Macgregor Jack Nicklaus Player Of The Century Irons (Japan Market Limited To 1000)

[jick]

JACK NICKLAUS PLAYER OF THE CENTURY IRONS

Allow me to share the story of this Japan market, limited-to-1000-sets MacGregor Jack Nicklaus since there is news now of Miura producing a limited run of Nicklaus sets.

I got these in the local Facebook classifieds here in the Philippines. For a long time, this had been sitting there with a high asking price until I found a recent 2020 result in Japan auctions where the set sold for JPY 6,000 ($56) which I made the basis of my first offer to the seller. He countered with a higher price, but after committing to get 2 more sets (1 for a friend) from him, I got a final broken down cost of PHP 5,000 ($99) for this set!

The paintfill on the signature was originally red but I found it jarring because everything else in the set had gold trim: ferrules, shaft bands, and grips. The red motif must have been an Asian stereotype for this Japan-market set. I repainted the signature to black and the rest of the test to gold to match Macgregor's color scheme.  

After research, which consisted mostly of exchanging messages with Clay Long who worked in MacGregor during that era, here's the information I gathered from this set: 

(1) Heads were forged in the USA by Cornell Forge from a blank tooling dubbed the "Pro 82" and the muscle was milled to shape; 

(2) Since the Japan market preferred more offset in the short irons, the PW of this set appears to be from a sandwedge tooling bent to loft and grinded, and and the 9 probably was from a pitching wedge tooling all because bending strong adds more offset; 

(3) The text reads "Player Of The Century 1888-1988" because Jack Nicklaus was voted by Golf Magazine as Player of the Century in 1988, a year which marked a century since the first golf club was established in America in 1888.

(4) Nicklaus never played this set as he has always preferred a satin finish and diamond scorelines by the grooves to help his alignment - two elements absent in this set. However, it does seem to have the low bounce, straight leading edge, and virtually no sole camber that Nicklaus preferred.

After repainting, cleaning, and polishing, I decided to take some "studio" shots of these irons in my workshop. All in all, I think they look like a bargain for the price I paid. And with my motto of no wall hangers, I can't wait to take this out to the course!

 

[jick]

This is what it looked like before I changed the paintfill.

[RobotDoctor]

I like your painful better!

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

Very nice. I've seen a few of these come up for auction in Japan, usually starting at pretty high prices, but I don't *think* I've seen any with red paint fill. The way you've done it looks more familiar to me.

[NRJyzr]

You can see some of the similarities between these and something like the Hips or Muirfields. The thicker topline is something that stood out to me, as well as the flatter soles you mentioned.

These are simply awesome

[golfunderpar18]

Great find. I’ll take a set for $99!

 

 

[golfmj228]

Those are beauties!! In great shape also, you have got to love those era Mac’s. Simply stunning!