In early August the Michigan Hickory Tour made its annual stop in the Toledo, Ohio, area for an event hosted by Bill Tucholski and Tim Stroshine. This year, a staffer from the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune was there to take it all in. The brief report and video below were filed by J.D. Pooley for the newspaper….
The Michigan Hickory Golf Tour schedules one event in the Toledo area each year. This year the Toledo Area Hickory Open was played at Stone Ridge Golf Course on Sunday.
Approximately 20 golfers from across Michigan and northern Ohio competed with their hickory-shafted clubs wearing their plus-fours and argyle socks.
Most will be playing with authentic clubs that are approximately 100 years old. They stopped making these clubs in the early 1930s. Rather than being numbered, they had names for the various lofts — niblicks, mashies, mid irons, jiggers, brassie, spoon, etc.
Most golfers competing are in their 60s and 70s, a few are younger.
As an added attraction, a couple of groups played earlier in a nine-hole gutty ball event at Bowling Green Country Club. These players used clubs made before 1900 and hitting a gutty percha ball, originally created from the dried sap of the Sapodilla tree. The arrival of this ball revolutionized the game of golf and allowed its spread to the masses.