Evening star., 1938-12-10

OeTlCeQ the steel shaft and SWOre
allegiance to well-seasoned hickory.
In those days keen-eyed Allan
Lard had vision of an easily ma
chined, easy-to-handle steel shaft,
which could be turned out by ma
chimes in uniform lengths, of stand
ard degrees of whip and torsion, and
au-ln-au a shaft which would re-
main the same day in and day out
regardless of temperature and cli-
mate changes. Wooden shafts, in
case you didn't know, change with
the weather. Furthermore already
in those days, on the crest of
wave of golf enthusiasm, the bogey-
cry of shortage of adequately sea-
soned hickory for golf shafts was
being raised Actually the supply
OF second-growth hickory, the
choicest shaft material, was plenty
to keep abreast of the growth of
the demand.
First Shaft Crude Affair.
Allan's first steel shaft was a
crude-looking instrument by COM
parison with the sleekly fashioned,
Well-machined shafts of today. Wal
ter Tuckerman, I remember, was
the first crack golfer to use steel.
In those days-around 1923 or 1924
Walter was top amateur, a man
who never was extremely long from
the tee, but one who could thread
the eye of a needle at 1870 yards
with a cut spoon shot.
He preferred the spoon to
the long iron and he was
master at getting that ball
close from IFS to 220 yards
away from the pin.
Walter appeared on the first tee
at Chevy Chase invitation tourna-
ment with Allan Lard's first steel
shaft. Built like those latticed bat
tleship masts, full of holes, the
initial steel shaft whistled as it
worked. Like the song from Walt
Disney's movie AS Walter swung
the club it had a distinct "whish"
and sharp whistle. But it worked.
Walter Tuckerman hit the ball 20
yards longer than he had been
hitting it with wooden shafts.
That was the start of it all, and
slow start it was Buggy-whip
shafts, made by fishing-rod manu-
facturers, whippy things with ex-
treme torsion, began to invade the
market. Slowly they began to find
favor with men who found they
could chunk golf ball Is yards
further than with wood. But the
steel shaft didn't begin to go until
around 1882. And If you noted the
turn of events. the coincidental
array of circumstances which found
Robert T. Jones, jr., the all-Ameri-
can blue of the golden 2Os, allied
with one of the leading sports goods
manufacturers as club designer,
also marked the real beginning of
general public favor for the steel
shaft.
About that time came the matched
set idea. 1t had earlier begun with
matched sets of wooden-shafted
clubs, in wood and iron. But about
80 came the matched sets of steel
shafted golf clubs. Almost within
a year the golf club sales situation
changed from wood to steel. Those
matched sets of steel-shafted weap-
ons went like hot cakes. All manu-
facturers came out with lines of
steel-shafted clubs. They had to
keep abreast of mounting sales ac-
counts.
Steel Universal Now.
Today you can look in the bags
of 500 first-class professional and
amateur golfers, and if you find a
wooden -shafted golf club it's a
rarity, and holdover for sentiment
tai reasons.
The last man to win
national championship with
wooden -shafted clubs was
lanky John Fischer of Gin
cinnati. John did 1t in 1886
at Garden City.
That title probably was the last
ever to be won by set of wooden
shafted weapons.