Curious about the transition period at the end of the persimmon era

[DoughBack18]

I am probably one of the youngin’s in this section at a mere 37, but was hoping some of the seasoned vets on here could help my learn a little bit!

 

My question or curiousity is about the era when persimmon was starting to fade. Was the transition at that time directly from persimmon to metal, or was there a timeframe when carbon or graphite composites were the bridge in that gap? 
 

I’ve seen clubs that appear to be from that time, some of the old Yonex’s and even like a Spalding Executive that are a carbon type material, and I wasn’t sure if there was a time when this was a popular technology. 

 

Thank you and hope you make lots of birdies!

 

 

[Wham49]

NO EXPERT AS i AM YOUNG IN MY 40'S AS WELL. lol

 

it seems that they have lamenants first which is like the 60's-late 80's like the Ping Eye 2's  Wilsons have good lams as well, which at first I did not know the difference they look like persimmon. I have some early 90's mizuno and I've seen titelist as well which are graphice/coomposites, But I think that was the same time as the fitst metals, like the TM pittsburgh Persimmons

[twidener]

Wilson was the pioneer of laminated maple heads. They began selling them in 1941 and called them Strata-Bloc woods. There was some glue problems but by the early 60's that was solved. I remember playing with Wilson woods in the 60's and the laminated heads held up really well compared to persimmon. Some staff players on tour would use a persimmon driver and laminated fairway woods. If you wanted a Wilson persimmon driver or fairway woods in the 60' or 70's that was like a special order. Same with the Hogan company. You could get persimmon but they didn't really market them in their catalogs. I do remember the composites in the early 80's and mid 80's. I was playing persimmon woods at the time and a friend had purchased a Daiwa composite driver. I hit it once and that was enough...felt horrible compared to my persimmon. I played persimmon into the 90's and still it them every now and then. 

[Foozle]

1 hour ago, Wham49 said:

NO EXPERT AS i AM YOUNG IN MY 40'S AS WELL. lol

 

it seems that they have lamenants first which is like the 60's-late 80's like the Ping Eye 2's  Wilsons have good lams as well, which at first I did not know the difference they look like persimmon. I have some early 90's mizuno and I've seen titelist as well which are graphice/coomposites, But I think that was the same time as the fitst metals, like the TM pittsburgh Persimmons

As Twidener has explained, laminate and persimmon ran in parallel for many years, there was no transition there.

The wood to metal transition  took place over an extended timeframe of probably 20 years from the first mass produced metals (there were earlier examples) in the late '70's to the last playing of persimmon in professional golf in 1997. Metal really began to gain traction in the late '80's / early '90's but it was the use of lighter metals such as titanium which allowed larger more forgiving heads, longer shafts and greater clubhead speed in the mid '90's that put the final nail in the wood / persimmon coffin.

During that lengthy transition period, graphite and other composite head materials appeared but, certainly here in the UK, were more experimental curios than mainstream equipment.

[Wham49]

1 hour ago, Foozle said:

As Twidener has explained, laminate and persimmon ran in parallel for many years, there was no transition there.

The wood to metal transition  took place over an extended timeframe of probably 20 years from the first mass produced metals (there were earlier examples) in the late '70's to the last playing of persimmon in professional golf in 1997. Metal really began to gain traction in the late '80's / early '90's but it was the use of lighter metals such as titanium which allowed larger more forgiving heads, longer shafts and greater clubhead speed in the mid '90's that put the final nail in the wood / persimmon coffin.

During that lengthy transition period, graphite and other composite head materials appeared but, certainly here in the UK, were more experimental curios than mainstream equipment.

like i said no expert, but like the info

[WilliePPQ]

My recollection is that wood clubheads (either solid or laminate) were still much preferred over any oddities such as plastic or other composites prior to large scale metal head adoption. Feel was the issue and I can testify to my own disgust when I traded a beloved Wilson driver for a "new" Shakespeare laminate head with fiberglass shaft. Absolute junk and it was only later that I learned that Mr. Player was swinging steel shafts painted black at times! 1st metal head experince was with Callaway Big Bertha steel / graphite shaft and it took a while to adjust. As Foozle stated, Titanium was the change agent as the Great Big Bertha was a monster driver at the time. Any kind of "plastic" head  was strictly a curiosity and I don't reall ANY serious player using them.  Laminated woods hung on for a long time because of feel and familiarity but once the Ti bug bit, it bit hard! Remember also that pace of these changes was a LOT less dramatic than today, these changes occurrring over a period of several years if not decades. Thanks for allowing me some happy memories on this subject!

[NRJyzr]

I'm old enough to have seen the transition, but did not start playing golf until the titanium age.  What I've noticed....

 

Graphite was definitely not a bridge material.  Clubheads were transitioning from wood, either persimmon or laminate, to metal woods.  Graphite came a bit later during the 80s, and didn't last especially long, aside from perhaps Yonex.

 

Some pros moved to metal woods right away, while there were some rather obvious examples of those who stuck with persimmon, in some cases (DL3 & Justin Leonard) for quite a while.

 

[kenoli22]

I think around 1989 I had a Yonex ADX driver that was amazing.  I still miss that feel and sound.  Also a year or two before that I had a Daiwa 5-wood that I don't recall being all that great.  Definitely wasn't a bridge to metal though.

[raggal62]

I vividly recall the sea change that was happening in golf equipment in the eighties. The transition from wood to metal was a shock to the system for many a golfer. Such a drastic change was almost traumatizing for certain individuals. 

[DoughBack18]

Thank you all for the info! When I really was getting into golf the Burner 2 and the Callaway Great Big Bertha were just being introduced, so I had no interaction with those older clubs aside from what was in my dad’s golf bag. Guess i’ve had it pretty easy in the equipment department relatively speaking!!

[SteelieD]

I started in the mid 80s playing Wilson laminates. Played with them through college in the late 80s/very early 90s at which time my buddies would tease me that my “woods” were made of *gasp*… WOOD. 

 

When I graduated one of my first big purchases was the original Callaway Big Bertha when it was released in 1991. Then a Cobra titanium in ‘94/‘95 I believe. I still have those two clubs.
 

About 100 drivers since then. 🤣

Edited November 22, 2022 by SteelieD

[rgk5]

The transition began with the original T.Made "Pittsburgh Persimmon" metal woods, circa 1983-84.  When I played in the Oklahoma Open in 1983 at least half the field had switched to metal woods, the greatest majority being T. Made with PGA and Northwestern also making appearances. By the early 1990s all the major OEMs had metal and some also offered composite heads with Daiwa, Yamaha amd Yonex being most prevalent.

 

D. Love III was one of the last to switch.  I happened to acquire the last Cleveland TC15 persimmon driver made for him around 1995 and sold it some months later to  a desperate D. Love III fan. 🤣

[NRJyzr]

DL3 was indeed the last holdout.  Interestingly, he's not the last user in a Tour event, that being Bob Estes, I believe.  He was using a Louisville Smart Driver in 2001 or 2002.

 

Hence the Smart Pro B.E. model that was sold for a time at Louisville Golf (may still be?).

 

[llewol007]

Carbon or graphite was not the bridge. It was steel. After that it became Steel heads with steel shafts then Steel heads with graphite shafts. Only after Titanium did the head start to explode in size. At that point many more manufacturers started incorporating Titanium with other things like composite since the weight was not going to be affected too much. Steel was too heavy at the time where you couldn’t add too much to it. There was only a time with liquid metal but that never panned out. Back when I was working at our local Golf shop, customers were still able to send off their persimmon woods to be rewound. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by llewol007

[Nard_S]

Taylormade spear headed metals back in mid to late 80's. Many followed but they were the best. Ping was very good at the laminates in this time too. From late 80's to mid 90's all steel metals (shafts & heads) were the rage. The Big Bertha Ti was big change but not as big a game changer as low spin tech brought about in early 2k's. Guys were still competing with wood & steel against Ti until that came along. From there on game over.

[Bigarch]

Just to echo what others have said.  Persimmon and laminates hung around for quite awhile.  Taylormade came along in 1979.  Jim Simonds won the Crosby at Pebble in 1982 for the metal wood's first PGA Tour Win.  Lee Trevino was the first player to win a major with a metal driver in 1984 and then everyone realized it was here to stay.  I would say by 1985/86 close to 50% of good amateurs and pros had started to switch to metal.  If I remember right, Jose Maria Olazabal was the first guy to win the Masters with a metal driver and that was in 1994!  So 10 years after Trevino, you still had a lot of persimmon players out there, but 10 more years, the wood driver was completely extinct on tour.

 

Most of the early metal woods used the traditional steel shafts of that time.  You have to remember that a LOT of the early graphite shafts where just terrible.  The first one I remember that was really good and that everyone wanted, was the Mizuno MST with the "Exsar Gold" shaft in it.  That was maybe in 88-89 and that really started the trend to some more exotic and better stuff.  I had a Daiwa Advisor driver with a thru bore graphite shaft at that time that I really liked because the head looked more traditional and pear shaped.  A lot of the early metal woods looked really hook-faced to me.  During that same time period, you had some companies like Yonex that started using composite materials but really none of them were very good that I remember.

[The Aspidistra in the Hall]

Couple of things come to mind about alternatives to persimmon.

Spalding Topflite woods during the mid 1960s used 'Terpolymite', their front line clubs.

Diawa and Wilson used compressed graphite in the mid 80s including a version of the Whale.

Jack Steer of Blackpool pioneered the use of laminated wood in the late 1930s, I have 2 examples, some time before Wilson got in on the act.

[Bigarch]

I'll add one other thing about why laminates were so popular... they were a lot easier to fix the face if you beat up the toe or the heel.  You could just get a small coping saw and cut out the beat up area and then replace it more easily with a new piece of wood, or simply fill it in with epoxy... and then refinish it.  Persimmon was a lot tougher and it took a real artist to graft in a new piece on the face.

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

I think there were two reasons why graphite clubs never caught on. One, as mentioned, was feel. The other was cost. From what I remember, graphite heads cost considerably more than laminates, as possibly more than persimmons. I actually bought a Yonex (IIRC) graphite 3w secondhand and used it for a few years as a beginner before it broke. I quite liked it, but I remember I was able to buy it pretty cheaply because the original owner had soon traded it in because he didn't like the feel, and the pro wanted to get rid of it!

I don't recall it being any more forgiving than a normal wood, but one advantage it had was that it was easy to maintain--just wipe off after playing.

 

Also, with regards to graphite shafts versus steel shafts, graphite shafts certainly took off among Juniors, especially in metal drivers, but not so much in metal fairways, possibly because of cost. I was a bit of an oddity because I had a graphite-shafted TM Burner Plus (Tour Gold shaft) with steel-shafted persimmon fairways (Maxfli Australian Blade woods. Possibly quite rare?). Most of the other Juniors I competed against had metalwoods in their fairways, though a few still clung on to a trusty laminated 3 or 5 wood.

 

Ping laminates were also popular. The rich blokes at our club almost always had a full set of EYE2s--irons and woods--in a white Ping Staff bag on an early model electric cart. In fact, I still have a memory in my mind's eye of the club captain around 1989-90 walking on the course with his Pringle sweater, puffing on his pipe, while a couple of feet ahead of him trundled his electric cart loaded with his white Ping staff bag full of EYE2s.

 

One final thing, Honma were early producers of carbon shafts. I think they marketed their first ones in 1973, and the Japanese were early adopters of carbon shafts in persimmon woods--at least they appear to be from the amount I've seen come up for auction. Just over half of my Japanese persimmon clubs have carbon shafts, and if I take the fairways out of the equation, almost all my Japanese persimmon drivers have carbon shafts. Steel-shafted Honma drivers are far rarer than carbon shafted ones, though I will say that their Hagane steel shafts are pretty good.

[elwhippy]

British Open. 1980. TM woods with Aldila shafts. My Wilson Staff loving father looked at them and to quote "they are hideous son and will never replace the feel of a quality wood (he used 4300 Staffs from 1970 and FG17s). I fear his prediction was incorrect. Our club used to hold Pro Ams in between the Scottish Open and Benson & Hedges and attracted David Feherty, Dale Hayes, Radar Riley and a host of other touring pros. Persimmon was still the boss well into the late 80s. TM and Mizuno metal woods crept into the fairway wood slots but I caddied three years in a row and one player had a vintage MacGregor, another was Ping through the bag and the third had a custom Mizuno persimmon. I think the move to metal really took off when graphite shafts improved, and metal heads got nearer 300cc. Callaway GBB was massive on the European Tour and so was the ERC and ERC2. 

[NRJyzr]

I've always assumed it was the Big Bertha that really prompted the exodus to metal.  In displacement terms, it wasn't all that large (190cc?  200?), but it was considerably longer from heel to toe, which provided some extra forgiveness on lateral mishits.

 

I can only rely on the brethren who were playing at the time, if that feeling has any merit.  🙂

 

Not really related...  I've always found it interesting that it was the component industry and the foundries that were responsible for drivers going to 400cc and beyond.  The OEMs took them to just over 300cc and seemed hesitant to go higher, until 400 was obviously possible...

 

[Pastit]

20 minutes ago, NRJyzr said:

I've always assumed it was the Big Bertha that really prompted the exodus to metal.  In displacement terms, it wasn't all that large (190cc?  200?), but it was considerably longer from heel to toe, which provided some extra forgiveness on lateral mishits.

 

I can only rely on the brethren who were playing at the time, if that feeling has any merit.  🙂

 

Not really related...  I've always found it interesting that it was the component industry and the foundries that were responsible for drivers going to 400cc and beyond.  The OEMs took them to just over 300cc and seemed hesitant to go higher, until 400 was obviously possible...

 

The poster above is correct IMO. TM was in early on but did not perform better than Persimmon for me. Olazabal was probably the last to give up the latter which is surprising since he couldn’t keep the ball on the planet with his driver. 
 

I didn’t change until just prior to the trampoline effect came in, and only when forced to by my competitors in matchplay switching over. I don’t think graphite was the issue.

[Nard_S]

28 minutes ago, NRJyzr said:

I've always assumed it was the Big Bertha that really prompted the exodus to metal.  In displacement terms, it wasn't all that large (190cc?  200?), but it was considerably longer from heel to toe, which provided some extra forgiveness on lateral mishits.

 

I can only rely on the brethren who were playing at the time, if that feeling has any merit.  🙂

No it really did not drive the move to metal but it did drive the move to big Ti. The GBB Ti was a smash hit. It's predecessors were popular but not really transformational.  The original S2H2 was a success but frankly speaking it was garbage. I owned one. TM and others were better. 

[chipa]

I started playing in '95 when pros were still using persimmon drivers. I believe the large Big Berthas's coming out at that time made a difference as they were considerably larger than the persimmons.

 

Also, John Daly had been using composite drivers for years and led the tour in driving distance for quiete  few years.

 

Tiger Woods came out on tour in 1996 and he was almost as long as Daly but straigher of course, that was probably the nail in the coffin.

[dcopp7]

16 hours ago, chipa said:

I started playing in '95 when pros were still using persimmon drivers. I believe the large Big Berthas's coming out at that time made a difference as they were considerably larger than the persimmons.

 

Also, John Daly had been using composite drivers for years and led the tour in driving distance for quiete  few years.

 

Tiger Woods came out on tour in 1996 and he was almost as long as Daly but straigher of course, that was probably the nail in the coffin.

What composite did Daly use?  

 

El Tigre used a Cobra deep face steel head.  "DEEP FACE" is a lol as that club surely did not have a deep face at all.  

 

I'm curious what steel heads guys used.  I know Jack used a steel Muirfield 20th as his fist steel head under MacG.  Freddy had his Lynx Boom Boom.  What was Faldo's first metal head?  What about Norman?

[NRJyzr]

9 minutes ago, dcopp7 said:

What composite did Daly use?  

 

El Tigre used a Cobra deep face steel head.  "DEEP FACE" is a lol as that club surely did not have a deep face at all.  

 

I'm curious what steel heads guys used.  I know Jack used a steel Muirfield 20th as his fist steel head under MacG.  Freddy had his Lynx Boom Boom.  What was Faldo's first metal head?  What about Norman?

 

Brief tangent...

 

I picked up a Cobra Deep Face a year or two ago.  Shafted it with an NV75 at 43.5", hit it on the range, but had never taken it to the course until my last round of the year.

 

It's actually still a pretty viable tee club.  It was hard to get a real feel for the distance because of the wind I was playing in that day, but I was hitting some good shots with it.  Something to have fun with.  🙂

 

Here endeth the tangent...

 

[chipa]

2 hours ago, dcopp7 said:

What composite did Daly use?  

 

El Tigre used a Cobra deep face steel head.  "DEEP FACE" is a lol as that club surely did not have a deep face at all.  

 

I'm curious what steel heads guys used.  I know Jack used a steel Muirfield 20th as his fist steel head under MacG.  Freddy had his Lynx Boom Boom.  What was Faldo's first metal head?  What about Norman?

Daly's 1991 PGA driver

 

https://www.pga.com/archive/news/golf-buzz/john-dalys-1991-pga-championship-driver-sale

 

I'm not sure about Faldo I think he played Callaway. Norman played Cobra in the mid 90's.

[bcstones]

2 hours ago, dcopp7 said:

What composite did Daly use?  

 

In '90 Cobra made their Ultramid driver for Daly....some claimed it was kevlar, but from what I understand it was lexan. Daly used the Jumbo Ultramid successfully in '91...however I was watching a Wonderful World of Golf from '95, Daly was using a different driver. Perhaps he "wore" it out

[NRJyzr]

1 hour ago, bcstones said:

In '90 Cobra made their Ultramid driver for Daly....some claimed it was kevlar, but from what I understand it was lexan. Daly used the Jumbo Ultramid successfully in '91...however I was watching a Wonderful World of Golf from '95, Daly was using a different driver. Perhaps he "wore" it out

 

I'm sure $$$ played no part in his decision   

 

🤔

 

[Nard_S]

5 hours ago, dcopp7 said:

What was Faldo's first metal head?  What about Norman?

Norman played King Cobra driver and Maruman Conductor Pro or Professional J's metals.  Faldo was persimmon for quite some time but then at some point did use Mizuno T-zoid.

 

The King Cobra's still rock. have the #5W in bag.