Category: Club Making
Making your own clubs is both a good way to save money and to have fun. Despite the naysayers out there, there are a wide variety of top quality golf components out there, including products from GolfSmith, Snake Eyes, Ralph Maltby's Golfworks, and Tom Wishon golf. With care and forethought, golf hobbyists can produce clubs that are easily the match of the big boys at a fourth of the cost. This section is dedicated to posts on clubmaking, fitting and repair.
KZG Golf’s Gemini Driver
I've been making and repairing golf clubs longer than I've been playing. I got started when a golfer friend of mine brought me a club and asked if I could replace the broken shaft (I have a reputation as a handy guy). No problem.
Since then, I've built every club I've played. Most have come from Golfsmith or Golfworks. But other companies offerings are always tempting me.
One is KZG golf. I've not actually tried them because they only sell through their dealer network, but their products are interesting.
One new product is the dual-faced Gemini Driver. What makes it so interesting is that it features a second face plate behind the forged and heat-treated titanium face which the manufacturer claims adds greater stability and rigidity, and creates a huge sweet spot.
Golfworks’ Club Shield
Removing a shaft from a golf club heads involves applying a lot of heat to break the epoxy bond. Unfortunately, the same heat often can damage the club head -- particularly metal woods. Now, Golfworks has developed a product to protect your clubheads from the heat. Golfworks writes:
The Club Shield is a safe, non-toxic spray gel that insulates and safeguards vital parts of a golf club during repairs and/or shaft removal when application of heat is required. The heat-resistant gel helps to preserve and protect painted finishes on metal woods, ferrules, graphite shaft finishes, putter inserts and/or any item that might be damaged by heat, and then is easily wiped away after the job is done.
"Almost every clubmaker has at some time experienced the frustration of accidentally damaging a painted metalwood or graphite shaft finish when applying heat during a club repair," says Britt Lindsey, vice president of technical services for The GolfWorks. "The Club Shield is an all-new, inexpensive method to safely help protect key areas of the club when it's necessary to apply heat for a particular repair or shaft replacement. We're very excited to be able to offer this to clubmakers. It's a completely new approach to safeguarding vital parts of the club during the repair process." The GolfWorks new Club Shield is available in 16-ounce spray-applicator bottles for $14.95. For more information on the Club Shield, call The GolfWorks at 800-848-8358.
Free Clubmaking Videos Online
Dynacraft, one of the major component clubmaking companies has a series of free instructional videos online. They're free for the downloading, but you're going to need the Windows Media Player to watch them. There are videos on regripping, golf club assembly, cutting shafts to length, and finishing ferrules.
SMT Golf heads
I love to build clubs. SMT Golf boasts the longest clubheads in the business, having won the 2003 long drive championship.
Golf Club Metals
431 Stainless. 17-4 Stainless. Titanium. Zinc. HST aluminum.
What are your clubs made of? Does it matter? Here is a primer on the types of metals found in golf club heads.
