THE EXACTING
TOUCH OF A
EARLY INTEREST IN EXPERIMENTATION
So the boy began a search of his own, a
quest for an obsession that would excite
him as much as the honey-tinged blocks
of persimmon, their crescent-shaped grain
tapering to tiny circles, lit up his father.
“When I was 11 years old, the Ram Zebra
(putter) came out with adjustable weights and
a headcover that matched the grip,” Scotty
says. “There were gray lines on top, and you
could adjust the way it felt by removing and
replacing the weights. That fascinated me.
Just as my dad loved woods, I found that I
loved fiddling with putters.”
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ACUSHNET CO.
THE ROOTS OF HIS PASSION COME AS NO SURPRISE. They snake deep
into his soul, as they do for most men. There is the yearning, the race to fill a hole that will
forever be empty, and the hope that you might brush up against that moment, that feeling,
just one more time.
Scotty Cameron lost his father at age 13, a boy’s most vulnerable year and a time when the
Camerons, father and son, had become inseparable in their after-school, post-work hobbies.
“My father was an insurance investigator who was a 2 handicap and who loved persimmon
woods,” Scotty said from his studio in Carlsbad, Calif., 90 miles south of his boyhood home in
Glendale. “He put a shop in our garage and we would go scrounging around at swap meets and
dig through old barrels of clubs at golf shops looking for woods. He really loved the old T
ommy
Armours. He would find those and refinish them. When he was done we could go play with them.”
Scotty didn’t love the woods as much as his dad, but he loved the hours, the smell of the
turpentine, the shimmer of clear lacquer, and the lightening in his father’s eyes as he buffed
away old finish with fine steel wool.
ACUSHNET CO.
Master
Manufacturer
Through persistence and
expert craftsmanship,
Scotty Cameron has risen to
the top of the puttermaking
profession | by STEVE EUBANKS