Golf clubs still get described as being woods or irons, as that is what they used to be made from. To hit the longest shots, clubs with wooden heads were used. The type of wood used to make these heads varied, with beech, ash and maple all being used; but persimmon became the wood of choice. It was favoured as it was hard, tough, heavy and shock-resistant.
A plate was attached to the face of the club to provide durability and, as the glues of the time were of unreliable quality, the plates were screwed in. Even when glues improved, and plates could be glued on with more confidence, the plates were still nevertheless sometimes designed to look as if they had screws in them.
It a ball was caught right in the middle of the club, the sweetspot, it went further, and the term “hit it right out the screws”, still used today, reflects the design of those drivers.
Persimmon woods were what everyone, from top professionals to beginners, played with. Then in 1979 a chap named Gary Adams took out a $24,000 loan on his house to set up TaylorMade. He hired two employees and the three of them set about making a driver made of metal, known as the 1Metal or Pittsburgh Persimmon.
By making the clubhead metal and hollow, he could increase the size of the head and reduce the weight, which helped increase forgiveness and clubhead speed.
Ron Streck, at the 1981 Houston Open, was the first to win on the PGA Tour using a metal wood. The take up among tour professionals was quick, although some players were reluctant to move over from persimmon clubs as, although metal woods allowed players to hit the ball further, they offered less ability to shape shots.
For the average club golfer, metal woods offered plenty of attraction: not only in forgiveness, but drives with them went longer. The clubs also lasted longer. Persimmon clubs were less durable, and being made of absorbent wood, needed storing somewhere not too dry, hot or damp.
Late changers
But some leading pros carried on using persimmon drivers until the late 1990s. Davis Love III was one of these, writing in his 1997 book Every Shot I Take:
“I experiment with metal drivers often; I find – for me, and not necessarily for you – they go marginally longer than my wooden driver, but they don’t give me any shape. I find it more difficult to create shape to my drives off the metal face, which is important to me. …I also love the sound my ball makes as it comes off the persimmon insert of my driver…. when it comes to my old wooden driver, I guess the only thing I can really say is that I enjoy golf more with it, and I think I play better with it.”
Using a persimmon driver did not stop Davis Love III leading the PGA Tour driving distance stats in 1986 (285.7 yards) and in 1994 (283.8 yards).
In 1997, 11 players used wooden drivers on the PGA Tour, but only in a total of 43 events. David Love III was one of those who abandoned a wooden driver during that season, and he had moved to a Titleist 975D titanium driver by the time he won the PGA Championship that year.
So Bernhard Langer, whose game has never been based on length off the tee, is the last man to have won a Major using a persimmon driver, doing so at The Masters in 1993.
Woods with the woods
Some of the modern golfers have grown up only using metal woods. But Tiger Woods is one who used to play persimmon woods and last year before the Masters he spoke about how he had used a persimmon wood recently in practice round:
“I was at home playing at Medalist and I had my old persimmon driver and I was able to still carry the ball 290 yards. Now, when I missed it, no, it did not go very far. But the ability to hit the ball in the middle of the face was rewarded.”
How would the younger modern day players get on with a persimmon driver using today’s golf balls? Well several have had a go.
Ben Hogan’s five victories at Colonial Country Club are commemorated at the club by a seven-foot statue at of Hogan swinging a driver. Hogan’s father and grandfather were blacksmiths, and Ben was always interested in club manufacture and design and founded his own clubmaking business.
During one of the practice days for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in 2023, the Ben Hogan Foundation brought some of the company’s old drivers from the 1950s and 1960s to the driving range for the players to try out.
The players did so using modern golf balls, which are designed to reduce spin on long shots. That means these newer golf balls are harder to keep in the air than those Ben Hogan and his contemporaries played with, especially with the low-lofted driver setups that Hogan used. So this reduced the length of their drives when using Hogan’s old equipment.
"The driver needs a bit more loft,” Luke Donald laughed after he saw his drive carry 241 yards and roll out to 273. “I need a spinnier ball.”
Despite this issue, the players still managed respectable distances with the clubs. Collin Morikawa achieved a carry of 282 yards, and Max Homa one of 286 yards. But Justin Rose hit it the furthest, carrying it 297 yards.
But the features editor has not commissioned me to say how far Justin Rose might hit the ball, but how far Rory McIlroy might. Well fortunately I do know how far Rory actually did last year:
For Rory McIlroy had a go with a persimmon driver, but using his modern TaylorMade TP5x ball, on the range last year at the Scottish Open. The launch monitor revealed that, with the persimmon driver, Rory had a 168.6 mph ball speed and 4,410 rpm of spin.
The carry was 255.7 yards. By way of comparison, that season on the PGA Tour he averaged 326.3 yards with his driver.
