1840s Featherie Golf @ Hillcrest Golf Course (IL) - Hickory Golf Course Vlog #30

A shot-by-shot hickory golf course vlog featuring hickory golfer Christian Williams playing pre-1850 featherie golf at Hillcrest Golf Course in Washington, IL. This is the second episode in his series of featherie golf course vlogs called American Featherie. Watch episode 1 at Highland Links in Truro, MA here:    • Highland Links (Cape Cod) with 1840s ...  

Hillcrest Golf Course is a public golf center that is the home course of Denny and Cathy Lane, owners of and producers of the Hickory Lane featherie ball. Each April, they host a two-day event of pre-1900 golf called the Oddball. Day 1 features featherie golf on a custom six-hole routing at Hillcrest that Denny lays out between the modern holes complete with hand-mown greens that roll about as close as you're going to get to an authentic 1840s golf green.

This round showcases the style of golf played prior to 1850 called featherie (or feathery) golf. Named after the ball used, featherie golf was played with a leather ball filled with a top-hat's worth of boiled goose feathers. When the feathers dried in the leather casing, the ball would become hard and playable for golf. An experienced ballmaker could only make several balls per day, hence golf was an expensive game in the featherie era played mostly by the wealthy. It's said that the cost of a ball often exceeded the cost of a club. The featherie era lasted for at least 150 years before the advent of the gutta percha ball in 1848. The low cost of the gutta percha ball made golf accessible to a much larger group of players and quickly made the featherie obsolete.

The clubs used for featherie were primarily wooden-head clubs ranging in lofts from 13 degrees to 30 degrees. Williams plays featherie golf with a four-club replica set made for him by recreational woodworker and clubmaker Brad Korando. The templates for each of the four clubs are featured in Elmer Nahum's essential book on 19th century clubmaking called Practical Clubmaking. All of Brad's clubs were handmade to the specifications and traditions used to make circa 1840s featherie golf clubs. Learn more about these clubs and the process with which Brad used to make them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGKrm...

The featherie ball used for this round was provided by Hickory Lane Featherie, which sponsors the featherie golf content on this channel. Denny and Cathy Lane have done extensive research into the process of making authentic, playable, and durable featherie golf balls and their featheries are about as close as you can get to the real deal. Learn more about the Lane featherie and buy one to try here: https://www.hickorylanefeatherie.com/

As mentioned in this video, watch a clip of Elmer Nahum extracting a Lane featherie from a deep, Scottish bunker using one of his handmade featherie clubs: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeYPF1eti...

"What's in the Clutch?" sponsored by Hickory Lane Featherie:
- Circa 1840s Douglas McEwan Playclub Replica, 13 degrees, G+, 43-3/4 inches
- Circa 1840s Hugh Philp Short Spoon Replica, 22 degrees, D6, 39 inches
- Circa 1860s Robert Forgan Baffing Spoon, 30 degrees, C6, 38 inches
- Circa 1870s Tom Morris Putter, 9 degrees, G+, 38 inches
- Wooden Sand Tee Mold handcrafted by Bruce Markwardt, MI
- Leather Sand Tee Pouch made by Steurer & Jacoby (get 10% off this or any other product at Steurer & Jacoby with promo code HICKORYHACKER24 - www.steurerjacoby.com)
- Hickory Lane Featherie Ball

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