Ed Travis looks back at the 90s, when everything changed in golf equipment

A Decade of Change—the 1990s

by ed travis

Aah, the 1990s. Bill Clinton was president, the World Wide Web had just started its explosive growth, and we all were worried the Y2K bug would freeze computers at the beginning of the new millennium.

In our sport a young Californian named Tiger Woods captured the world’s attention as he won 15 times on the PGA Tour in the last four years of the decade including two major cham- pionships and we will never forget the tragedy of Payne Stewart that became burned into our memories.

The 90s also were a preamble to the “golfer-friendly” equipment we have today as companies applied creative thinking to the clubs and balls they were making.

Just as today, drivers were a hot topic. In the 1980s the switch had begun from driver heads of wood, traditionally persimmon or layered maple, to the first practical all-metal headed diver TaylorMade Golf’s Pittsburgh Persimmon. It was a real step forward and could boast a hollow stainless-steel head and steel shaft that produced more distance than the wooden drivers which had been in use for over 400 years. As the decade of the 90s dawned though, Callaway Golf had their own ideas about metal driver heads and decided naming one after a World War I German howitzer would catch golfers’ attention.

Callaway’s Big Bertha driver was introduced in 1991 with a head of 190cc considered at the time to be huge. By way of comparison, today’s 3-woods are only slightly smaller and the standard for driver heads in 2022 is 460cc. The Big Bertha was cast from stainless steel and gave the average golfer more yardage but, more importantly it was much easier to hit. Being hollow there was more weight towards the perimeter and the metal face was thin and responsive, features which tended to preserve ball speed when impacts were not exactly in the center of the face. More ball speed, more distance; a simple equation.

The Big Bertha launched Callaway Golf into the number one position as the largest golf equipment company with sales by the end of the 1990s surpassing $700 million. The driver also had some other interesting design features including a bore-through shaft tagged the S2H2 hosel (short straight hollow hosel) which removed mass from the heel area. This helped the Big Bertha produce much straighter drives plus less tendency to slice; a major advantage for most recreational players whose shot pattern was the distance-eating left to right. Within a few years Callaway went even further introducing the Great Big Bertha War Bird with a clubhead of titanium, a metal used in aerospace applications, which not only weighs less but is stronger than steel. The War Bird clubhead size increased to 250cc making it even more forgiving and marked the pathway to the creation of today’s long hitting drivers. In 1999 Callaway’s titanium drivers and woods generated $262 million in revenue and dominated the market.

Graphite shafts had been around for years and in the 90s their technology improved to the point using one with a titanium-headed driver such as the War Bird was almost magic. Graphite shafts could be longer than the old ones of steel tubing and still be much lighter and when mated with titanium heads even golfers with average swings could produce a lot more clubhead speed. Professionals of course benefited but the forgiveness and distance increases really helped the typical week- end golfer struggling to hit tee shots more than 200 yards with a persimmon-headed driver.

Irons were also being rapidly improved so average players to hit them effectively. In the early 1980s Karsten Solheim’s Ping Golf developed the Ping Eye 2 iron named for the circular dot in the cavity back which some said looked like an eye. They almost instantly became a best-selling model, but Solheim wasn’t satisfied and in 1991 came out with the Ping Zing iron followed three years later by the Ping Zing 2.

Presumably because you can’t have too much of a good thing, Ping’s Zing 2 irons had an even larger cavity back than the Eye 2s. Many said they were ugly, characterizing the look as a “nice-piece-of-plumbing” and refused to play them but lots of others seeing the results were sold.

The Zing 2 design meant they had the largest amount of weight around the head’s margins of any iron and coupled with an enlarged toe area did make them strange looking. However, those who put them in their bags more than liked the crisp feel and high trajectory that helped the ball stop on the greens. As an Eye 2 successor the Zing 2 did not have as much impact on the club business but did show the way designers could continue to improve the playing experience of this maddening game.

Finally, everyone knows golf changed dramatically in 2000 when Titleist introduced the solid core, multi-layer, urethane cover Pro V1, but back in 1994 Titleist had already come out with the Professional. A top performing ball that set the stage for the Pro V1.

The Professional, like the Titleist Tour Balata, which at the time was very popular with better players, had a wound construction with a liquid center but added something new. Rather than balata the cover was made of cast urethane. Until then, balata had been the cover of choice for premium balls over the Surlyn plastic used for balls played by average golfers.

The Professional was a breakthrough in ball construction and performance.

The urethane cover (Titleist labelled it

“Elastomer”) provided almost the same spin characteristics as the premium balata cover, especially for the shorter, scoring shots around the green but with an important differ- ence. It lasted longer a n d didn’t cut as easily as balata so players could get more holes from them, in effect making the Profes sional less expensive. The Professional also carried farther than other wound balls giving more distance off the tee particularly for long hitters with their higher swing speeds.

So even though it was thirty years ago there were significant improvements in equipment. The Callaway Big Bertha, Ping’s Zing 2 irons and the Titleist Professional ball are all markers on the road to today’s sophisticated golf clubs and balls.