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How An Advisory Staff Works As A Testing Laboratory By MIKE BEHRENDT Supt., Golf Club Department, Wilson Sporting Goods Co. ROUND this time of the year manu- ers are primarily responsive to the sales AL facturers' salesmen get their first appeal of a club that simply feels good. views of the clubs that will be in the 1956 They can't define the sensation of playing lines. Then, a few weeks later the new with a club that feels so well they have clubs will be presented for the inspection confidence in every shot they play with of the club professionals whose approval that club. And we know that Sam Snead of the lines and orders is the expert O.K. who has an acute sense of feel can't de- of a long, expensive and thoroughly care- scribe exactly the feeling of handling and ful program of development. playing with a club that feels exactly The program, as we see it, almost in- right to him, or a ball that feels perfect variably starts with the home club pro- when he hits it. But his keen feel will fessionals. Their intimate experience with discover merits—or the need of correc- the problems of teaching and supplying tions—in equipment that he is testing. clubs to improve the games of their cus- Sam pays no attention to swingweight. tomers yields observations and ideas that How the club feels is what interests him. our salesmen eagerly receive and pass And as clubs are sold to and used by hu- along to the factory. mans rather than scales the human ele- Then we at the factory take the next ment is paramount in the experimental steps in weighing the suggestions. In that work. The club pro knows that a driver procedure our professional advisory staff can be 12 oz. and a brassie 14 oz. and (of stars) practically becomes the expert have the same or different swingweights. field testing force of the club professionals. The home club pro also knows that mov- The advisory staff players are special- ing the hands an eighth of an inch on ists whose earning power depends to a the grip will account for a difference of great extent on their equipment. a point in swingweight. There are big differences in aptitude, So the home club pro who has long and physique and opportunities for practice successful experience in fitting clubs real- and play between the advisory staff mem- izes the limitations of mechanics and the bers and the great multitude of men and necessity of the human element in very women golfers whose satisfied buying important phases of the experimental and keeps the makers of good clubs and testing work done by staff playing ex- the pros who sell those clubs prospering perts. and progressing. But the stars and the Cary Middlecoff is another with re- other golfers are alike in one respect: markably sensitive feel but along with They all want clubs and balls that make that quality he has an investigative and it easier to play good golf. analytical nature. He is technically- And at that point the advisory staff minded and wants to know the "why" of becomes our experimental laboratory. everything. "Doc" will come into the plant and ask questions of men working on Stars Differ As Do Members each detail of a club. His professional The variations in the physical and tem- background in dentistry possibly accounts peramental make-ups of the playing stars for his attitude of wanting to know are about as broad on their high playing clearly the reason behind the work. level as the differences between the types Betsy Rawls, like Middlecoff, is tremen- of members the club pro serves. When dously interested in the technicalities. we can get club design and construction, Babe Zaharias and Patty Berg are more or ball construction and performance that the Snead type in appraising design and please the exacting experts we know we've construction. Sam, Babe and Patty look at got something to help the club pro and clubs like Ted Williams looks at a baseball his equipment buyers. bat; as something made by one genius for Some of the club professionals' custom- another genius to use. But, being exceed- ingly practical people, Sam, Babe and Patty and the increase in fairway watering are want to know what has to be done to adapt factors that get a lot of consideration. equipment to the use of those who are not Refinements that promote easier, more ef- geniuses. fective use of the clubs, make them look Every Golfer's Game Is First better and which will fit into the manu- Naturally an advisory staff member is facturing picture and the pros' and manu- interested in his or her own game first. facturers' inventory requirements are be- ing sought constantly. What golfer isn't? But in discovering what works well for them they are re- The advisory staff, through the study minded of problems common to most golf- of its individual conditions and explora- ers. Gene Sarazen in searching for the tions among the club professionals who answer to his own grip problem found the are in the front line of teaching and sell- answer for himself and many more golfers ing, qualifies itself as a research and test- ing force. Its value to the manufacturer in the "Reminder" grip. is based on what the staff can do to help The tournament professional who turns the club pro and those who buy clubs and home club pro is a valuable adviser in balls from the club pro. clubmaking and on golf balls. With bench clubmaking now virtually extinct as train- ing in club fitting, the younger pros sub- Jaycees Plan US Tour for stitute their own playing problems and Scotch Boys' Team experience as groundwork for fitting clubs ERRY Brennan, sports director of the to their members. J US Junior Chamber of Commerce, is Club Pros' Viewpoint planning the U. S. trip of the Scotch Jim Ferrier and Skip Alexander are two team of six boys who will be in the U. S. who are especially scholarly in this mid- from Sept. 20 thru Sept. 28. dle spot, and take the home club pros' Officials of New York Metropolitan, viewpoint in trying to get clubs to fit the Washington and Chicago District golf as- big market. Skip comes into the factory sociations, the USGA, Life magazine and and works around so much as a student the National Golf Fund are cooperating and teammate of the clubmakers they've enthusiasticaly with Brennan to show the given him a dummy timecard. visiting lads a grand time and return the Ferrier applies his wealth of experi- courtesies generously extended when a ence to trying to figure out what will U. S. junior team visited Scotland last make good golf easier for his members year. whose scores now are as important to Jim Matches will be played in New York, as his own tournament scores used to be Washington and Chicago. George S. May to him. Jim came up with a very helpful has offered his Tam O'Shanter for the idea about the design of the leading edge Chicago matches. on pitching clubs that would be effective Sam Bunton and John Stiratt will es- in sandy soil. He and Dutch Harrison, cort the Scotch junior team. among the older staff members, figured The U. S. team will consist of one boy prominently in getting the shafts of the from the Jaycee junior, one from the 7-, 8-, and 9-irons a bit softer and lighter USGA junior and one from the Western Golf Assn. junior championships and three so there'd be more feel in these clubs. juniors from each area in which the Harrison played a lot of his best golf matches are to be played. in the period before he retired as a steady hand on the tournament circuit to become a club pro, and I suspect it was because Bonavita Heads Virginia he went to softer shafts in his clubs. The Tidewater Turf Group strongest trend in clubmaking the past Mike Bonavita, Franklin, Va., was few years has been to get shafts to do elected pres., Virginia Tidewater Turf- more work in putting zing into the shot. grass Assn. at the organization's annual The strong young bucks, fellows such as meeting, held at the Little Creek (Va.) Fred Hawkins, Earl Stewart and Skee Amphibious Base course. Riegel, have favored poker-stiff shafts but Harry McSloy of Oceana, Va., was when they got on club jobs and had to named honorary pres. Other officers worry about their members' games they elected: VP Hurley Savage, Warwick, Va.; began taking an intense interest in shaft Sec.-treas. Wes Barham, Planters' Chemi- research. cal Co.; and directors Russ Jernigan of i Clubhead design fluctuates. The woods Little Creek, John T. Kelley of Norfolk, have more loft to them than they used to Fred Sappenfield of Portsmouth and Fred have. The improvement in golf course turf Bingham of Ocean View. .

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