The Vintage Movement

[Bonvivant]

4 hours ago, cutchemist42 said:

I have some old Ben Hogan Persimmons acting as nice looking wall items also from my grandpa's old set. They look nice but I was afraid of hitting them because of what was mentioned above about urethane covers.

If they have sentimental value it's best to leave them on the wall, but if your swing speed is under 100 mph and they are in good shape then there shouldn't be an issue. 

[snapfade]

At what point does a club become vintage? One day those nice shiny Miura MB 101's will be vintage.

[Bonvivant]

1 hour ago, snapfade said:

At what point does a club become vintage? One day those nice shiny Miura MB 101's will be vintage.

To me there are 4 distinct equipment eras in golf. Pre 1900 gutta percha clubs (generally no face features). Pre 1935 hickory clubs (grooves are prominent and a defining feature on irons). Pre CB or what I'd call modern vintage (blade irons, steel shafts, persimmion heads on woods remain). And then the modern era (perimeter weighting, metal woods etc.). You could make a case for a pre large headed driver section to split the modern era, but I don't think that the changes being made are of the same magnitude of the other pivot points

As far as those miuras...who knows. I don't see any time soon where a tech shift would come that would be big enough to take the modern era and make it obsolete, therein turn making today's equipment the new modern vintage.

[Beastie]

On 3/2/2020 at 1:17 AM, topoftheline89 said:

             The small headed metal  woods from the mid 80's was the key to your statement. I have 80's metal Macgregor clubs and I easily drive 15-20 yards longer then with my persimmons. I would argue that if you played with persimons you would see where the other 7 shots comes from.

 

I just watched a Mark Crossfield video, with him testing a modern driver and ball vs a persimmon driver and VERY old ball(Dunlop 65 one of the small ones) which was pretty worn and beat up. 
 

the difference between the drivers with a current ball was about 40 yards iirc, and the old ball was almost  60. So all in nearly a hundred yards. That’s a big difference. 
Jack Nicklaus drove the 18th at St Andrews with a persimmon driver but I think he was on the a better ball than the old 65’s. 
 

So you may be right

Edited March 24, 2020 by Beastie
Addition

[snapfade]

2 hours ago, Beastie said:

I just watched a Mark Crossfield video, with him testing a modern driver and ball vs a persimmon driver and VERY old ball(Dunlop 65 one of the small ones) which was pretty worn and beat up. 
 

the difference between the drivers with a current ball was about 40 yards iirc, and the old ball was almost  60. So all in nearly a hundred yards. That’s a big difference. 
Jack Nicklaus drove the 18th at St Andrews with a persimmon driver but I think he was on the a better ball than the old 65’s. 
 

So you may be right

 

Jack used the same 3 wood for 30 plus years. 

[iacas]

11 hours ago, Beastie said:

the difference between the drivers with a current ball was about 40 yards iirc, and the old ball was almost  60. So all in nearly a hundred yards. That’s a big difference. 
Jack Nicklaus drove the 18th at St Andrews with a persimmon driver but I think he was on the a better ball than the old 65’s.

Ummmmmm…

[ChetlovesMer]

11 hours ago, Beastie said:

I just watched a Mark Crossfield video, with him testing a modern driver and ball vs a persimmon driver and VERY old ball(Dunlop 65 one of the small ones) which was pretty worn and beat up. 
 

Hey brother, I watched the same video. That ball was NOT worn OR beat up. As a matter of fact, Mark took the wrapper off of it. 

The ball WAS, however, very old. Roughly, 35 to 40 years old. It probably lost at least some of its elasticity in that time. I very much remember those Dunlop 65's back in the 80's. There is no way they could have been as "dead" as the one Mark was using, even if he did just unwrap it. 

There's also a theory, and I'm not sure I subscribe to this. That you had to swing "differently" to get the most out of that older style equipment. 

[Beastie]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Ummmmmm…

That was what was claimed, I don’t remember the first metal woods adding more than 10 yards, but I was about 14 and about a 12hcp so I was hitting it better and further every month or so at that time. One thing I noticed in the video was the driver shaft in the persimmon was noticeably shorter than the modern driver ie about 2-3 inches, that’s a fair difference in swing speed. 

2 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Hey brother, I watched the same video. That ball was NOT worn OR beat up. As a matter of fact, Mark took the wrapper off of it. 

The ball WAS, however, very old. Roughly, 35 to 40 years old. It probably lost at least some of its elasticity in that time. I very much remember those Dunlop 65's back in the 80's. There is no way they could have been as "dead" as the one Mark was using, even if he did just unwrap it. 

There's also a theory, and I'm not sure I subscribe to this. That you had to swing "differently" to get the most out of that older style equipment. 

The small balls stopped manufacture in the mid 70’s. So about 45-50 years old. 

[iacas]

18 minutes ago, Beastie said:

That was what was claimed

The ball and club didn't add anywhere close to 100 yards. Nowhere close.

[Beastie]

32 minutes ago, iacas said:

The ball and club didn't add anywhere close to 100 yards. Nowhere close.

I don’t believe it myself. I just checked back and there is no data on swing speed. With a modern ball Crossfields best persimmon was 244 carry, vs 277 with a modern driver. 

Do you have any numbers you feel are more representative?

This guy shows a ten yard drop off between an old titleist and a pro v1, which fits better with my experience. The driver was a similar percentage drop to Crossfields

Modern vs Classic Golf Equipment Tested: What Has Changed?

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A lot has changed in the golf equipment world over the past several decades. Recently we...

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Beastie
Spelling and other uselessness

[boogielicious]

DJ hit Nicklaus’ persimmon 290. So nowhere near 100 yards.

Dustin Johnson hit Jack Nicklaus' old 1-iron and persimmon driver really, REALLY far - Golf Digest

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[Bonvivant]

7 hours ago, Beastie said:

I don’t believe it myself. I just checked back and there is no data on swing speed. With a modern ball Crossfields best persimmon was 244 carry, vs 277 with a modern driver. 

Do you have any numbers you feel are more representative?

This guy shows a ten yard drop off between an old titleist and a pro v1, which fits better with my experience. The driver was a similar percentage drop to Crossfields

Modern vs Classic Golf Equipment Tested: What Has Changed?

---

A lot has changed in the golf equipment world over the past several decades. Recently we...

 

 

I have a big problem with this test. Why is the club speed so different between the clubs? It really doesn't seem fair. It is even significantly different between the balls.

Edit*

Didn't know this was on a monitor that doesn't actually measure club speed, just guesses.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Bonvivant

[ChetlovesMer]

15 hours ago, Beastie said:

The small balls stopped manufacture in the mid 70’s. So about 45-50 years old. 

I would swear they still made the Dunlop 65 small ball well into the 80's. But I can't find any information on-line to prove or disprove that. Just my memory which may not be all that reliable... what were we talking about?

[Beastie]

20 hours ago, Bonvivant said:

I have a big problem with this test. Why is the club speed so different between the clubs? It really doesn't seem fair. It is even significantly different between the balls.

Edit*

Didn't know this was on a monitor that doesn't actually measure club speed, just guesses.

Well they are being a bit sneaky, the GC quad certainly measures club head speed, they just chose not to pass on the info.