Best clubs when you started playing?

[BIG STU]

Late 60's in my small area, Hogan irons were fairly commons, Hogan woods were disliked, MacGregor was non-existent, the most common was Walter Hagen and Wilson Staff. My first good clubs were Hagen's through the set, but for the sand wedge. Bought them used from a friend, all steel shafts, but the PW had an aluminum shaft. Still have them.

My area in the same time frame was opposite of yours. Our area it was Wilson Spalding and Macgregor. Now if you went East in NC past the Triad area Hogan was the dominate club. Funny thing is Eastern NC was and still is farm country and Hogan was the major brand. I know where you are from and makes me wonder-- What is the tie in with Hogans and Farmers?

 

I grew up and still live in eastern NC. I worked at the pro shop from the time I was 11 until I was 14 and cleaned every set of clubs in the bag room at least once every 10 days or so and put about every other players' set on a golf cart at least once. I remember three sets of Hogans in there, a white cameo Apex II (owned by a tobacco buyer), a set of '73 Apexes (probably owned by a farmer) and set of '80 Directors (owned by a physician). A couple of high school players had Hogans, and another older gentleman had Hogans. I know because he opened a driving range behind his tobacco warehouse and the local sign painter painted an image of his Hogan driver with the speed slot on the wooden sign by the road.

 

Anyone notice a link between tobacco and owning Hogans? I guess after earning a thousand or so dollars as a teen working in tobacco during the summer, selling a few hundred thousand pounds at your warehouse or buying that much for the companies you represent, you bought a set of Hogan golf clubs.

I am very familiar with Eastern NC and Tobacco Farmers because my Grand Dad was a tobacco farmer---- A good friend of my Dad's was the Head Pro at Greenville Golf and Country Club and was a die hard Hogan Man. His other buddy was the head pro at Ayden CC. At heart my old man was a Macgregor man but switched staff affiliations a bunch of times but he always held on to that set of 62 FC-4000s which I still have and sometimes play today. As a footnote the last round of golf my old man ever played I played with him at Ayden CC. He had retired some years before to Eastern NC actually in Calico close to Ayden.

[mcshooter]

My first set of irons in 1956 were aluminum shafted ram , later I got a set of gary player irons with fiberglass shafts,

[hnryclay]

Wilson Staffs, followed by Hogan Apex IIs, or Ping Eye 2.

[NRJyzr]

Interesting thread, not sure how I missed it the first time.

 

Started playing very late in 1998, the hot clubs were the TiBubbles, GBB, 845s were still around, Ping had ISI, and so on. And the lovely Goldwin drivers were around. Liked those things. My personal best drive was with a Goldwin XL, held up until a couple ridiculous shots around 2010-2011.

 

Maybe my Goldwin driver use helps explain why I like persimmons as much as I do?

[RobotDoctor]

I started playing in 1986 so what was the best? Hard to say. Ben Hogan equipment was really good, so was Wilson and MacGregor. The best persimmon woods were probably Powerbilt with Hogan being very solid. TaylorMade metal woods were really making a big impact as well.

 

My first set of irons was a set of used Ben Hogan Radial irons with Ben Hogan laminated woods. I played with those for the next year then went with Palmer Peerless irons and Cleveland Classic woods. In 1989 after I graduated from college I purchased a set of MacGregor Muirfield 20th irons 1, 3-PW, a Cleveland Classics 588 56 degree sand wedge and a TaylorMade 8.5 degree driver and a Cleveland Classics 3 wood (don't remember what model). I quickly went back to a Cleveland Classics driver (DG43) and had it reshafted with a TT DGX100 shaft, insert replaced with a 50's era MacGregor vulcanized paper R/W/R insert and found a 1953 MacGregor 945TW 3 wood, reshafted with S300.

 

Was this the best equipment at the time? Not sure about that but it was the best for me.