made of loft /lie machines, when key to fitting
IMO, is height of hands from the ground the same for all clubs.
ie butt end of clubs, height from ground is the suited to golfer and the same for all clubs. Exact degrees of lie angle is irrelevant.

Reply Report comment
Ts

Dec 30, 2021 at 2:55 am

What no Frequency, or MOI match options? What about checking for CG strike locations dependent on which shaft will be installed, other than the completely useless and pointless SST pure? What happens when the CG locations are changes in the heads? They measure for that?

Reply Report comment
- leezer99
  
  Dec 30, 2021 at 6:05 am
  
  If having your shafts pured was necessary they’d offer it on the PGA Tour trucks. Guess what… they don’t.
  
  Reply Report comment
andrew

Dec 29, 2021 at 4:41 pm

How much did they pay for this ad?

Reply Report comment
Golf Nobel

Dec 29, 2021 at 8:25 am

Influence on CG is pretty null as you can easily find here on the forum tech pages.
Adding tip weights even up to 8-10 grams is required when you replace shafts as every model has a different weight distribution and is required if you want to match a specific SW.
Even Ping or other factories do that, you should know it if you have ever pulled a shaft.
Also, majority of the golfers (everyone is not a Tour level player) cannot spot any differences in 2-3 SW points range or minor changes in flexes like few cpm…

Reply Report comment
- Eric Spaulding
  
  Dec 29, 2021 at 11:07 am
  
  “Influence on CG is null”?? Really? Tell that to the manufacturers who spend millions of marketing dollars boasting about their “movable weight systems” on driver heads. I guess Ping is wasting their time caring so much about this exact issue with irons.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - Golf Nobel
    
    Dec 31, 2021 at 5:58 am
    
    I’m talking about irons where there’s no horizontal gear effect, drivers are another story.
    Go study mate.
    
    Reply Report comment
    - Eric Spaulding
      
      Jan 2, 2022 at 1:33 am
      
      “Mate”,
      Your original comment said nothing about gear effect; you said “influence on CG is null”.
      Sorry, but adding weight to one end of an object changes CG whether it’s on a driver, iron, feather, or army tank.
      And regardless, I’ll go with option (b): Ping engineers know more than you and I both
      
      Reply Report comment
Jack H.

Dec 28, 2021 at 4:32 pm

When I had my fitting there the guy who was helping me bragged that the same people who were going to build my clubs also build all the fitting shafts. I had 4 separate adapters break free and even had one head fly off because they used such little glue. Mind you I swing a driver 98-100 mph max so we are not talking long drive or even PGA Tour speed here. After that disaster of a fitting I politely declined ever buying anything from their “master” club fitters.

Reply Report comment
Eric Spaulding

Dec 28, 2021 at 12:20 pm

Hilarious. All that talk about tolerances, weight-sorting components, etc, and then they slap an 8 gram slug of lead in the hosel to get the swing weights in a set to match up. At least Ping (an engineering company to begin with) cares enough to use toe weights to keep the CG of an iron where it should be

Reply Report comment

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Whats in the Bag

Patrick Reed WITB 2024 (May)

Published

5 hours ago

May 16, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

Patrick Reed what’s in the bag accurate as of the PGA Championship. More photos from the event here.

Driver: Ping G400 (8.5 degrees)
Shaft: Aldila Rogue Silver 125 MSI 70 Tour X

3-wood: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond (15 degrees)
Shaft: Aldila Rogue Silver 125MSI 80 Tour X

Check out more in-hand photos of Patrick Reed’s clubs in the forums.

Hybrid: Callaway Apex Pro (18 degrees)
Shaft: Aldila RIP Phenom Hybrid 100 TX

Irons: Titleist 716 TMB (2), Grindworks PR-202 (4), Grindworks PR-101A (5-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100

Check out more in-hand photos of Patrick Reed’s clubs in the forums.

Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore (50-10 Mid), Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (56-08M @55), SM10 (60-04T)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Odyssey White Hot RX Pt Customs No. 2

Ball: Titleist Pro V1

Grips: Golf Pride MCC

More photos of Patrick Reed’s WITB in the forums.

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Equipment

John Daly’s $750 custom irons and 10 must-see gear photos from the 2024 PGA Championship

Published

5 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Andrew Tursky

Welcome to the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.

In the last two PGA Championships held at Valhalla, Tiger Woods won in 2000 – when he famously pointed his golf ball into the hole during the historic duel with Bob May – and Rory McIlroy won the 2014 event, basically in the dark on the final hole.

The point is, history shows that Valhalla tends to produce top-tier champions and plenty of drama.

This week at the 2024 PGA Championship, GolfWRX got its first up-close look at what some of the LIV Tour players have in their bags in 2024. We also caught back up with a few PGA Championship legends, such as Rich Beem and John Daly, and we dove into the bags of PGA Sectional qualifiers, too.

In total, we captured 47 different photo galleries this week, including 32 individual What’s In The Bag (WITB) forum threads. Click here to see all of our photos from the event, or continue reading to see my 10 equipment highlights from Valhalla.

1) Brooks Koepka’s new putter

Koepka was previously using a Scotty Cameron T5.5 putter with a slant neck, which he used to win at the beginning of the month in Singapore on the LIV tour. This week, however, he tried a T5.5 with a plumbers neck instead of the slant neck, and it’s immediately going in the bag. According to Scotty Cameron Tour rep Drew Page, Koepka already loved the head, and now finds the plumbers neck a bit more familiar to the blade-style putters he’s used throughout most of his career.

See Koepka’s full WITB here

2) The lead tape king returns, with putting goggles

Phil Mickelson has always been one of the GOATs when it comes to lead tape usage, so it was no surprise to see his 64-degree custom Callaway wedge slathered with slabs of lead tape on the back.

The big surprise was that lefty was spotted using ProAim putting training goggles on Wednesday during his warm-up session.

The ProAim goggles are helpful to find center lines and ensure proper alignment to the target.

See Phil Mickelson’s full WITB from the 2024 PGA Championship

3) Dobyns’ old-school gamer setup

Speaking of lead tape, check out Matt Dobyn’s old Titleist 718 T-MB irons, which are so loaded with lead tape that the club is nearly unrecognizable.

Respect.

The head professional at Meadow Brook Club is making his sixth start in a PGA Championship, and he’s using a throwback Callaway GBB Epic driver with MOI-boosting lead tape and adjustable weight placements.

As GolfWRX Forum user “InTheBag” pointed out in our Matt Dobyns’ WITB thread, he has the type of setup that makes you want to hide your wallet: “I don’t know Mr. Dobyns, but one look at that bag tells me he can take your money,” writes InTheBag.

Spot on.

4) John Daly’s custom Sub70 irons and wedges

We first saw John Daly using $750 direct-to-consumer Sub70 659-CB irons and TAIII wedges at the 2023 PNC Championship, and he still has them in the bag, but he’s since stepped up the customization on the Sub70 clubs.

Does Daly ever NOT keep things entertaining?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by GolfWRX (@golfwrx)

A true showman.

See Daly’s full WITB

5) DJ’s custom putter

Dustin Johnson has always been one to test multiple putters week-to-week, and he has a keen eye for different alignment lines and crowns. This week, he’s opting for a completely gray TaylorMade Spider Tour “T3.0” prototype with a short slant neck.

See the rest of DJ’s WITB from the week here

6) Patrick Reed still rocking GrindWorks irons

Patrick Reed knows his stuff when it comes to equipment, and he’s a prolific tester. Still, however, the GrindWorks PR-101A irons are squarely in the bag after his departure to the LIV tour.

The most notable new addition to Reed’s bag is this Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond 3-wood.

Click here to see Reed’s full WITB from this week

7) Beem’s Scratch set

Rich Beem, who won the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National, came to the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla with a bag full of Scratch Golf irons, which are loaded with lead tape and equipped with some of the coolest custom ferrules in professional golf.

See Rich Beem’s full WITB here

8) Jon Rahm’s 10-iron

Before going to LIV, Rahm was using a Callaway Apex TCB pitching wedge.

Now, he’s using a Callaway Apex TCB “10 iron.”

He’s also since upgraded to three Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke metalwoods, and fresh stampings on his Jaws Raw wedges. Click here to see Rahm’s full WITB from the 2024 PGA Championship.

9) “Why so serious?”

Tyrrell Hatton, another LIV player in the 2024 PGA Championship field, channels his inner Joker to ask everyone, “Why so serious?”

See Hatton’s full WITB here

10) Block’s “Proto” iron, from address

As you probably know by now, Block switched out of his old TaylorMade Tour Preferred MC 2014 irons, and into a full set of TaylorMade’s new “Proto” irons. We’ve already seen the Proto 4-iron in the bags of Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa, but this is our first look at the higher-lofted irons in the set.

Here’s a look at the 7-iron from address:

See what GolfWRX members are saying about the Proto irons in our Forums

And, with that, we say goodbye to Louisville, and the second major championship of the 2024 season. We’ll see you next week at the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas after a champion has been crowned.

Until then, don’t forget to check out all of our photos from this week at the 2024 PGA Championship!

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Whats in the Bag

Club Junkie WITB, league night week 5: Another L.A.B. putter arises

Published

8 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Brian Knudson

We will be one quarter of the way through Thursday night men’s league season after this week. BK played much better last week, so he is hoping to continue that success and post another good score.

Here are the 14 clubs that will hopefully win him some skins!

Driver: PXG 0311 Black Ops (9 degrees, neutral setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 6 X (2024)

3-wood: Cobra Dark Speed LS Titanium (14.5 degrees, set +1)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD IZ-7x

Fairway: Callaway Apex UW (19 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura ATMOS Tour Spec Blue 8 X

Hybrid: PXG 0311 Black Ops 4h (22 degrees, Flat Setting)
Shaft: KBS Tour Graphite Hybrid Prototype 85 S

Irons: TaylorMade P770 Phantom Black (5-PW)
Shaft: KBS Tour 120 Stiff

Wedge: PXG Sugar Daddy II (50-13 BP)
Shaft: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 Stiff

Wedge: PXG Sugar Daddy II (56-13 BP)
Shaft: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 Stiff

Wedge: PXG Sugar Daddy II (60-13 BP)
Shaft: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 Stiff

Putter: L.A.B. Mezz.1 Max
Shaft: Accra x L.A.B. White

Ball: Titleist ProV1 Enhanced Alignment

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