The Golf Club: 400 Years of The Good, The Beautiful, and The Creative [Hardcover]

Jeffery B. Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

THE GOLF CLUB presents over 450 of the most magnificent, historical, and valuable golf clubs ever devised to strike a golf ball during the past 400 years.

Inside are rare treasures made by Scotland's Old Tom Morris, known as "The Grand Old Man of Golf," and Hugh Philp, often called the Stradivarious of clubmakers. You will also find modern masterpieces by Ping, Spalding, Callaway, MacGregor, Titleist, Nike and others. You may even find a club that you own!

You will see the club that Alan Shephard used on the moon, the 1-iron made famous by Ben Hogan when he won the 1950 US Open, the putter used by Willie Park to win the British Open in 1863, the Calamity Jane putter Bobby Jones used to win the Grand Slam in 1930, and the putter Jack Nicklaus used to win 15 of his 20 majors.

Recent Sales prices are given for a number of the clubs shown, and the clubs are accompanied by photographs of over 60 vintage golf balls from across history

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Good craftsmen never blame their tools. Yet here we have 400 years of golfers searching for better tools. The evolution of golf's "tools" is a tribute to the maddeningly subtle difficulties of a game that motivates players to search endlessly for the putter to alleviate yips, the driver to straighten out a chronic shank, and a sand wedge to compensate for the damn driver that dumped them in the trap in the first place. Ellis is an accomplished amateur golfer who also wrote the highly acclaimed The Clubmaker's Art (1997). The format here is deceptively simple: Ellis provides a brief overview of an era and the trend clubmaking took within it. He follows with beautiful color photographs of dozens of clubs, with brief comments on each, including designer and manufacturer. The information is fascinating, and the photography is beautiful, but what will draw golfers to the book is the connection it will provide to kindred souls of centuries past, who are passionate about a sport in which one's only competition comes from within. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Containing beautiful photos and insightful text, "The Golf Club" provides great history and great fun! -- Golf Magazine, November 2002

Ellis' latest book, an exquisite book with splendid photography, is a "best value" you won't be able to resist. -- Avid Golfer, October 2002

Lavishly illustrated..."The Golf Club" presents and documents the most diverse collection of golf equipment ever assembled. -- Publishers Weekly, Oct 7, 2002

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Zephyr Productions (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965303926
• ISBN-13: 978-0965303927
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 8.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,283,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, great layout, March 9, 2007

By 

Mark Linsenmayer "mlinsenmayer" (Miami Beach, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Golf Club: 400 Years of The Good, The Beautiful, and The Creative (Hardcover)

I use this book as a reference source, a coffee table book and a source of inspiration. I would say it is the best golf book available if I didn't recently acquire Ellis' other book, "The Golf Club"

4.0 out of 5 stars Golf History at it's finest, February 25, 2010

By 

A. Kibel (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Golf Club: 400 Years of The Good, The Beautiful, and The Creative (Hardcover)

This is a great book for lovers of Golf. It gives details of the progression of clubs and their styles over the years. Just compare those clubs in the trunk of your car to these and you will be thankful you don't have to slog out your game with some of these monsters!
gives some details of individual manufacturers which was a great help when I was selecting new clubs recently. Well worth the read!