Wood Bros All Japan driver

[freddiec]

Check out this Wood Bros. All Japan Tribute driver. I just picked this one up recently and it showed up today. Its a beauty. Wood Bros also made an Australian, A Texan, one dedicated to the Country of Spain as well as an All American. Its got a Wood Bros Championship Balance Graphite shaft, should be a blast to play, can't wait to hit a few with it this fall.

[bchester6]

Beautiful!!!

[Bella Woods]

freddiec:

That is one beautiful looking driver, I love the colors.

Can we get some specs on it?.

[u][b]Edit[/b][/u]: I should say "Driving Instrument", not driver.

[RobotDoctor]

Very nice Fred!

[freddiec]

Hey Bella,
I agree, it is a stunning looking driving instrument. Wood Bros really had a nack for creating works of art. By the looks of it at address, I'd say it's got about 10 to 10.5 deg of loft, sits really square. It sets up perfect. I haven't measured it, but I think its right around 43.5 to 44 inches long. Its got a regular flex graphite shaft. The SW I would guess is around D2. Next time I'm with persimmonpal, I'm gonna weight it.

[persimmonpal]

Great pickup Freddie! Cant wait to see it!

[dalehead]

A beautiful example of the Wood Bros. work.

[freddiec]

Thanks for the comments.

Bella,
I measured the face today, its exactly 1 and 4/8ths (1.5 inches deep). The Standard Texan was 1 and 5/8th.

I included a pic of Wood Bros' drivers. The Australian was custom made for Steve Elkington and the Spanish driver was made for Seve.

[Troon pro]

I saw this one on ebay....I am glad you got it.....you got it a fair price. He had an All American too, but it looked like a custon paint job. Still was a nice club.

[freddiec]

Yeah. I saw the All American. Looks like the orig. shaft was pulled as well, no crew in the bore thru.., it was still a sweet club. The All American was created after George Shultz's (Sec. of State) daughter contacted WB and wanted a custom made persimmon driver for her Father. Dave Wood came up with the idea of having the US Map on the sole plate. Dan Quayle also had a bunch of those.

[Bella Woods]

[quote name='freddiec' timestamp='1283434294' post='2675308']
Thanks for the comments.

Bella,
I measured the face today, its exactly 1 and 4/8ths (1.5 inches deep). The Standard Texan was 1 and 5/8th.

I included a pic of Wood Bros' drivers. The Australian was custom made for Steve Elkington and the Spanish driver was made for Seve.
[/quote]

freddiec:

With a face height of 1 1/2 inches and a regular flex shaft, I bet you could hit that driver off the deck!

[dalehead]

Great pic freddiec. Thanks for sharing. I remember Hal Sutton had a Wood Bros. driver with a plug in the sole plate in the shape of the map of Louisiana. Don't know how many were made or if any made their way into other peoples hands.

[freddiec]

Hey Dale,
Yeah, Hal Sutton's Wood Bros had a ton of carbon deposits viseable in the wood, he called the club "Christine". He loved that club. I think Bob Tway had one with the State of Oklahoma. I remember seeing it once when he played up here in Boston in the 80s.

[Troon pro]

Man I like to have a Louisiana one.....if anyone ever comes across one let me know.

[profsmitty]

Dang Fred - you are the champ at finding beautiful "Wood" for the rest of us to drool over.

Nice snag.

[Nspiel58]

[url="http://japanese.about.com/library/media/audio/sjp9-3.mp3"][color="#3366cc"]Utsukushii[/color][/url]! - beautiful, in Japanese.

[Heavyhail]

I have a Texan I played while I was playing in College, I still have about 6-7 other Persimions too! 2-3 Peerless, and a Copola custom driver and 3 wood he made me in the early '90's...Damn those were great!!

Not the mail box on a stick we use today!!

[RobotDoctor]

[quote name='Heavyhail' timestamp='1285196439' post='2709292']
I have a Texan I played while I was playing in College, I still have about 6-7 other Persimions too! 2-3 Peerless, and a Copola custom driver and 3 wood he made me in the early '90's...Damn those were great!!

Not the mail box on a stick we use today!!
[/quote]

I have a Coppola custom driver as well. Mike went to Memphis and obtained some old growth persimmon back around 1991, or so. He was so happy he got those blocks and showed then to me. I had Mike make me a driver to my specs back then (9 degree loft, 10 degrees bulge and roll, 43 1/2 inches, X100 shaft). The driver is beautiful but I certainly cannot play with it today but it is beautiful.

[astamm8]

Can you guys share the back story on Coppola? I'm not familiar, but any time you get to work with the club maker and get your specs just right, it's gotta be good.

[RobotDoctor]

[quote name='astamm8' timestamp='1285354927' post='2712381']
Can you guys share the back story on Coppola? I'm not familiar, but any time you get to work with the club maker and get your specs just right, it's gotta be good.
[/quote]

Mike Coppola was a guy I used to use as my golf club repair/refurbish craftsman back in the early 90s. He lived in Wilmington, DE. He was fairly well known in the mid-Atlantic states and had a shop in his basement. He had many touring pros sending their woods to him to work on, as well as collectors from the area and throughout the east coast. Some of the touring pros were some not-so popular guys with names like Palmer, Trevino, Crenshaw, Floyd, Bean, and so on.

Mike apprenticed under Toney Penna back in his youth and worked for Titleist for a while. It seemed like several tour pros knew Mike and thought highly of his work. He had a tremendous M43 3-wood that had the darkest wood I have ever seen. Long story short, Greg Norman offered Mike $1,000 cash on the spot (in his shop) once for the 3-wood in the late 80s but Mike said no thank you. The point of this story is that Mike knew many on the PGA Tour and many of the stars of the day. Mike knew them because he was good at his craft. I always enjoyed visiting Mike in his shop, seeing all the terrific woods he had there that he was working on, and listening to his stories. I also like all the checks he had from the players that had purchased custom woods from Mike.

I hope that this sheds some light on Mike Coppola.

[astamm8]

Thanks for the info, that was interesting. It's a shame that guys like that are a dying breed. I love the stories of Norman willing to shell out extravagant amounts for great m43s. There's that story on here about Norman getting a great m43 off Dave Wood (probably very similar to yours Robot). And, I absolutely love my Wood Bros m43 and my actual m43 3 wood, so I see the attraction.

[freddiec]

Awesome story Sam, thanks for sharing that.

[persimmonpal]

Wow.. I would have loved to have been able to visit Mike in his shop.. Great story, Sam!

[Shivas22]

The Texan crushes all the others.

[freddiec]

Shivas, I agree. The Texan is my favorite. You can't beat the WBW Eye O Matic insert, State of Texas Plate and rich stain color. Just beautiful.

[olegolfer]

  Great looking " Instrument" .  Used to have a shop about   4-5 blocks away that was owned by a Korean guy.  Had a lot of nice

  stuff like that iin there that I have not seen elswhere e.g  Homna, Miura etc.  Got a few nice Honma persimmons from him. Used to 

  stop in there 3-4 times a week.  Unfortunately they closed down and moved back into the city, so that was the end of that.

[profsmitty]

[quote name='freddiec' timestamp='1285506131' post='2714497']
Shivas, I agree. The Texan is my favorite. You can't beat the WBW Eye O Matic insert, State of Texas Plate and rich stain color. Just beautiful.
[/quote]
When I see pictures like those in your post, Fred, or better yet, pull out my own Texan and feel the shear artistry it radiates, I realize how lucky we are to still be able to find and enjoy these wonderful works of craftsmanship before they pass into history. Wonderful, wonderful.

[freddiec]

Hey George,
Well said my friend. This has been an odd year for me, only getting out on the links probably 5 or 6 times, only 3 times with the old classics, but still enjoying it when I can. Just picked up a Wood Bros All American, so now i have a Wood Bros tri fecta, a Texan, an All Japan and now an AA. Will post some pics next week. If anybody out there has an Australian they could part with lets talk. LOL.