best persimmon woods before their demise?

[KevCarter]

Great thread. WOW, I didn't realize how many folks here have such great memories of the good old clubs!

Kevin

[stage1350]

I loved the old Hogan Apex and Tommy Armour persimmons. My favorite is still my 986 Tour deep face drivers. I have three of them and the faces are almost 2" deep. I'm debating shafting one up with DG SL to drop the total weight and see if it's playable at 45"

At the end of Persimmon, before Love III and Leonard finally switched to the Titleist 975 series (as did everyone else!) The Louisville, Wood Bros, Hogans, and Cleveland Classics were the bomb.

[eragon]

hi all

i have d+ 3 +5 in Titleist persimmon woods available in Australia

[BCD558]

[size="3"]MacGregor for me as well....

Not sure that I could part with these, but perhaps some pictures would whet your appeptite to find and then play the clubs I've tried to provide a context for size relative to a Staff FG 49 bladed sand iron, although the perspective may be a little off-putting. The amount of variation from club-to-club was always striking and even purportedly the same club would lie and look slightly differently (as you'd expect with a natural material), so trying to find one that looked good and was square was not guaranteed when buying through a conventional Pro Shops.

I still play the Mizuno 5 wood! I chose the Tourney driver and three from the MacGregor persimmon room outside Reading in 1990... In their day, these were hitting long: 270 yards carry for the driver and 250 for the three, so unsurprisingly I played these for several years to about 1996.[/size]

[BCD558]

[size="3"]I might however have a set of hickory-shafted persimmons from the 1930s... I need to do some rummaging. [/size]

['53 Precision]

Here is a set of persimmons from Howard Delaney Cincinnatti Golf, some of the prettiest in my stable...

[John L.]

[quote name='Naughty Mazz' timestamp='1219759443' post='1229183']
i want a 460 cc persimmon lol
[/quote]

They had some Jumbo heads back then. Nothing as huge as what we call normal today, but they were a lot of fun to hit. The weight port under the sole plate was huge to compensate for the club head overall weight.

[rex235]

One of my first posts with GolfWRX included photos of LH persimmons.



Some other collections will be available for viewing soon.

[mocokid]

Old Macs are #1, Toney Penna Co drivers best of modern persimmon. Cleveland gets honorable mention. H&B also excellent, right up there with TP.

[Maxwell]

[size=5]The "Professional Line" persimmon woods that are steel shafted and from the mid 30's to around 1953 is all I can share about and that has limitations to be sure. I'm sure there are some hickory shaft Men's R/H "Jack White" persimmon woods out there(or the like) that would easily fall into this category as well. [/size]
[size=5]Bella Woods some time ago wrote that air dried persimmon wood(2 years in duration) really ended around the late 30's and early 40's. Bella Woods will correct me if I have made a mistake on the," air drying period" but I think those years is what I remember BW writing. In my opinion upon reflection and relatively current experience, that air dried persimmon wood time period, appears to have produced some very good persimmon wood woods(Professional [/size][u][size=5]and [/size][/u][size=5]General[/size][size=5] lines[/size][size=5]). Some of the "Professional Line" persimmon woods from that period that I have worked on and collect are Mac's, Wilson's, HB's and Royal Scot's(Vancouver, Canada). That period persimmon wood,"can be" very hard with little or no soft wood, less prone to cracking and splitting and more solid over all on average. They just appear to have held up better over time. Less hosel and back screw cracks and a more solid hosel right up to the[u] top [/u]of the hosel. The MacGregor Tourney M43, M33 and M23 were manufactured starting around 1949 I believe. I can't help but wonder if the club heads used were remnants from the air dried( 2 year duration) period and from the Tennessee Valley area(pre-dams building period). These persimmon wood club heads were often times in,"pretty good condition" when I took a good look at them during a rebuild. Often times I saw no lead weight under the sole plates when working on M43 drivers as well. The grain lines also appear to be,"wider apart" on the club heads from this period. Some persimmon wood golfers feel that a,"tighter grain line width pattern appearance" is an indication of a more solid persimmon wood club head.[/size][size=5] They may be right. [/size][size=5]Cleveland RC85's are one example of tighter grain line widths I have noticed. A beautiful looking persimmon wood club head. I have a couple. [/size]
[size=5]I prefer the wider grain line width or separation appearance on the persimmon wood club heads. Wider the better. It just looks more solid to me. I,m sure, some of the more experienced and knowledgeable persimmon wood restoration people here at GolfWRX could add more on,"grain line width" and it's significance. Maybe there is little or no significance in grain line width at all. [/size][color=#008000][size=5]Maybe Charlie P. has some knowledge and experience on this subject. [/size][/color][size=5]Mr. Kaplan's books are a great resource if one was trying to identify which persimmon woods one was interested in considering to purchase and play. In my opinion, there are lots of good persimmon woods,"still out there" to pick from. I suggest you visit garage sales, Thrift stores, Craig's List and the like. Educate yourself [/size][u]and then[/u][size=5] go looking. [/size]
[size=5]Max(Canada) [/size]

[Grumpydriver]

Spaulding Model 28 have some of the best persimmon and and have lead behind the face to create less spin and the ball jumps off the face good luck finding them most have been put in landfills long ago. mizuno"s drivers look nice I used Power built and macgregor's 30/40 years ago. I use my Spaulding's quit often. I'm 66 and can hit the ball around 240 yds. with my drivers the Spaulding's are more accurate with drives being line drives.

 

Spaulding Model 28 S shafts  and Titleist 910 driver and 3 wd stiff shafts

Hogan PC irons with  S300 120 gram shafts

fourteen wedges 50 & 56 deg