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An occasional glimpse of the past is good - necessary, even - for a golfer's soul.
Modern tech pulls on us like a pesky dog, yapping apps and gadgets into our pockets and golf bags relentlessly (don't even get me started again on GPS in golf carts). Going back a century or so can show us just how little we need to enjoy a walk, a hit and a few putts. My own trip back in time will go down as one of my favorite golf experiences of 2025.
On a recent trip to Sand Valley Golf Resort in Wisconsin to preview its new Commons golf course, I seized the rare opportunity to play with hickory golf clubs at the delightful Sandbox par-3 course. I had taken a couple of random swings with a crusty old iron at an outing some years back, but this was my first-ever opportunity to play entire holes of golf with the clubs of yesteryear.
Finally playing hickories took me longer than most, my excuse being that I am a lefty. If it can (still!) be tricky to get contemporary clubs for my fraction of the golfing public, just think of how rare it would have been pre-World War II, when left-handed people were still believed touched by the devil and forced to use their off-hand to write when learning their letters.
I couldn't have dreamed up a better scenario for my hickory introduction: a greyish late-afternoon solo walk around one of America's best short courses. The flex of the sanded shafts, the weight and angular severity of the mashie and niblick and the complete lack of forgiveness of the blade putter were great fun to try and often fail to account for. The occasional successes - a solid strike here, a non-chunked bunker shot there - fueled my enjoyment of the loop.
The modest sack of clubs I used came courtesy of Hickory Revival, a service within Sand Valley run by Clark Willard, a club pro who I first met when I visited the resort in 2016, when its only working structures were trailers. Willard now operates his shop out of the clubhouse at Sand Valley's Lido course, where his work at Hickory Revival both benefits curious visiting golfers who rent his clubs and serves as time to heal from an ATV accident that almost took his life in 2017.
That building, refinishing and caring for totems of golf's bygone eras has been therapeutic for Willard makes sense. What better reset than immersing yourself in a romantic part of the past? Wandering the Sandbox with left-handed Hickory Revival bag #2 gave me a sense of clarity and simplicity in the game that has obsessed me for most of my life.
Playing golf for 30-plus years means genuine first-time experiences are fewer and farther between all the time. Playing hickories at the Sandbox was a genuine first for me, and the latest in a long line of gratifying experiences in this great game.
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