Infomercial golf clubs, Warren Buffett and bringing an idea to life

Legendary journalist Michael Bamberger is well known for his prose and a list of books that have been consumed by golfers far and wide. One of the most notable is To the Linksland. If you’ve never had the privilege of pouring over Bamberger’s prose, this is the place to start.

Without giving too much away, Bamberger, then a Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter, hit pause on his job and took a pilgrimage to Europe with his wife, Christine, where he earned a job looping on the European Tour for Peter Teravainen. He also found his own game in the Scottish highlands.

It was during the time abroad that Bamberger started to pick up on the different ways golfers attacked shots from around the green. Tour pro Glen Day opted for a fairway wood over a wedge on numerous occasions. When he went to the Old Course at St. Andrews, Bamberger observed locals using the flatstick from well off the putting surface.

An idea started to bubble up in his mind.

“I had this idea of how you could combine the two,” Bamberger said on GOLF’s Fully Equipped podcast. “Chipping with a fairway wood is difficult because you’re standing so far away from [the ball]. Putting is one of the easier strokes. I wanted to combine the fairway wood, putter and the heaviness of a sand wedge where gravity alone would get you back to the ball.”

In an industry where literally every idea has been done in some form or fashion before, Bamberger was shocked to learn no one had created a club with the offset and upright lie angle of a putter with the shape and size of a fairway wood, and the weight of a sand wedge.

With some help from Stanley Chu, a club manufacturer, the E-Club Type II Jigger was born more than two decades ago.

“It took maybe a year, year-and-a-half to get it right,” Bamberger recalled. “Once I had a prototype of it, I brought it to the late Frank Thomas, the USGA’s equipment guy, and he said, ‘It’s fine for off the green, but it can’t be more upright than 72 degrees.’”

Desperation, essentially being the mother of invention.

You can hear the full story from Bamberger by watching the video at the top of the page.

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Jonathan Wall

Golf.com Editor

Jonathan Wall is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s Managing Editor for Equipment. Prior to joining the staff at the end of 2018, he spent 6 years covering equipment for the PGA Tour. He can be reached at jonathan.wall@golf.com.