Popular Woodworking 2007-04 № 161, страница 72

Old-school Persimmon Driver

Louisville Golf keeps links tradition alive - and with a satisfying thwack.

I've been a woodworker for more than 40 years and a golfer for the past 14. When I was growing up in Wales, there was a golf links near the Metrapol Hotel, where my grandmother used to work. We lads would dash across the greens to fish in the ponds at the corner of the course. The old duffers would chase us off the field with curses while shaking sticks. I swore at the time I would never be one of those fellows in plus fours, argyle sweaters and tam-o'-shanters.

Little did I know in those days that a golf ball could kill ya. We only wanted to catch a fish or two. But 14 years ago I was reintroduced to the game by a friend who lived by the fifth hole of a lovely golf course in northern California. I've been hooked ever since.

My first set of clubs, and the ones I still use today, were an old set of Pings - a persimmon driver and a 3-wood. The fellow who taught me insisted I learn the short clubs first, so it was quite some time before I got to the driver. I was all over the place with that thing. Then the new metal woods and drivers came along, getting bigger every day it seemed. So I swung a 460 cc lump of metal at the end of a long stick. The sound was enough to drive me up a tree (literally). Then I saw a fellow walking around at a woodworking show with a beautiful wooden club; the woodworker in me was taken at first sight. Unfortunately, the price was out of my range, so I had to let it go for the while. But I keep thinking of that beautiful driver.

Recently, I was working on the restoration of an old timber-framed building in Louisville, Ky., when I called upon the people of Louisville Golf (louisvillegolf.com), who still make the beautiful persimmon drivers and other wooden-headed clubs. Mike Just, one of the five brothers who started Louisville golf, showed me around the shop and

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even gave me a beautiful driver (a used one, of course). I call her "Blondie."

Louisville Golf was founded in 1974 by Elmore Just and his four brothers, continuing a tradition that goes back to the conception of the game in the sheep fields of St Andrews, Scotland.

Elmore Just discovered that persimmon was the desired wood for wooden-headed golf clubs. The dark heartwood (which isn't formed until the tree is a century old) resembles ebony, and is exceeded in hardness in North America only by dogwood and iron-wood. Persimmon weighs 52 pounds per cubic foot and cushions little at impact, allowing the wood to maximize the energy transference to the ball - properties that make it ideal for golf clubs.

by Don Weber

Comments or questions? Contact Don at dbodger@kyblue.com.

I've been using wooden drivers and fairway woods for a long time, even though I purchased a new metal driver (used, of course) that was supposed to get me down the fairway many miles further. I still love the blonde driver I was gifted by the Louisville Golf people; not only is it beautiful, it gets me just as far down the fairway as that metal thing.

Louisville Golf has manufactured persimmon woods for giants in the industry - including Ben Hogan, Tommy Armor and Spalding. When metal woods hit the market, the company thought it might not survive. But there are plenty of people who, like me, prefer the sound of the ball struck off the head of a wooden club. And the Louisville Golf "Smart" driver out-distanced Callaway's "Great Big Bertha" in tests conducted in the Pro Golf Lab in San Diego, Calif.

The company also makes wooden putters of different beautiful hardwoods, as well as hybrids and fairway woods. The company's "Niblic," a trouble club, makes getting out of the rough a cakewalk.

The widow of Elmore Just, Lawren Just, recently opened the "Golf House," home to the new Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame. It's a golfer's dream - right down the road from Persimmon Ridge Golf course, where Elmore Just built a 774-acre links - perfect for testing your new driver.

A stroll through the plant is a woodworker's delight, particularly for those of us who are still hands-on turners. A golf club is an odd shape to turn on a lathe - multi-axis turning at its best. Bins of persimmon blocks and rough-turned heads ready for final shaping cover the warehouse floor. Skilled craftsmen stand at their machines turning this beautiful wood into even more beautiful golf clubs that will be cherished by golfers like myself, with every hearty thwack. PW

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Popular Woodworking April 2007