The Seve Ballesteros Golf Club(s?)
“You guys really like Seve Ballesteros, huh?” - Anthony D.
“Jack Nicklaus played better golf than Seve and there are irons with his name on them. Just thought I’d let you guys know.” - Jeremiah B.
“Feels like you guys are in a rut with all this Seve stuff. You out of ideas already?” - Todd D.
by Eliot & nick
Alright, alright, you get the idea. Twirled Clubs recently announced that another set of irons with Seve Ballesteros’ signature would be coming up for sale and people had some opinions to share. Most of those opinions were positive, and a small number were similar to the above samples, which we thought were pretty funny. All feedback is helpful when your website is only a couple months old (keep it coming please) and there really could not be a better topic for our first post here in Club Chatter.
Let us start by writing that we previously, currently or will imminently have clubs for sale featuring signatures or initials from the following golfers: Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Byron Nelson, Jack Burke, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Tommy Nakajima, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, and Phil Mickelson. To say that we like clubs attached to the preeminent golfing icons of decades gone by would be quite an understatement and we expect this list to only grow longer and deeper.
There are a select few players with more than one truly special set attached to them and Seve is definitely one of them. We’d argue the group is comprised of Seve, Ben Hogan (we are aware that he started his own club company), Jack & Tom Watson. People are obsessed with the clubs Tiger has used, regardless of brand, but perhaps we have to wait until he is retired for truly “Tiger Woods” signature irons beyond the Nike release circa 2004 and a few TW wedges here and there prior to the T770 iron release last. Our prediction: he will start a club company (we hear TaylorMade is for sale) like Hogan and we will buy those irons as soon as they are released.
An Aside: golf club buyers don’t seem to want the names of modern players on their clubs. To be discussed and dissected another time…or maybe an early topic for our forthcoming message board. But why do you think that is? Curtis Strange was not charismatic or even particularly well liked by fans or his fellow players but at least he has the magnificent Macgregor VIP Curtis Strange iron set to show for his back-to-back US Opens (and yes a weird set of Maruman clubs as well). Do you think a small batch release of Brooks Koepka signature irons, assuming true craftsman were behind them, would be a hot commodity?
Anyway, it is absolutely true that there have been a disproportionate number of clubs with Seve Ballesteros’ name on them put up for sale to date at Twirled Clubs (with 3-4 more sets in the pipeline at various stages of the process). Of course, not every set that Seve has his name on is great, but a very large percentage of them are absolutely world-class weapons and within that group is a small subgroup of clubs that are about as rare and desirable as anything we’ll ever set out to find and offer to you.
There are a lot of Seve models in existence for a host of obvious reasons – we don’t need a deep dive here. Obviously he had to have said “yes” to sponsors a fair amount, but much of the storytelling around Seve’s commercial ambitions has become remarkably embellished over time. For sure, he had a nice deal with Slazenger and over time they have released the most Seve sticks to date.
Golfers simply wanted to play with the same magic wands that Seve was carrying (many of us still do). He hit shots only he could imagine, and he hit shots only he would attempt. Seve was the hero of many in Europe via his Ryder Cup exploits, and plenty of Americans held him up as a hero who just happened to compete for the wrong side. He had US sponsors, and European sponsors, and Japanese sponsors – in various combos, at various times. Companies made LE protos to try and lure Seve to their camp. And then of course, on top of all of that, Seve would decide to play whatever felt good at the time.
Seve played Ping Eye 2’s at the 1985 US Open at Oakland Hills. Lots of us have turned to those irons when we are feeling a bit less…precise so this is fun to see. (Sorry for picture quality; it’s a picture of a picture in Eliot’s office).
I’d argue that while the number of models is high relative to other players who had more success, the production numbers of the very best makes/models were really low which has led to some very real scarcity value in this little niche of the market.
For precisely that reason, Twirled Clubs did not hesitate to bring out several of the best Seve sets all at once when the opportunity presented itself. Yes, these are very early days at Twirled Clubs and we do think it’s important to show some range given our stated goals. But while range is important to what we do, so too is reach. And we are not following any tradition model of how to sell golf clubs – at all.
We will often embrace themes over short periods of time at TC, for various reasons, but we’ll do this especially if it means that we are digging a bit deeper into a pocket of rare, or uncommon, or just plain forgotten golf clubs of a certain nature or era. And from our specific experiences with Seve clubs, we know ownership of the most sought after clubs is pretty darn concentrated, so we followed some leads and it paid off.
Below are pictures of two items in the works right now; coming up for sale soon although pictures are from two different points in the process obviously:
Mizuno Seve Ballesteros Signature MB Blades
These are hard to find. And some of the finest irons ever made.
Mizuno Seve Ballesteros Signature MB Blades
It’s hard to know how many of these sets were made – this happens to be the second one we’ve ever seen, and will be the second one we have sold. But these are rare golf clubs of the highest quality. This time around we will be offering these clubs with original regular flex, Mizuno Seve Ballesteros shafts, club heads that are 100% mint, and a black and blue theme in the paint fills, ferrules and grips.
Finally, because we think lists are usually fun, and can sometimes turn into real resources within collecting communities, we will do our part to kick off these Blogs. (We did not include the various bespoke sets we have crossed paths with – like the Yoro Craft Mizuno set of Augusta themed “1980” 1983” set we sold last year.). we have inluded an * next to any set that is either current in the Store or Archive here.
Dunlop Seve Ballesteros LE #/999*
Persimmon Driver, 3 wood, 4 wood & 1-SW
Mizuno Seve Ballesteros Signature MB Blade*
3-SW
Slazenger S. Ballesteros Supremo*
1-SW
Slazenger Seve Ballesteros Signature “Blanks”
1-SW
Slazenger Seve Ballesteros SB-02*
1-SW
Mizuno Seve Ballesteros Signature Blade
2-SW
Sounder SB IV Blades
2-SW
Slazenger SB LARGE autographs
2-SW
Mizuno Seve’s Design for Best Play
2-SW, Persimmon wood set
