The Art Of Golf Club Repairs, by Jeffrey Reed 
As Published by BUSINESS MONDAY, The London Free Press & Sun Media
Copyright 2007 Jeffrey Reed Reporting

It is well documented that Londoners love golf. Simply consider that there are 50 courses within a half-hour of the downtown core, and more than 100 across southwestern Ontario. The overwhelming success of the 2006 CN Canadian Women’s Open at London Hunt and Country Club further cemented London’s lofty golf reputation. 

It should come as no surprise, then, that local golf is a multi-million-dollar industry. Golfers buy into the lifestyle – big-time. Local residents will spend in excess of $20 million this year on green fees, memberships and new golf clubs alone. And, they’ll spend millions more on accessories and apparel. 

Suffice to say, golf is a hugely competitive industry relying on advancements in high-tech equipment. In order to keep up with the times, the golf repair business has been forced to reinvent itself – just like the equipment itself. 

Titanium clubheads and graphite shafts may be relatively new to club manufacturing, but the idea behind modern equipment isn’t always new. For example, while industry giant TaylorMade Golf each year sells millions of drivers with moveable weights for custom shotmaking, MacGregor Golf made a putter with adjustable weights 80 years ago. And in the 1920s, the Arden Company manufactured an anti-slice driver, a concept again gaining in popularity today. 

But ever since TaylorMade introduced a mass-marketed metalwood in 1979, followed by Callaway Golf’s introduction of the oversized driver in 1991, and the first offering of a titanium driver in 1995 from both Callaway and TaylorMade, the art of clubmaking and club repairing has almost become a lost art. Golf professionals and retailers boasting skills in clubmaking and repairs – including wooden-headed drivers – were forced to adapt. 

Today, while there are still a handful of local craftspeople skilled in traditional golf back shop repairs, those skills are rarely put to the test. Golf today is all about computerized launch monitors which help customers choose clubs which are specifically designed to suit their games. And repairs have gone the way of the feathery ball and hickory shaft. 

One of the area’s most skilled club repair experts, John Moffat, owns The Bluffs of Port Stanley Golf Club, and Club Craft precision fitted golf clubs. He’s a 37-year member of the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association, and a certified Class A member of the Professional Clubmakers’ Society. 

Moffat learned the art of club repair from his late father, John Moffat Sr., a long-time area golf pro who studied his craft in the 1920s. 

“Dad taught me on hickory shafts,” says John Jr. “We didn’t do much work on hickory, but I learned how to repair and finish them.” 

While Moffat’s Club Craft operation at The Bluffs specializes in collecting and analyzing club and ball data using a computer program, and custom fitting clubs for clients, Moffat also re-shafts and re-grips clubs. He says today’s high-tech clubs, some with adjustable weights for shaping shots in a desirable fashion, demand high-tech custom fitting. 

“It used to just be observation,” explains Moffat. “I would go to the range with my pencil and notebook. Today, computers take the guess work out of custom fitting. I sometimes spend three hours with a customer, using a launch monitor, understanding a golf swing before assembling a custom set of clubs.” 

Mike Olizarevitch, head professional at Fanshawe Golf Club since 1970 and a club member since its inception in 1958, is another local club repair expert. Once active in that area of the golf industry, Olizarevitch says today, “We do very little club repairs.” 

Known for his skills in the back shop, Olizarevitch used to spend most of his time as head golf pro repairing and laminating persimmon wood drivers, replacing sole plates, tightening heads and rewinding hosels. Even when metal clubs entered the scene, he was kept busy re-gripping clubs for members. But today, Olizarevitch says even re-gripping is in the hands of off-course shops. 

“We used to do thousands of woods,” says Olizarevitch. “We don’t even sell clubs anymore. At one time, we had a truck that traveled from Strathroy to Stratford, and from London to St. Thomas. We would pick up and deliver on Mondays. The amount of clubs we repaired was unbelievable.” 

Olizarevitch says when unfinished metal clubs first hit the market, he saw an opportunity for sandblasting and refinishing – an opportunity lost when manufacturers started to paint clubheads. He laughs, “I thought years ago, I would do club repairs on the side when it was time to retire. It would be a nice part-time job. But that’s gone. There’s no market for it.” 

Even Bob Martin’s Golf and Fashions concentrates on custom fitting, re-shafting and re-gripping, says repair shop expert Tim Simmons. He says perhaps once a year, a customer will ask for a persimmon head repair on a fairway wood, or for a steel shaft in a driver. 

“We’re extremely busy, but with custom fitting, and with new shafts and grips,” says Simmons, a 12-year employee. “There really isn’t anything you can repair anymore. If a head cracks on a titanium driver, you throw it out. If a graphite shaft breaks, you replace it.” 

According to Olizarevitch, “This is a throwaway society. And there’s very little to fix on today’s clubs.” 

Moffat agrees. He says, “Club repair is a lost art. Today, it’s about selling clubs and marketing.” 

In fact, while clubs are more forgiving today, and balls are adding more distance, too, the average golfer’s handicap according to the United States Golf Association has not improved. But purchasing clubs which match your individual swing will increase the chances of lowering your scores, since they are designed to promote consistently good shotmaking. 

TaylorMade Canada’s manager of custom fitting, Matt Bryce, says the company has “invested heavily” in custom fitting. TaylorMade offers its SelectFit System which allows trained fitters at retail and course pro shops to experiment with shafts and head combinations in order to custom fit clubs to an individual golfers’s swing. 

“It’s important to ensure golfers the products they are purchasing are absolutely right for them,” says Bryce, “or else they’ll be behind the 8-ball even before they hit their opening shot.” 

While some may argue that the average golfer only purchases equipment which he sees the top PGA Tour or LPGA Tour players using on television, Bryce argues, there’s a reason those pros have made TaylorMade’s drivers the most popular amongst the elite. 

Bryce says, “If the best players in the world are choosing to play our products, then it must say a lot about the quality of clubs we are making.” 

But Olizarevitch says, “Most people are buying clubs that don’t make a bit of difference to their game.” 

At the private Highland Golf and Country Club, head professional Mike Silver caters to 600 golfing members, plus 60 junior golfers. He says while Highland does deal in every major brand of golf equipment – in particular, Titelist, Cobra, Callaway, TaylorMade and Ping – he won’t sell anything “off the rack.” Therefore, according to Silver, today’s golf pro takes pride in custom fitting, just as the pro of yesterday took pride in repairing hickory shafts and persimmon heads. 

“Today it is much more technical,” says Silver. “Major companies match shafts and heads. Someone trying to do that arbitrarily will have a tough time. A good clubfitter can do that.” 

“We do all other repairs – re-gripping, changing lofts and lies – more than we ever have before,” adds Silver. “The tools we have to properly fit our members is awesome. That’s how we provide the utmost in customer service.” 

Somewhere between the 1890s, when persimmon wood was introduced to golf, to the 1990s, when Tiger Woods introduced himself to the PGA Tour, golf became a high-tech game. But as Olizarevitch explains, “We’re not reinventing the wheel. But our technology is so much better.”