Stu Upton paid $25 for the manky old putter in 2010, and then did research which culminated in the Christchurch Golf Club staging the inaugural New Zealand Hickory Open on March 13.
“It’s been a goal of mine since I got the putter,” said Upton, who has assembled the largest private collection of playable hickory clubs in the country, 461 at last count.
“I thought to myself: ‘How the hell did they play golf with these in those days?
Upton, who started golfing at age 12, subsequently learned hickory golf was popular in other golfing countries, though not New Zealand.
“I decided I was going to change that and it’s taken me this long to get enough (playable) clubs where you can actually run something,” he said.
Upton will provide a driver, mid-iron, mashie (short iron), mashie niblick (pitching wedge) and putter unless golfers in the field of 72 are already equipped with clubs cleared by a vetting process.
“Some clever buggers put a modern (say 1970s) head on a hickory shaft. That’s called cheating,” he said.
Upton has eight left-handed sets, with the legendary Sir Bob Charles, who will host the tournament on his beloved links course in Shirley, requisitioning a putter and a niblick.
“This is taking me back to my earliest playing days. These 100-year-old hickories are the original clubs and they have a special feel that provides a great challenge, enabling us to experience golf as it was meant to be played,” said Charles.
“This is our contribution to a world-wide revival of hickory golf, hopefully it will become an annual event.”
The tournament concept gathered momentum when Glenn Bongartz, a former men’s club captain at Christchurch, bought a club from Upton.
“We got talking about our love for the game and I said ‘Bob’s got a love for this as well” and after two years of talking we’ve finally made it happen.”
Charles, 85, is also part of the core planning group for a one-day event featuring foursomes and individual stroke play.
Golfers can take on a 2700-yard nine-hole challenge designed by Charles, who has shortened some holes to accommodate the old-style clubs.
“A good drive, if you’re really lucky, might be 200m (compared to 250-285m with state of the art equipment) and you don’t have the volume of clubs, you’ve only got five (or six) in your bag,” Upton said.
“You have to be a little bit inventive. That skill or art of the game has gone, with modern golf it’s all about drivers and wedges.”
Charles and Upton will also look the part after a selection of plus fours, and tweed vests arrived from the United Kingdom last week.
Upton is also producing hickory tee markers and period piece flags for the greens. Clubs will be carried in canvas and leather bags reminiscent of the sport’s formative years.
“We’re going the whole nine yards,” said Upton, aware there is considerable ground to make up on a golfing world where Scotland has hosted the World Hickory Open since 2005.
Upton built his catalogue from purchases throughout the country, and noticed there was no shortage of clubs based on the stiff, dense and shock resistant wood originally imported from the United States.
“There’s loads out there. They mass produced them in the millions. It was like: ‘Where can we get rid of these? We’ll dump them in New Zealand’,” he said.
The 59-year-old has spent more than 2000 hours restoring clubs often found languishing, unloved, in garages or sheds.
He separates the shaft from the head, sands the hickory and then soaks it in water for several days to reverse any bend in the club.
“I let it dry for four to five days and nine times out of 10 the bend comes out to a point where it’s acceptable.”
While proud of his collection – Upton urges golfers not to snap one over a thigh if they land in the stream dissecting the 9th – it is not exactly priceless.
“About one in 25 has some sort of significant value, the rest are just common muck,” he said.
Upton has a putter which might be valuable – apparently it was used by John Henry Taylor to win the Open Championship at Royal St George’s in 1894.
“I have no proof, all it has got
is a plaque on it,” said Upton, who paid $1000 for the club from a seller in Auckland six years ago.
“I’ve seen a couple of drawings of him and his caddie on the green. You can see him holding on to a putter but there’s no way you can say it’s that putter.”
Upton has no doubt about the recent history of the putter he’ll rely on next month, his original purchase in Akaroa.
“It had a hellishly bent shaft, now it almost looks brand new.”
• Further details on the tournament and entry can be found here.
