Obsolete golf clubs

Early golf clubs were all made of wood. They were hand-crafted, often by the players themselves, and had no standard shape or form. As the sport of golf developed, a standard set of clubs began to take shape, with different clubs being fashioned to perform different tasks and hit various types of shot. Later, as more malleable iron became widely used for shorter range clubs, an even wider variety of clubs became available.

While many of the clubs manufactured between 1901 and 1935 came from Scotland, more and more started coming from larger US manufacturers.

These early clubs had hickory shafts and wrapped leather grips. To secure the joins both between the shaft and the head of the club, as well as between the grip and the shaft, whipping of black, waxed linen thread was used. Pre-1900 clubs (smooth-faced gutty era) used 7-ply thread. Clubs from the era 1900 to 1935 required 4-ply thread.

From 1924 golf clubs started to be manufactured with steel shafts, pyratone shafts, aluminum shafts, and fiberglass or resin shafts; many of them were given a wood-look coating.

Golf club

A golf club is a club used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a club head. Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; irons, the most versatile class, are used for a variety of shots; hybrids that combine design elements of woods and irons are becoming increasingly popular; putters are used mainly on the green to roll the ball into the hole. A standard set consists of 14 golf clubs, and while there are traditional combinations sold at retail as matched sets, players are free to use any combination of 14 or fewer legal clubs.

An important variation in different clubs is loft, or the angle between the club's face and the vertical plane. It is loft that is the primary determinant of the ascending trajectory of the golf ball, with the tangential angle of the club head's swing arc at impact being a secondary and relatively minor consideration (though these small changes in swing angle can nevertheless have a significant influence on launch angle when using low-lofted clubs). The impact of the club compresses the ball, while grooves on the club face give the ball backspin. Together, the compression and backspin create lift. The majority of woods and irons are labeled with a number; higher numbers indicate shorter shafts and higher lofts, which give the ball a higher and shorter trajectory.