Joe Powell limited edition for Sounder

[KRW59]

Kind of new to collecting of Persimmon woods...although I played 'em from 1970 until about 1985......

I did a reshaft for an original mid '90's Callaway Big Bertha bore thru iron. Some how I still had a Memphis 10 shaft and new old stock grip in my stash...

For my parts and labor I was going to charge $45...Instead I took this in trade..

Mint , all original , has never been hit...

Edited August 31, 2020 by KRW59
Spacing

[KRW59]

I was just wondering....is the straight grain pattern running away from the face, more or less desirable,  than the circular pattern that gets tighter towards the toe. And given the choice of this Sounder and a mid 50's MT M85W in rough , but solid and still playable condition, which one would you have chosen??

[thepunch_out]

Wow, that looks like a great block of wood with a nice, deep face to it as well! As far as I know and have been told, a U-shaped pattern of grain originating at the toe and running back toward the shaft of the club is the most desirable grain pattern for persimmon. However, I have seen countless drivers with grain just like yours and more than a few reside in my collection. One thing I noticed with your driver is how tight the grain gets in the center of the club just behind the insert, and that was not by accident! What that does, is put the most dense wood directly behind the hitting area and in theory giving you a more durable club. 

[golfunderpar18]

5 hours ago, KRW59 said:

I was just wondering....is the straight grain pattern running away from the face, more or less desirable,  than the circular pattern that gets tighter towards the toe. And given the choice of this Sounder and a mid 50's MT M85W in rough , but solid and still playable condition, which one would you have chosen??

Was the m85 a driver? If so I would have chosen that.  This is a nice driver though.  You did well though with the trade for the iron shaft and labor.    I have a number of powell persimmons.  Great blocks. I like your insert. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by golfunderpar18

[KRW59]

2 hours ago, golfunderpar18 said:

Was the m85 a driver? If so I would have chosen that.  This is a nice driver though.  You did well though with the trade for the iron shaft and labor.    I have a number of powell persimmons.  Great blocks. I like your insert. 

Yes it was a driver , I believe it was made in '53 - '55 based on the face insert. It was most likely played by my mentor  during his Professional ( Texas Tour) days. Also there was a set of MT flat back irons with ceramic insert faces (1945?)  I was told they were used used by the father of my mentor.  I will be working on bringing all these 'home' in the future........

 

I live in their original family house , built in 1936 ,while the course was under construction, and opened for play in 1938. My basement was the original Pro Shop....Course is now owned and operated by the same family...3rd generation. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by KRW59

[golfunderpar18]

Cool story .  So who was Your mentor?    I would be interested in buying the m85 from him if you don’t want it.     Thx

[KRW59]

7 hours ago, golfunderpar18 said:

Cool story .  So who was Your mentor?    I would be interested in buying the m85 from him if you don’t want it.     Thx

Bill Welch , after college he partnered up with Leon Fawcett and they went to Tx.

One of his favorite stories is how they hustled Trevino and Chi Chi out of some money during a practice round....After 2 or 3 years, he returned to Missouri to run the family course until he passed about 5 years ago...The clubs are now in a long forgotten club house storage room, along with many other vintage gems..

 

 

[Stephen8802]

I think there is an immediate reaction that the M85 is one of the classic drivers and the answer is always "I'll take the M85," but that is a really beautiful club you have there, so I don't think there was a wrong answer. Now, that being said, go get the M85 and anything else in the storage room, because my answer is always to have them all.

 

I prefer tight gain in a U shape, but I"m not sure it matters as much as we like to think. I have a couple clubs with straight grain and they play beautifully. I often wonder how much touch I've lost since I was a kid that played every day, but I don't think I can feel in grain anymore, if I ever could. So, once again, I think the answer is you need some of both and hit them all.

[golfunderpar18]

12 hours ago, KRW59 said:

Bill Welch , after college he partnered up with Leon Fawcett and they went to Tx.

One of his favorite stories is how they hustled Trevino and Chi Chi out of some money during a practice round....After 2 or 3 years, he returned to Missouri to run the family course until he passed about 5 years ago...The clubs are now in a long forgotten club house storage room, along with many other vintage gems..

 

 

Nice story.  And if you don’t want the m85 I’ll buy it!

[KRW59]

I'm going to be keeping anything I can get them to part with. There were several putters he was not willing to part with. It's been 30 years since my last repairs on Persimmon woods. I have the skills , and possibly a new hobby, full restorations.....

[Stephen8802]

Do it, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed refinishing clubs over the last year...it has saved my sanity in the time of Covid.

 

I'm finishing up a RT2W Driver/2 that I bought just because the driver needed so much work. I really don't need it, but I wanted to learn how to do a persimmon patch and repair a '58 SEOM/Velocitized insert, and this club needed both. It won't be my prettiest club, but it was a blast to tear it down and build it back up. 

[LeftyMac]

Stephen,

 

Curious about how you managed the Velocitized insert repair.  I have one coming up.......

[Stephen8802]

These are '58s, so they are both Velocitized and have the Super Eye O Matic notch. The driver was a mess and needed to be fixed to be playable, so I pulled that insert and getting it out was a bear. It would be a lot easier on a later Velocitized without the notch. I learned a lot, made some mistakes, but eventually got it out in one piece.

 

I read through the Carl Paul and Maltby books and searched the internet, and the best I could come up with was cut it out. It looks like there used to be a tool you could buy, but that is long gone, so I made a tool by cutting a putty knife to the right width with an angle grinder then sharpening the edge with a bench grinder. I then hammered it through the back of the dowels. I cleaned up the inside the best I could, filled the scrape marks with epoxy, then filed everything smooth. Be careful when you clean up the inside, I got a little sloppy and filed a bit on the top, so I have some unforced issues behind the insert. Not critical, but not perfect looking either.

 

I'm sure there is a better way than what I did and I'll be looking for it before I get to my next set, but the brute force method worked. Since those dowels are so deep into the wood, I don't think I'll pull out any inserts that are in good shape and tight. The 2 wood of this set looks like it hasn't seen a lot of play, so I left that insert intact. I'll hit the snot out of that as soon as the poly dries to see if it holds up.

 

Part of the white insert was missing on the driver, luckily just on the side of one of the small dowels, so I filled that with Hardman epoxy that I dyed white. I picked up the dye on Amazon, blocked off the hole with mordite, poured in the epoxy and filed it down when it dried. That part was perfect and pretty easy, you wouldn't see it unless you were looking for it. The persimmon patch is more obvious, but I used a mid 60's keyhole 4 wood for the patch, so the wood is different. I have some really nice donor clubs with more contemporaneous wood, but this was practice so I used the less rare head. (I picked up that 4 wood at a Goodwill for the shaft, which is currently in the M 75 four wood in my bag).

 

I have two sets of '58 woods in original condition that need to be refinished, a set of TP1Ws and a set of BT2Ws, so it was worth the $14 I paid for the these to learn on. They aren't perfect, but they will be playable. They got a coat of grain filler today and I hope to get them a first dip of poly tomorrow.

 

I think I might pick up one more practice club before I tackle the good sets next year; it really is a unique and frightening experience to hammer a shiv through the back of those dowels.  The good news is that I have so many great clubs, even if I screw up on of these it won't be the end of the world.

[LeftyMac]

Thank you.  I have just finished a SEOM 3 wood. Fortunately the insert was good and the head had been stripped before I got it so was just a matter of attaching the soleplate, stain, filler and poly.  It was part of a lot I got from David Bass, a dozen or so magnificently finished and about a dozen in various states from sanded and ready to go to head only with some work need on the insert and soleplate.  One has what I think is David's version of the velocitized insert with one of the small red insert pieces missing so I have to try and cut a piece to fit (tricky with the dowel hole required as well) or start again with a different insert.

 

I am very jealous of your access to Goodwills, sadly anything similar in Australia is definitely not going to have old Macgregors in them, so sourcing era appropriate replacement shafts is near impossible. 

[Stephen8802]

I thought about cutting some new fiber, but didn't think I could get it right. Filling it with colored epoxy worked well for me. In these two pictures of the work in process, you can see what I did. The first picture was after I glued in the persimmon patch but before the insert fill. Next to the right dowel, you can see the missing chunk.

 

The second picture shows it after the fill. There is a coating of clear nail polish over the face, but you can see the fill clearly, it is slightly more white and bleeds just a hair. I'll strip the nail polish and do a final clean up on the face before I dip.

 

 

 

[LeftyMac]

That is a really nice job with the epoxy fill.  

[Rieflin]

On 9/1/2020 at 5:33 AM, KRW59 said:

I was just wondering....is the straight grain pattern running away from the face, more or less desirable,  than the circular pattern that gets tighter towards the toe. And given the choice of this Sounder and a mid 50's MT M85W in rough , but solid and still playable condition, which one would you have chosen??

I have a book by Elmore Just, the founder of Louisville Golf, called The Persimmon Story. In the book, he discusses the harvesting of persimmon to use in golf clubs. He says that, in terms of density, hardness, durability etc. there is no difference between a block of persimmon with straight grain, angled grain, or the "horse-shoe" shaped grain. It's purely a cosmetic or aesthetic difference, and the "horse-shoe" shaped grain has acquired a reputation as being more desirable. In practical terms, though, it makes no difference to the club's performance or longevity.

 

Beautiful club you have there, KRW59!

[Stephen8802]

9 hours ago, Rieflin said:

I have a book by Elmore Just, the founder of Louisville Golf, called The Persimmon Story...

I've been looking for a copy of that book but I can't find one in the on line used book stories. For  reasonably rare out of print book, I'm not surprised. I'm sure eventually one will pop up somewhere.

 

If you ever got the urge to make a PDF of the book, I bet there are some folks here who would enjoy reading it.

[Rieflin]

I'm a bit technologically challenged - I don't have a scanner and I still play persimmon & blades! I wouldn't have a clue how to make a pdf from a hard copy book, but I'll do some research and see what I can come up with. 

[JShaw]

On 9/1/2020 at 7:35 AM, KRW59 said:

Bill Welch , after college he partnered up with Leon Fawcett and they went to Tx.

One of his favorite stories is how they hustled Trevino and Chi Chi out of some money during a practice round....After 2 or 3 years, he returned to Missouri to run the family course until he passed about 5 years ago...The clubs are now in a long forgotten club house storage room, along with many other vintage gems..

 

 

I'm from SW Missouri and have met Mr. Fawcett, not Bill, but have met Scott Welch.  Both very nice men.  Leon Fawcett had quite a collection of clubs and stories for days.  Do you know what ever happened to his prototype Ping irons and the driver he got from Ben Hogan?

[KRW59]

1 hour ago, JShaw said:

I'm from SW Missouri and have met Mr. Fawcett, not Bill, but have met Scott Welch.  Both very nice men.  Leon Fawcett had quite a collection of clubs and stories for days.  Do you know what ever happened to his prototype Ping irons and the driver he got from Ben Hogan?

My guess his grandson Trey might have them , or know where the collection is......he was left the driving range when Leon passed...

I have his phone# somewhere ....

.....small world.... If you met Scott , you have probably seen my house..

It sits on the hill between the 1st tee and the practice green.......

[JShaw]

15 minutes ago, KRW59 said:

My guess his grandson Trey might have them , or know where the collection is......he was left the driving range when Leon passed...

I have his phone# somewhere ....

.....small world.... If you met Scott , you have probably seen my house..

It sits on the hill between the 1st tee and the practice green.......

Yep, I've been by your house many times.  Not in a few years though.  I've been closer to it and the practice green than I'd like off #9 tee on more than 1 occasion.

[ChipNRun]

On 8/31/2020 at 9:31 PM, KRW59 said:

It was most likely played by my mentor  during his Professional ( Texas Tour) days. Also there was a set of MT flat back irons with ceramic insert faces (1945?)

Sounder woods and MacGregor MT irons... curious mix.

 

In 1974, the golf pro where I once caddied sold me a set of 1971 MacGregor MT flatsole forged blades (no ceramics).

 

The following year, I bought a Sounder 3W and 4W from a Marine base golf pro. I remember the green grips with golf lettering. The heads were very small for fairway woods, and could chop a ball out of the rough or off of bushy fairway quite well. Sounder supposedly was a semi-custom outfit from Florida. Details, anyone?

 

5W to left has same sole as my Sounders.

 

Key aspect of Sounder woods: heads were fastened to shaft with a locking pin; the hosel wrap was largely cosmetic.

 

Traded in the Sounders for MT woods circa 1982.

 

Note: Wishon has piece on Sounder and MOI attempts. Seve Ballesteros supposedly played Sounder clubs when he first played the tour.