Building Your Own Golf Clubs

There’s something special about building your own golf clubs. Piecing together components you’ve either purchased, found at a thrift store, or borrowed from older sets might seem daunting at first; however, the COVID pandemic left me with a ton of time on my hands to experiment with new ways to get in touch with my golf game.

I didn’t expect to be ripping apart golf clubs and putting them back together, mind you. But I’m glad that I took the plunge and admit that building a new golf club is incredibly enjoyable for me.

Here’s how I got started.

First, an admission: I already knew how to do simple things like regripping my clubs long before the COVID pandemic. One of my jobs growing up — as many readers of this website know — was first as a caddie and eventually a bag room employee at a private country club in my hometown. Over time, I was taught a few clubmaking tips before I left the club for college.

Secondly, I won’t go into immense, step-by-step detail on how to repair your clubs in this article. Those may come later. For now, this is a quick commentary on how I got started and how you can, too.

I found that it helped to start off small when it comes to simple club repair. For example, a ripped golf grip is a perfect place to start as long as you have the right tools at your disposal. A work bench, vise, and utility knife can do wonders for someone just getting started with their club repair/building hobby, and I strongly recommend you invest in these items.

If nothing else, cutting a grip off an expensive golf club was a trial-by-fire moment for me in my youth. There’s a certain level of anxiety that creeps in just before making the first utility knife cut on a grip. Am I going to break the club? What if I cut the graphite shaft? Am I about to lose a finger?

However, after overcoming the initial fear of failure (or worse), you being to realize that there really isn’t much to the basic construction of a playable golf club. Things start to simplify right before your eyes, and for me, this was a huge moment in what would become a bigger hobby down the road.

Graduating to the other end of the club — near the club head — was a bigger step. As someone who isn’t very handy in terms of home repair, understanding concepts like “epoxy” and “heat guns or blow torches” was pretty foreign to me. Sure: I had seen these things before, but it was always someone else doing the work as I looked on feigning interest.

YouTube is a wonderful place for times like this. So are friends who have tried club repair in the past, as well as professionals who are willing to share some tips along the way. I’ve found that simply asking someone who knows what the hell they’re doing is a useful approach to learning more on the fly. People like to be seen as experts, even if they aren’t getting paid to provide that advice. A novel concept, I know.

It’s also helpful to practice new tricks and methods of club repair on old clubs. When I started out, I would buy an old club for $3 at the local Goodwill and literally try to break the thing in my work area. I remember holding a heat gun on top of a titanium driver head for 10 minutes at a time just to see what would happen. No matter how many times someone tells you “you’re not going to hurt the club,” it’s vitally important to see that with your own eyes.

I’ve made many mistakes in my quest so far, each more hilarious than the last. The worst (so far) has been sanding down a graphite shaft tip — an important step in the club building process just before gluing a new clubhead on — down so far that it more closely resembled a toothpick than a golf shaft. A close second was slicing a graphite shaft near the grip from cutting too deeply with my utility knife, essentially making the shaft unusable.

Graphite shafts, man. You gotta be careful with those.

Some of the more enjoyable aspects of club building has been the wide range of customization options available in the DiY space. Custom ferrules, for example, are incredibly fun to shop and install on a new set of irons. I’ve not yet wandered into the realm of custom wedge stamping, but I imagine this is only a matter of time.

Of course, there are some areas that I do not see myself attempting. Custom wedge grinds, for example, is an art that only the highest trained club builders should attempt. I am more than happy to pay someone to do that for me should the need ever arise. I’m also not willing to fork up the cash to purchase my own grinding wheel.

Overall, this process has been highly stressful, at times downright frightening, but incredibly satisfying in the end. If you’re looking to unlock another part of your golf obsession — or simply want to pick up another hobby that you enjoy — I would highly recommend a few hours on YouTube learning more about club building. It can even save you some money in the long run.