Glen Campbell, Graphite Shaft Visionary
How Glen Campbell helped introduce the golfing world to graphite shafts
Congratulations to Collin Morikawa for winning the Zozo Championship, his first PGA TOUR win in over two years. His Sunday 7-under 63 gave him a six-shot margin over runners-up Eric Cole and Beau Hossler. It must have been the sushi.
The golf world lost another giant this week. RIP Betsy Rawls, 55-time winner on the LPGA Tour. She also finished second in the 1950 U.S. Women’s Open as an amateur. Betsy passed away at the age of 70. Our fellow Substack author, Bill Fields, has an excellent obituary of Betsy that you can read HERE.
Is there anybody better with internet content than the Bryan brothers?
This looks fun. Especially if you can play with Geno Bonnalie.
The PGA TOUR is off this week before resuming with the World Wide Technology Championship in Los Cabos, Mexico next week. Our feature story this week takes us back to when graphite shafts started to make an impact on the golf equipment industry. Scroll down to read.
In last week’s Tour Backspin Poll, 76% of respondents agree with the Official World Golf Rankings denying LIV Golf OWGR points while 24% disagree with the decision.
The DP World Tour announced that PGA players ranked from 126 through 200 on the FedEx Cup standings will have access to its events. They can choose to be full-time or part-time members and accrue Race to Dubai points toward the DP World Tour playoffs and season-ending bonus pool. Only five players who have chosen full-time membership will be allowed to play in any one tournament at a time.
The DP World Tour is also trying to get the PGA TOUR to agree to awarding PGA TOUR status to the top ten finishers on the Race to Dubai points list. This would solidify the DP World Tour as a feeder tour for the PGA TOUR. They are basically asking the PGA TOUR to take their top ten while they would take the PGA TOUR’s players who rank 126th place to 200th.
What do you think about the DP World Tour’s strategy regarding becoming a full-fledged feeder tour for the PGA TOUR? Weigh in on this week’s Tour Backspin Poll.
Tour Backspin Poll
Clip You Might Have Missed
Rickie Fowler with the flopadopapoulis.
Wilson introduces graphite shafts. Check it out in this week’s Vintage Ad.
We’re continuing with our live music playlist project. We’re featuring the hardest working man in show business, James Brown, in a 1973 live performance in Lausanne. Thank you to pastdaily.com (click on the links or the album cover we created) or click HERE. Then scroll down to the embedded player. Let us know if you liked this change in the comments section below.
Gay Brewer’s swing is featured in this week’s Swing Like a Pro feature. Scroll down to view.
Get the Tour Backspin Newsletter delivered to your email inbox for FREE.
The Tour Backspin Show with our guest, Frank Beard, is now available to all subscribers. If you would like to get early access to The Tour Backspin Show please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Upcoming episodes will include interviews with Lee Trevino, Chuck Courtney and Jim McLean. Paid subscribers enjoy other subscriber benefits as well.
Listen to The Tour Backspin Show podcast on Substack with the above links, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or iHeart Radio.
If you like golf history, check out the Your Golfer’s Almanac podcast. Host Michael Duranko celebrates birthdays, milestones, and other accomplishments that occurred on the day in golf history. Listen HERE.
Congratulations to Chip Oat who correctly identified #9 at Pebble Beach Golf Links at Pebble Beach Resorts in Pebble Beach, CA. Chip beat out six other correct answers in the random drawing. Check out the 2023 leader board and scroll down for your chance to win in this week’s WHAT HOLE IS IT?
Save The Date! The next meeting of the Tour Backspin Show Book Club will be on December 14th at 5:30 (PST). We will be talking with the author of The Age of Palmer, Patrick Hand. This is a great book right in the wheelhouse of the era we cover here at Tour Backspin. You can buy the book at Amazon or Barnes and Noble and then join us For FREE, to talk about it with Patrick on the 14th. Sign up HERE.
We’re playing Glen Campbell Trivia in this week’s Tour Backspin Quiz. Scroll down to play.
Did you miss a previous newsletter? You can view it HERE. Forward this email to a friend. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? You can sign up HERE.
Okay, we're on the tee, let's get going.
Enjoy!
Larry Baush
Graphite Shafts Arrive as Dominate Shaft in Woods
The newest innovations in golf equipment were documented in the January 1973 issue of Golf Digest. This was still the era of the separation between pro-line clubs and store-line clubs where you could only purchase the top-of-the-line models in a pro shop. Persimmon was being replaced by laminated wood when it came to wood head material. Iron heads were going to investment cast stainless steel heads with perimeter weighting and away from forged mild steel heads in irons. Ball manufacturers were experimenting with different shaped, or different sized, dimples.
But the most dramatic innovation may have been the introduction of graphite shafts. Frank Thomas, who worked for the Shakespeare Sporting Goods Company created the first graphite shaft. Upon arrival in America from South Africa, Thomas went to work for Shakespeare and was given a unique challenge from his employer to use the latest space age materials to find a material to produce the perfect golf shaft.
Shakespeare had introduced “The Wonder Shaft” in 1962 which was a fiberglass shaft that experienced production problems as the hosels and shafts would crack. A second-generation “Wonder Shaft” was called the “Black Knight” and was endorsed by Gary Player. This shaft did not experience manufacturing problems but was still not embraced by the golfing public who thought that the shafts were too heavy. So, the company was still on the hunt for a new material to use in producing shafts.
Shakespeare did not even apply for a patent on their new shaft.
Finding little in the way of scientific data when it came to golf shafts, Thomas assembled a team who began researching and investigating what shaft properties were best suited to produce shafts for woods and irons. The team discovered that the best shaft, theoretically, would be a very thin and rigid connection between the golfer’s hands and the clubhead.
The team then began to experiment. Thomas settled on combining graphite and epoxy into a compound and fashioned it into a shaft, called the Alpha shaft, that Shakespeare introduced at the 1970 PGA Merchandise Show. Sigma woods and irons were the first Shakespeare clubs to feature the Alpha shaft. To say that the buying public was underwhelmed would be an understatement. Shakespeare did not even apply for a patent on their new shaft.
James Flood, an aircraft engineer, developed his version of a graphite shaft in 1972 and he soon became known as the “Thomas Edison of modern golf.” Flood was inspired by the graphite composite wings of the F-111 fighter plane. The shaft that Flood introduced led to the formation of Aldila, who manufactures shafts to this day. Aldila did not venture into the club design business opting to manufacture shafts for companies who produced clubs. Aldila’s website today credits the company with inventing carbon fiber golf shafts.
In 1973 graphite shafts started to take off and Thomas was looked at as the visionary behind the new technology, at least by Golf Digest.
“This allows us to make a shaft with any torsion stiffness, flex strength or weight we require.”
“Graphite yarn has about a fourth of the specific gravity of steel and twice its tensile strength,” Thomas explained to the magazine. “In making steel or aluminum shafts, you can vary some of the shaft qualities (flex, stiffness, etc.) but you are limited by the fact that the material cannot be altered. Graphite yarn, on the other hand, can be varied at will because the thin, hairlike threads are spun, or wound, onto a mold to form the hollow shaft. This allows us to make a shaft with any torsion stiffness, flex strength or weight we require.”
“I have so much confidence in this new driver, it’s changed my whole attitude.”
One reason the new shafts started to take off was the endorsement and use by PGA TOUR players. Gay Brewer, who had a reputation for not being able to hit the fairway, began experimenting with a graphite shafted driver, given to him by singer Glen Campbell, and experienced good results. Campbell, an avid golfer, was an investor in the Aldila company.
Brewer had one of his best years in 1972 using a graphite shaft and even started a company called The Gay Brewer Company that sold a driver equipped with an Aldila graphite shaft. Phil Rogers and Tom Shaw were early adapters on the PGA Tour who used graphite shafts.
“I have so much confidence in this new driver, it’s changed my whole attitude,” Brewer told Golf Digest.
In 1974 Wilson Golf Company was the first major manufacturer to offer graphite shafted clubs into their product line.
The only concern that Golf Digest had about the new shafts was the cost. In 1973 it was estimated that a full set of graphite shafts would cost a golfer $1,120 ($100 per wood and $80 per iron).
Today graphite shafts have totally taken over the wood club market with steel shafts almost impossible to find while irons with graphite shafts account for about 25% of the market.
Photos: Golf Digest
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Threads
Tour Backspin Playlist
LISTEN NOW (scroll down under second photo for embedded player)
Thanks for reading! Please help us grow by sharing this article with your friends and family.
Or, share this link.
Bonus Story
By 1974 there were a dozen companies offering graphite shafts to the golfing industry, probably because Shakespeare did not patent the new shaft material. Shakespeare transitioned out of the golf business in the late 70s as it focused on its other product lines, mostly on fishing equipment.
Aldila, the second graphite shaft manufacturer, was backed by Glen Campbell, and Phil Rogers and was run by James Flood, a two-time club champion at La Costa. In 2013 the company was bought by Mitsubishi Chemical America and both companies today operate out of the corporate headquarters in Carlsbad, CA.
WHAT HOLE IS IT?
Are you on the leader board?
Tour Backspin Quiz | Glen Campbell Trivia
What tournament did Glen Campbell serve as the celebrity host?
Scroll down to for answer
Swing Like a Pro
Gay Brewer’s unique swing with a graphite shafted driver (photo: Leonard Kamsler | Popperfoto via Getty Images)
Blind Shot
Click for something fun. 👀
A 15-year-old qualifies for a PGA TOUR event. Learn more HERE from Golf Digest.
Uncorked, The Life and Times of Champagne Tony Lema tells the story of one of the tour’s biggest stars in the mid-1960s. A fascinating glimpse into the traveling caravan that was the PGA TOUR during an era where the fields were full of “Mad Men” era personalities. From a hardscrabble youth spent on the “wrong side of the tracks” in the Oakland suburb of San Leandro, to the temptations of Elko, Nevada, to the bright lights of the PGA TOUR, Uncorked tells a story of determination, redemption and, above all else, a love story that documents how Betty, Tony’s new wife, provided the direction and motivation for him to become a top star. Order on Amazon.
What is Hip?
How to dress like a pro in 1973.
Tour Backspin Quiz Answer:
Glen Campbell served as the celebrity host of the Los Angeles Open from 1971 to 1983. Read more HERE.
Thank you for reading this far, I know your time is valuable and choosing to spend some of it on what I’ve created is gratifying. If you want to help support the work we’re doing, please consider upgrading. It’s just $36 a year and you’ll be helping to tell the stories from one of golf’s golden ages.
Vintage Ad
Final Thoughts
How funky was James Brown, and his backup band, the JBs, in their prime?
How wild is it that Glen Campbell was involved in bringing graphite shafts to market and convinced Gay Brewer to try one?
It looks like Annika Sorenstam is the next female member of Augusta National.
Great prizes for the Elevate Golf Academy in Alameda, CA. Happy Uncorked could help in their fundraising efforts.
