How a Simple Question Led to a World-Class Collection

 

By Joe Kehrli and Jonathan Dicks

 

Golf brings a plethora of people to every corner of the planet to fulfill a desire of getting a few hours of peace away from the craziness of this world. Golf has also compelled a smaller group of people to scan the globe in search of its origins. In a world where golfing equipment is moving rapidly into the future, it seems like many are completely forgetting about the sport's unique history.

This is not the case for North Carolina native Bob Hansen, a golf historian and owner of The Old Golf Shop in Pinehurst, N.C. While Hansen is one of seven Bob Hansen’s in the Pinehurst area alone, his store is one of a kind. The Old Golf Shop located at 100 Magnolia Road, in the quaint downtown of the Village of Pinehurst, embraces history and boasts one of the greatest golf collections in the world.

The Old Golf Shop doubles as a museum or rather a showcase of untainted relics of the game's lively past. It is home to original items like scorecards from the great Bobby Jones as well as golf clubs from the days of Old Tom Morris. There are over 200 pieces on display, all for sale.

Hansen has not always been the owner of the Old Golf Shop. The shop's former owner was the late Morton W. Olman from Cincinnati, Ohio. Olman and Hansen had what Hansen marked as an educational and enduring friendship.

“It was a 38-year relationship of us sharing information back and forth. We had discovered things the world did not know. He was instrumental in helping me build the oldest collection in the world.”

Hansen took over the Old Golf Shop in 2009 and relocated the gallery to Pinehurst in 2014. He has advanced what is now one of the best historical golf collections in the world. Under the helm of Hansen, the collection has tapped into several other private collections to culminate in one stunning brick and mortar.

“It [Pinehurst] is a small town and is very similar to the town that me and my wife [Carol] grew up in. The weather is great and the people are very kind.”

Among all his accomplishments, Hansen is also a board member on the R&A and previously lived in Donald Ross’ house in Pinehurst for several years. He also carries memberships to many historic clubs including Pine Valley and Merion.

Growing up in New Jersey, Hansen was exposed to golf at Manasquan River Golf Club which is a Robert White design. In the clubhouse during the 1940s, the newly appointed club-pro James Beckett from Scotland, had brought with him golf artwork and antiques that inspired a young Hansen.

“We lived on the 11th green. I could walk across the fairway past the 18th green and be at the clubhouse in 4 minutes,” the collector noted. “That meant the range and hitting golf balls, so it was a wonderful set-up for somebody who wanted to get involved in the game of golf. It was automatic.”

It would not be until his prime age of 22 that Hansen would begin collecting pieces of his own in a serious manner. Hansen comes from a family that values both golf and memorabilia collecting – his father had a fine duck decoy collection and would later in his life decide to design and open a golf course of his own.

“You learn a lot from the traits of collectors. I was a young simple-minded kid and I wanted to know why do we play golf? Where did this all start?”

When Bob was 16, he had made the decision to add value to the family brand and accept the challenge of helping his father with his new venture. In turn, he decided to attend Rutgers University in New Jersey to study agronomics, business and psychology.

While Hansen would not start his own golf memorabilia collection until 6 years later, he always remembered and was intrigued by the pursuit of history – the facts. Hansen had a single objective when he first started – getting the oldest and rarest items he could possibly find. Today, he warns rookie historians and collectors alike to slow down, learn more and not to buy too much.

Hansen’s journey to learning as much as possible about the history of the sport began in Manchester, England where he found himself in a heraldry shop to trace lineages of the ancestors that began the sport. He had compiled a list of 137 surnames that he had brought to England with him. At his request, he not only wanted information relevant to each entry, but also a list of their descendants. This was a vital step in Hansen’s quest to answer the question: What are the origins of golf?

Starting with a list of 137 names, 67 of those families had agreed to discuss with Bob their knowledge of ancestors who were integral in the early stages of the game. Out of those 67 families, 39 of them had remnants and documentation of their ancestors' participation in golf. Hansen hit the jackpot.

“So, for five years during the spring and fall, we did interviews with them. In the interviews, my questions were simple: What do you know about the origins of your family and their activities in the development of the game of golf?” Hansen said. “It was really enlightening. Some knew a lot, and some did not know much at all. I would never leave without asking, you wouldn’t happen to have any relics around?”

With this persistence that led him to newly acquired resources and connections, he was able to receive information about the beginning times of the game. He had learned that the game does in fact have deep Scottish roots, but its origins are shared with the Dutch who traded golfing ideas with the Scottish.

While at bay and anchored on Scottish coastlines, Hansen explained that the Dutch would grow bored, unamused by the country's vastness that they would bring with them, as part of their carry-on-luggage, a stone ball and a whacking stick. This make-shift game would catch the attention of the native islanders. In turn, the locals would then one-up their trade partners which provoked the expansion of the game to create the sport of golf that we still play today.

Hansen’s decades of experience with collecting and learning about the game has not always been smooth sailing. He recalls one time when he had purchased an authentic trap iron from a vendor at a club expo.

“I had read about them, but I never had the chance to hold one in my hand.” Bob had then purchased the trap iron for $150. “We found out that the guy was making copies of one of his originals and toning them to pay for his hobby. I was on a mission to never be fooled again, as a matter of fact I still have it [the fake club] as a reminder.”

Although this event could have been chalked up to simple naiveté, Hansen turned it into a positive learning experience – never to be fooled again. Since then, Hansen has double, triple checked all the facts of an item he is purchasing on the slim chance he does not know about the product already.

Likewise, Hansen explained that he views golf in the same positive light: “Golf leads you to want to do more things right and to take personal responsibility.”

He went on to explain that golf is not simply nine or 18 holes, it is a way of life, a culture. For Hansen, he still enjoys bringing his old hickory clubs out to the course or practice range with his own children, who are both learning adults.

Hansen ended the interview in a benevolent manner, “It's all about relationships. I could not have done what I have without the relationships I have garnered in my life.” For Hansen the future is simple, he wants to grow old with his collections making sure that his pieces find respectable homes with owners who have fond appreciation and curiosity for them.

 

 

Vist the shops' website here: oldgolfshop.com