Golfers doff modern ways for old-fashioned

After hitting a difficult shot on the seventh hole, Tim Alpaugh was all too happy to explain just how difficult it was.

The ball had landed next to the root of a large shrub, forcing him to strike it at a tricky angle to make the green.

For Alpaugh, there was added satisfaction. He made the shot with a century-old club with a steel head and hickory shaft.

He said he has a better feel for hitting the ball with "hickories" than modern, performance-enhancing titanium clubs.

"The best analogy is to imagine reading Braille with your fingers, and reading Braille wearing rubber gloves," said Alpaugh, 53, of Randolph, N.J.

Alpaugh was among eight golfers Saturday at the Long Island National Golf Club in Riverhead playing in turn-of-the-last-century cabbie caps, knickers and neckties. It was billed as the first local hickory golf tournament.

As balls rolled past holes or ended in the rough, there was no throwing or breaking of clubs -- not when they're 110-year-old irons crafted by the legendary Tom Stewart.

Such throwback events are gaining popularity across the country as more golfers willingly turn back the clock, said William W. Reed, executive director of the Des Moines-based Hickory Golf Association.

"Ten years ago, there were three or four tournaments of note across the United States. Now there's hardly a weekend where there isn't a tournament," he said in a phone interview.

Brian Schuman, 52, an event planner from Melville, organized this weekend's Long Island National Hickory Open in hopes of introducing more golfers to playing with hickories.

"You really feel the history in each shot you take knowing the path the club in your hand traveled in 100 years to get to you," Schuman said. "It feels pure. The modern clubs are built to help the person. [With the old clubs] there's no forgiveness."

Alpaugh, who wrote a historical novel about a hickory club passed down through generations until it was wielded in the British Open, agreed.

"The sweet spot on one of these clubs is about the size of a Tic Tac," he said. "On a modern club, it's about the size of a silver dollar."

The other lure of hickory tourneys is the fashion, said Schuman's wife, Patrice Goldie, 50.

Goldie said she and her husband recently played at a tournament in North Carolina. "There were about 120 people, all dressed to the nines," she said. "It was like walking onto a movie set of an old movie."

"The pace of the game is different," Schuman said. "There is more of a sense of etiquette when you're wearing a tie to play golf. It's just a kinder, gentler, nicer way to play."