The best golf shaft of the mid 1920s failed!

“Did You Know”
The best golf shaft of the mid 1920s failed!

In the 1920s Gilbert Nicholls and Cuthbert S. Butchart were two of the most successful golf professionals in the United States. As professionals at some of the country’s leading golf clubs, they won golf tournaments, designed golf courses and taught golf, along with producing top of the line golf equipment.  

Gil Nicholls was born in England in 1878 and immigrated to the USA in 1898. He and his brother Ben, who had arrived in the states earlier, formed a golf company, called Nicholls Brothers. Along with winning many important golf tournaments, Gil Nicholls finished second in the 1904 and 1907 US Opens. From 1909 to 1915 he was the professional at the Wilmington Country Club (DE). From there Nicholls moved to Long Island, New York and then by 1924, Rhode Island.

Cuthbert Butchart was born in Scotland in 1878 and immigrated to the United States in 1921. He had been the professional at clubs in Europe. Cuthbert had given golf lessons to the Prince of Wales, who was later King Edward VII. When the 45-hole Westchester-Biltmore Country Club opened in 1922, Butchart was its first golf professional. While he was the professional there he was also designing golf courses and producing his Butchart Bilt golf clubs. That year, 1922, Walter Hagen won the British Open playing with Butchart Bilt clubs.  

In 1923 Nicholls and Butchart teamed up to create a golf shaft made of laminated strips of bamboo. In the late 1800’s hickory was being imported from America to Scotland for use in axe handles. Club makers in Scotland, and then the United States, began using hickory for golf club shafts, which they found to be better than the various types of wood they had been using.

The bamboo laminated shafts were an improvement over hickory. The shafts could be manufactured with a more consistent flex and weight. Before that, by trial and error, good golfers put together a set of golf clubs that fit their golf swing, a few clubs at a time.

Joe Kirkwood, who was living north of Philadelphia in Glenside, was a great golfer, but he had found that it was easier to make a living putting on trick shot exhibitions, than trying to beat Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen in tournament play. In February 1924 Kirkwood decided to enter some golf tournaments. He arrived in Texas with a set of golf clubs outfitted with Butchart-Nicholls laminated bamboo shafts. With many of the world’s best golfers entered, over a period of fourteen days Kirkwood won three straight tournaments: Texas Open by seven strokes, Corpus Christie Open by 16 strokes, and Houston Open by five strokes. His 16 stroke margin of victory at Corpus Christie is still the PGA Tour record, tied but not bettered.

Butchart and Nicholls formed a company, Butchart-Nicholls Company. Through his tournament play and having been a founder of the PGA of America, Nicholls knew everyone in golf. Henry J. Topping manufactured the clubs at his factory in Glenbrook, Connecticut. His son, Dan Topping, was later a part owner of the New York Yankees, that won ten World Series titles during his 20 years as team president. On April 26, 1927 Nicholls was awarded a United States patent on the split bamboo golf shaft, and that year there was a Butchart-Nicholls Company public stock offering.

At about the same time the Bristol Golf Company was creating a steel golf shaft. In 1925 the USGA legalized steel shafts for tournament play. The first steel shafts were somewhat heavy, so only the stronger golfers were able to play well with them, and most golfers were used to playing with wood shafts. When Bobby Jones accomplished his “Grand Slam” in 1930, he was still playing with hickory  shafted golf clubs, all sixteen of them.

To promote its golf clubs, in 1929 the Butchart-Nicholls Company ran three Butchart-Nicholls Opens, each with $750 in prize money. The tournaments were in Detroit, Springfield, Ohio, and Philadelphia. The Philadelphia tournament was won by Berkshire Country Club professional Sandy Heron, at the Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Flourtown course.

Two things happened in 1929 that eventually led to the demise of the Butchart-Nicholls laminated wood golf shaft. The American Fork & Hoe Company came out with the True Temper golf shaft, a seamless steel tube with tapered steps. The shafts were lighter in weight than the Bristol shafts and were offered in various flexes. In addition, the “Great Depression” arrived later in the year.   

In the 1930s Gil Nicholls was the professional at Seminole Golf Club in Florida. Cuthbert Butchart wound up working at Pine Valley Golf Club in the mid 1940s, where he made golf clubs for golfers all over the world.  At times there was a nine or ten month backlog of orders. Some called him a genius at making golf clubs.

Maybe the game of golf would be better if it was still being played with laminated wood shafts.