Golf Equipment That’s Bespoke & British – How It All Began!

I have always been fascinated with rare and collectible golf equipment my whole career. My first love was the beautiful handmade persimmon woods which were made between the 1950’s and the early 90’s. Among my personal favourites are Joe Powell, Harry Busson, MacGregor and Peter Broadbent. Aside from that I am also a putter and wedge geek, oh and also classic blade irons!

Although we now produce putters, bags, wood covers and ball markers it all started with putter covers. I became gripped and massively inspired by the like of Scotty Cameron, Gene Nead, Tad Moore, Lamont Mann and many more. I have always looked up to and admired these legends and master craftsman, they are my heroes. Never did I imagine I would be lucky enough to get to know them but, amazingly, get the chance to work with many of them.

An alternative influence for golf equipment design …

I recall in late 2009 thinking about my first cover design, I was heavily into art and a huge fan of Banksy in particular. I loved the idea of artwork being clever and containing hidden and almost subliminal messages. A dream I experienced about a cover design which, thanks to Banksy, was very dark and powerful.  The following day I took pen to paper and sketched the following design.

Obviously, it’s a jigsaw puzzle, blood on our hands and the missing ‘piece’ is ‘peace’.  The cover was never made because I thought it was intense for our first ever cover.

The first few covers were in fact made by a saddler who used to work next door to the golf club where I was Head Professional. They were made of leather, lined with sheepskin and had the SRC logo embroidered on the toe.  There were a dozen made and they all had a Velcro closure. I realised immediately that Velcro would not stand the test of time. I needed something that would provide a much more secure fastening and would not deteriorate over time, the answer would be gold plated neodymium magnets.

Then I found Emma!

In 2010 I was chatting design to Emma who at the time worked in the kitchen at the golf club. She proudly announced that she did textiles at school and could do a better job than the saddlers!  So off she went with a piece of leather, a piece of sheepskin and a bunch of magnets. A few days later she returned with an awesome looking headcover which had the perfect ‘snap’ upon closure. The design which is unique to SRC, features 16 magnets which are incorporated into the outer fabric. A design that has stood the test of time and remains exactly the same to this day.

A few months later Emma left the kitchen and started as the Creative Director for SRC. When I look back at the journey so far it still staggers me that we are where we are. This tiny, British bespoke golf equipment company, was born out of imagination, passion, quality and good old graft. I love what we do and every time I see a dream come to life it only feeds the desire to stand out from the crowd. It doesn’t matter if our products are in the bags of Tour Professionals or the weekend golfer. We always give it 110%.