when were spalding executive golf clubs made when were spalding executive golf clubs made

The biggest of them all, however, may well have been the aforementioned Bobby Jones. jazzbone, September 4, 2006 in Equipment. Spalding Executive Left Handed Golf Clubs There are several different types of left-handed golf club sets, so which one is the best for you? Wright was the driving force behind Bostons Franklin Park golf course, the first municipal course in the U.S. Bostons other muni is named after Wright, who donated the land for the Donald Ross design. I played a set of Mags for years until I got to where I could not swing fast enough to bend the stiff shafts. The Spaulding Executive was just too far ahead of its timegreat club! The 1968 arrival of the Executive MV2 Bird Over Ball clubs are among some of Spalding's most easily recognizable clubs. Your link has been automatically embedded. No sir, they are in my bag and are still being used after all these years. Spalding, however, never dominated the pro game as Wilson and MacGregor did. when were spalding executive golf clubs madeoregon dpsst training calendar. With long-term debt in the neighborhood of $600 million, KKR found itself in a negative equity situation. Throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, Spalding and Titleist were running neck and neck in golf ball production. ), Takomo Golf Clubs Review: (As Good as Expected? Used to play traditional blades with the odd shank. It was the mold makers attempt to make at a hollow head, wooden shape club. Love them oldies. Now, like Henry Ford's assembly-line Model T's, Spalding craftsmen used a mechanical hammer to craft club-heads, drill sockets in them to attach the shaft and then polish the heads, all of which allowed Spalding to mass produce matching club sets. And Spaldings ace in the hole Strata was old news by the time the Pro V1 and Nike Tour Accuracy hit the scene. Steve Almo It wasnt long until Spaldings Executive golf clubs were launched, which were prevalent at all levels of the game. #14 - Spalding Executive Irons These were actually a pretty good iron for the time and I think Trevino had something to do with this designbut not sure. I still think there were others that deserved some consideration. Clear editor. With a few months of work and some radical design modifications it was turned into the first modern Metalwood. Might need to get a full set of Tiger Shark irons to match the wedge!! The greatest golfer at the time plays Spalding? My friends and I (and Im embarrassed to say this now! Heres a set of Slotline irons currently for sale on EBay, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330561978331&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT, some years ago-I bought a trial 7 iron thru golg digest-some years later a friend of mine bought a used set at a second hand storeany way I think it was made by simmons or slotline?? I tried to hit it oncenot a good idea! The Executives were the bomb back in the day. Yes. Brilliant writing! In 1910 Spalding started making fairway clubs made of aluminum, and heavier lead face putters. "publisher": { Great looking blade and the low COG really lets one hit it high. Too bad. Today its hard to fine a wooden golf club in a bag!!!! Over two million Bobby Jones sets were sold in America. "https://www.facebook.com/swingyard/", Spalding led the way with such deep-grooved designs as the "waterfall" and waffle-face irons. But unfortunately for the VASs they were dethroned from their long held position. I played a lot of Spaulding equipment as a kid in all kinds of sports. By 1970, the ownership group morphed into the Questor Corporation, and Pyramid Rubber was rechristened Evenflo. Read on to learn more about the history of Spalding clubs and what you can expect from various models. Acushnet has been sold twice since the 1970s, and each time the buyer took the same approach: be profitable, and well leave you alone. The ball was introduced in 1900. Some crazy lookin clubs, Why didnt you include the 1st set of Ping Irons? The Titleist were a bit longer lasting but I (a poor college student) could afford the Spaulding balls. Spalding Top-Flite In 1995 Spalding Sporting Goods reorganized its golf club division by forming the Top-Flight golf company as its premium club brand. Yes it has some smoother lines compared to some of the other clubs on the listbut you put that PowerBow as Nike says on any of those other irons and it is a dead ringer for this list of crazies. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Thanks for doing the digging! Havent been able to give them up since my Dad died in 99, Does anyone remember a set of irons made in the 80s (I think) that were actually a bunch of small woods, even the PW was made from wood. The player would then conveniently cover the top of his bag with a towel so that no one would see the length of the irons. Would you make an iron set out of stone? lol! Id like to include the Wilson Reflex irons and PGF Slammer series. He also was one of the best designers in the golf biz. How about the Spalding Exec SE. Among Jones innovations: the first matched set of steel-shafted irons, the first set of irons with the sweet spot in the center of each club (denoted by a circle of dots on the clubface), and an iron set where the scoring irons were one length, the mid irons were one length, and the long irons were one length. He struggled quite a bit with the change.. These articles are all outstanding. It was fun to have and I actually hit the thing really really well. It adjusts to every loft in a full bag, plus half lofts. This one in particular was interesting to me because I grew up in a Spalding family of sorts. "https://www.linkedin.com/in/swingyard/", When I was starting golf, I went to the shop and these were the clubs that I hit the best (compared to cavity backs) and bought them. (Sponsored by: GolfCircuit.com), CONTEST! higher loft is really your best bet for getting out of these difficult fairway lies, Top 10 Best Cheap Drivers (Updated 2021 Buying Guide), 5 Advantages of A Strong Golf Grip (Everything To Know), What Is An Overrun Golf Ball? Brilliant idea? And Spalding predated Mizuno by at least 60 years with a copper undercoating for its forged blades in the mid-50s. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. I still have the irons to this day! In the mid to late 80s, my father had Spalding make him a set of custom irons. Great insight! Thanks for the memories, John Barba. I have a set of both the 440s and the 500s, and there is no difference in face depth. By 1910, the company was selling aluminum fairway clubs and its Gold Medal series (1910 to 1919) featured aluminum bronze. 11 golf clubs/sets you owned and what they're worth now - PGA Started Yesterday at 04:29 AM, By 2023 Genesis Invitational - Monday #2. I can't imagine them being worth a shit. *chuckles* Maybe its a good thing I took a 30 year golf hiatus. They are exactly like the Cleveland Ironwood set you see now, but it was made y..e..a..r..s ago. "@type": "ImageObject", If youre looking to buy or sell vintage Spalding clubs, the best place to do so is on eBay or Craigslist, where you can list the clubs in the condition that they are currently in. Im a scratch golfer, and to date have found nothing that is better. Maybe it is a good idea or maybe it is not. I am surprised no one ever mass marketed them. MyGolfSpy, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Spalding Golf Clubs: Do Still Make Them & How Much? Great collection! Met a friend in Costa Mesa at Mile Square Golf Club back in the early 1970s and he was with Duke Duclos., a friend from their McDonald-Douglas days. Spalding spent the last half of the 20th-century battling with Titleist for golf ball supremacy. What is it for weight transfer? It is called a hollow wedge, but you can putt with it as well. That year Spaldings sales topped $537 million, with over $400 million coming from the golf division. It was a low loft club used for poor lies and putting. In 1880, Spaldings League Ball became the official baseball of the National League (and later of the American League), a position it held until 1976. You had to turn those over to see the ugly, but the cone in the bottom was down right wacky! Spalding club-makers paid as much scrutiny to shafts as heads. Im 65 and still playing to seven with them. Titleist has been the Ball King for so long, its hard to remember a time when it wasnt. More than 50 percent of that total came from golf ball sales. I speak with Nat Rosassco, former owner, of NorthWestern golf at least every 7 to 10 days and he holds Pat Simmons as one of the best club designers of all time as well. Laugh if you must, but the design works. & Bubba Dickerson won the 2001 US Amatuer with a set of Nicklaus Bears! In the mid-80s, Spalding introduced the solid core Tour Edition, and in 1996 it came out with Strata, a true game-changer for Spalding and the first multi-layer solid core ball used on Tour. In April, KKR sold the Spalding name and all of Spaldings non-golf businesses to Russell Athletic for just $65 million. In 1895, Spalding started making golf balls. There are still folks around from when Mr. Hogan ran the company and I am sure you can get some keen insights not only of the company but of Mr. Hogan himself. Just make sure to mix in a few lessons with your local PGA pro, and you'll progress nicely. Protactic Golf in Chicago. Looking through eBay listings, you can find a range of vintage Spalding golf clubs in various conditions to suit different budgets. 1 Iron (18) Spalding EXECUTIVE XE. White says the KKR leadership team was much more hands-on than the Cisneros brothers had ever been, which is understandable if you just shelled out a billion simoleons for a sporting goods company. Win a bunch of BogeyPro swag! About Spalding Another really well done article. I know that this is a very late reply but I actually knew the designer of these irons and spent time speaking with him. Its factory could only make about six million dozen a year, and it was paying patent royalties. Insurmountable debt, uncertain management, and stiff competition forced Spalding to stop production. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. They definitely arent the prettiest of clubs but I did enjoy playing them. I wonder what Jack thought of them. I just had a guy show me a wedge that is a small diamond shaped club with about a 3/4 hollow core in the back that goes up to the inside of the face of the club. In 2012, Callaway sold Top-Flite to DICKS and Hogan to Perry Ellis. Never met a set of strange clubs I didnt want to try. I will let the then Chariman of FILA Golf tell you a little bit about these 1994 released set of ironsand take you back in time like you were there for the original launch: Never before have so many game improvement features been built into one club. The nineties saw the release of the Top Flite Tour Ti irons, which were among the last clubs that the long-standing brand would manufacture. There was a time when Spalding was one of the biggest brands in golf. I still have them and as a matter of fact I still use a copper Zing2 sand wedge 54. Ive seen several of those uglies up close over the years so this was fun to view. The market was changing rapidly, as well. The Sounder irons could be on the list-and are the best irons I ever had (have). They actually play pretty well. If you have a vintage set of Bobby Jones Spalding irons that are in great shape, you might be able to sell them at a slightly higher price, but theyre not worth a great deal of money in the current market. Don't let scams get away with fraud. Albert Spalding was a superstar. Actually, we used to produce more golf balls than Titleist. Not quite Bryson-like, but innovative for the day. The new club are really pretty, but no better than the original slotlines which I used to have. Norman credited the extra spin of the Tour Edition for winning the 1986 British Open. Its impossible to overstate Albert Spaldings vision and ambition. Of course Drivers and putters are like women. But more trouble was coming for Spalding. SPALDING EXECUTIVE 3-PW Iron Set Golf Clubs R/H Jet Step Stiff Flex Steel. Although they did have issues with the shafts actually wrinkling due to the configuration of the shape of the toe on this ironcrazy little factoid. Make Request. However my 6 iron had twice as much offset as any other iron in the set. Sponsored by: GolfCircuit.com, Maxfli Tour, Tour X and Tour S Golf Balls, Penfold Ace Golf Balls: Whats Old Is New Again, Topgolf Callaway 2022 Financials: $4 Billion? Placing the hosel behind the face eliminates the occasional `shank, creating forward-face progression. I am the person that brought the first Metalwoods to the market. On sole: club# + SPALDING. About half of our sales are with personal names or corporate logos in the back and given as gifts. Its pretty clear KKR didnt do its due diligence. The 1999 Hogan Apex, forged by Endo Manufacturing in Japan, remains a sought-after collectible, and a very playable blade, to this day. For more than 25 years, he has contributed to a wide array of publications including "American Heritage," "American History," "Yankee," "VFW," "Golf," and "Golf News." Zevo was a great brand and I played a Zevo Zv2 hybrid for almost 6 years because it was so easy to hit and had incredible feel. They produced more premium balls, but we used to make 25-, 26-million dozen a year.. They also made a set made entirely of woods. Amazing how so of the old stuff works better than the hyped up new stuff! 6. Latitude Irons also give the golfer an added patented design feature of dual skids on the sole. The shaft collapses to 18 inches so it is great for travelsure beats the cost of checking a golf bag these days. MacGregor Doctor X. I had the Bears. The early Top-Flites were juast the opposite; you couldnt cut one of them with an axe. I gave those up quickly only because they were really odd looking. single, replacement or add-on golf irons and wedges for Spalding Executive x EZ Oversize Irons. It felt like a rock but flew like a rocket and weekend warriors bought them by the bushel. Our friends[], Amazing Ryder Cup Contest! Yet again, the same fate as MacGregor had. While the Top Flite was initially scorned by better players as the rock flight, it probably caused a rule change. Way ahead of their time in the perimeter weighted genre. Look at many of todays hybrids. My only wacky set now are some Macgregor MT Splitsoles in very gd cond which were bought at a Thrift store. Spalding introduced the Vardon Flyer, a golf ball that was popularized by Harry Vardon. Display as a link instead, Although the Inertial irons werent so lucky. Golf bags bulged with 20 to 25 clubs, and the USGA, fearing too many specialty clubs had watered down the skill required in golf, took action. when were spalding executive golf clubs made Iomic Golf Grips: 8 Key Facts Before You Buy. Purespin (diamond face)? I play them still and love them. 2 Iron Spalding . He also had some copycat Browning irons in the trunk, but I refused I couldnt even look at them with a straight face. Jones immediately put his Georgia Tech engineering degree to good use. They had a premium Molitor ball at the then scandalous price of $2. These gentlemen used them to win large amounts of money on the course from unsuspecting victims. Whats troubling to us is the extent to which a reputable company that has its own trademarks and has invested a lot of money and time feels it needs to become a predator on somebody elses goodwill to sell its products, said Callaway chief Don Dye at the time. Wanted them when I was in college but couldnt afford them then. The pro-shop who had them could not find a buyer. Make Request. You can check it out at http://www.adjustablegolfclub.com. The Spalding Top-Flite first came out in 1970. That debt burden, however, finally proved fatal. The success of Spalding golf clubs had compelled the USGA to act, but this success was not destined to last forever. Anyone ever hear of anything like that? You find them on eBay Gary? The Start Of Spalding Golf Clubs In 1905, a sporting goods company saw that golf was starting to become quite popular in the United States. MyGolfSpy, Inc. All Rights Reserved. and they placed it in the show. Spalding Driver Golf Clubs for sale | eBay It was a popular cavity back iron and Spalding decided to sell it through general sporting goods stores, eschewing the golf pro. The Kro-Flite in 1930 was golfs first liquid center golf ball, while the Spalding DOT was a mid-century icon. KKR was established in 1976 by partners Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis, and George Roberts. 1977 Spalding Executive Irons - The Vintage Golfers - YouTube If so send them to contact(at)mygolfspy.com. "@type": "Article", Executives were my first set as wellI thought they were a great starter set. All are memory refreshing .. have been in golf clubhead design , manufacturing 25 years , familiar with the designs ! spalding executive golf clubs please read DESCRIPTION BEFORE BUYING . Spalding was the leading manufacturer of golf clubs in America throughout the mid-twentieth century, highlighting just how popular the brand was. I accidentally broke it in the late 1970s the shaft was installed over a milled section of the hosel! single, replacement or add-on golf irons and wedges for Spalding Executive MV2 bird over ball Irons. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. BarbaJo, you da man! We had small layoffs on an ongoing basis, and people kept looking over their shoulder. And although Top Flite is still in business today, its a brand that most golfers associate with cheap equipment of inferior quality. History of Spalding Golf Clubs | Golflink.com It was a close race but in the end we felt like it was finally time for the super-rare and hard to find Lil David Slingers get the recognition they were due. Play to a 4 6 cap. Still playing my cook titanics with the 1 iron. Fugly yes looks kinda like a pancake spatula at address but effective. Still, the Uniques are the best irons I have ever hit! Instead, well hit the highlights. In 1892 Spalding went into acquisition mode, buying up two key competitors: the A.J. Swing Yard is a participant in the Amazon.com Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk and any other websites that may be affiliated with Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Nice article John! They got so popular at the time that it scared club makers badly (Every set was pretty much custom built then), and Golfing associations banned the club from play. That might be because Golfsmith acquired them back in 2003. You can post now and register later. Got the 3 PW for 3.99 a club, bought the 5- PW first, played two rounds and went back and bought the 3 & 4. Does anyone know anything about them? This technology is a shank-proof hosel. Remember when pros like Norman and Stadler and others with that bright red Spaulding Tour Bag. i just hit a 8 iron in that series last night. We had hybrids back in the 80s. Scott Stallings - WITB - 2023 Genesis Invitational. The Browning 440 was a marvelous clubas you say off the fairway!!! TaylorMade then entered the bidding but, after 30 rounds, Callaway wound up buying Top-Flite free and clear for $175 million. CA License # A-588676-HAZ / DIR Contractor Registration #1000009744 Not to belittle them because KKR is incredibly successful, but they didnt know the golf business the way we did, says White. I look forward to your future deeper dive into the history of the Hogan company. Yes, it did. You might remember the popular Stan Thompson woods with the unique sole design. Spalding stopped producing golf clubs in 2022, focusing on other sports in the years since. Inventory available of individual, single, replacement or add-on golf irons and wedges for Spalding EXECUTIVE XE Irons. I still have a set of samurai woods and irons,,and still use them,,had a pro hit my 7 iron once,,it flew his 7iron,,he was amazed,they hit great,,but graphite wears down over years and breaks,and when that happens,,its hard to find a replacement,,,. They preceded hybrid irons by 20 years or so. So, if youre buying or selling Spalding clubs that are in reasonably good shape, you can set your expectations around $100 to begin with. Paste as plain text instead, I gave the set to my nephew, and he loves them. I tried to restore them by getting some original Browning grips (brown rubber with the Browning deer logo in gold) and exchanged several e-mails with Browning in Belgium would not sell me any. Whats more, KKR continued adding to its golf empire, buying Etonic in 1996 and Ben Hogan a year later. "https://www.instagram.com/_swingyard_/", I love these old clubs. I still have the samurai irons,2-pw and woods,driver,3w,5w,7w,,and still use them. maybe EVER. Spalding took off with sales and production with Bobby Jones joining the team. While theyre old-school, Spalding clubs are made to high standards and are built to last, making them a great option if youre looking for a cheap and cheerful set of clubs. Happily, I can say that I have seen these over the years, but none of them ever made it into my golf bag. He also worked at Zevo when the LoB Irons were developed. Did KKR overpay? This is the story of Spaldings Final Countdown. In the meantime, this should hold you over, https://mygolfspy.com/why-does-the-ben-hogan-equipment-company-still-matter/. Circa 1985-ish if memory serves. Duke gave me an original solid brass/bronze Greenirons Slotline putter (heel shafted with slot in top line and white dot on lower rear section).. ), shoplifted about four dozen balls each from a failing department store in New York City. Theres even premium urethane cover options (Pro V1 and X styles) for ~$15 a dozen. Someone suggested to me they were a prototype club for Johnny Miller, but were never marketed.