Willie Park, Junior, Musselburgh (1864-1925)

Born in Musselburgh in 1864, his father, "Auld" Willie, had already won two Open Championships before Junior could even walk. Literally raised in the golf business, Young Willie had little choice but to follow in the footsteps of his father and uncles and become a professional and club maker. His first assignment, arranged by his Uncle Mungo (1874 Open champion), was to lay out the course and serve as professional to the golf club at Ryton, Northumberland. Returning to Musselburgh in 1884, he began managing the firm his father started in the 1860s making his first splash in the business: inventing the bulger driver in 1885 and using it in the 1885 Open. Some years later, he was challenged by Sir Henry Lamb, the prominent amateur, who also claimed to have invented the bulger in the same time frame. In the end, the pair established they had both devised similar clubs concurrently without knowing that the other was involved in the endeavor. Because Willie was a club maker and professional continually in the public eye, he had received most of the popular acclaim for the bulger.

Over the next ten years, Willie was the best known club maker in Britain. His Open victories in 1887 and 1889 set the stage for the introduction of four new clubs of his invention. He received much acclaim when he brought a new lofter to market. The club was at the forefront of a new development in the game high approaching shots and Willie created even more attention when he received a patent for his new implement in 1889.

The Patent Lofter was followed by the Patent Driving Cleek in 1891, the Patent Compressed Driver in 1893, and the most famous club of all, the Park Patent Bent Neck Putter in 1894. His success on the links as well as in the workshop caused his business to swell and he was acknowledged to be the second largest manufacturer of golf clubs behind the firm of Robert Forgan. In later years, he brought out a patent groove soled brassey called the Pik’up and a patent step faced lofter for imparting back spin (the latter club was made by Spalding while Park lived in New York). His patent clubs are easily recognizable because they all are marked as such.

He did make many other regular clubs with three types of name stamps. The vast majority of these clubs are smooth faced and it is very difficult to date them accurately since they have minimal markings and were all made in the old style, even after the firm entered the 20th century. Since Park stamped his name on the shafts of all his clubs, many are still identifiable even if the club head markings are illegible. Small headed niblicks, gunmetal blade putters, Smith model irons, large hosel lofters and short bladed mashie irons are among of the more unusual clubs from his output and some can be found in lady's and children's models as he was one of the first to cater to that growing segment of the market in the 1890s. Park's premium grade clubs are distinguished by his use of greenheart, purpleheart, lemonheart or lancewood for the shafts.

Willie gradually lost interest in club making and the retail business after 1910, concentrating instead on course layout. He lived in the United States and Canada for seven years, first setting up a retail outlet in New York City and then course design offices in New York and Toronto. He was a principal in the first modern residential resort golf community at Huntercombe in Oxfordshire although the lack of rail access did not permit success. In 1896, the first golf instruction book written by a professional was published. Willie Park's "The Game of Golf" was later followed by "The Art of Putting", the latter subject being the skill that made him most famous: his putting touch. It was Willie Park who said, "The man who can putt is a match for any man." Not only was Willie a deft putter but he was the man to beat in club design, retailing and merchandising.

Willie Park, Jr. Club Examples

Deep face mashie cleek (for hitting out of long grass). Patent compressed driver; splice head, leather face insert. Smooth face lofter for P.F. Murphie, Boston.

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